Canadian Media Ownership and Boards

Here is the preliminary overview of an innovation I am launching into media ownership in Canada. These are only the large players. A second report will be released this week on medium players.

CHART CREATED BY READ THE MAPLE

Canadian media is vastly, almost entirely run by wealthy businessmen, with a few exceptions.

Although many people have adopted the saying “liberal media,” the facts do not support this statement. The below data is a preliminary, non-final version of data that is subject to change as Eliot, Aedan and I dive deeper into the data. Read this with some scrutiny, as it is subject to develop over the next months as we compile the information into readable charts, graphs, and we develop more information on the individuals who are in power.

Also note that we are not diving into the employees of these companies. They are not of concern. The focus of these reports will be exclusively on ownership and board structures. There is also no assessment in this report about their bias, I encourage reading the Maple report on a more analytical stance around that.

POSTMEDIA

Postmedia is majority foreign-owned. As of 2025, roughly 66% of its equity is held by Chatham Asset Management, a U.S. private investment firm. Other significant shareholders include Allianz Global Investors (~17%) and American investor Leon Cooperman (~13%).

The Board Chair is Peter Sharpe, former CEO of Cadillac Fairview.

Jason Kenney (former Alberta Premier, joined the board in 2025),

Terrie O’Leary (ex-World Bank director, joined 2025),

Janet Ecker (former Ontario Finance Minister),

Wendy Henkelman (corporate finance expert),

Mary Junck (U.S. newspaper executive, chair of Lee Enterprises), and

Andrew MacLeod (Postmedia’s CEO). (Outgoing 2024 directors Vince Gasparro and Daniel Rotstein did not stand for re-election in 2025.)

Currently these people are trying to pressure groups like the cjc into not funding indie media along with the NMC , a lobbyist group who works closely with Postmedia headed by Paul Degan

Postmedia’s holdings include nearly all major English dailies outside Toronto. Flagships are the National Post (national broadsheet) and Financial Post (business section). Through acquisitions (e.g. the 2015 purchase of Sun Media’s English papers), Postmedia owns the Sun tabloids in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton, plus broadsheets like the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun and The Province. In 2022 it also acquired Brunswick News in New Brunswick (including the Telegraph-Journal, Times & Transcript, etc.), briefly giving Postmedia a presence in all provinces.

Overall, Postmedia illustrates the trend of financialization of Canadian media, with foreign capital and consolidation playing a dominant role.

TORSTAR

Torstar is the publisher of the Toronto Star, Canada’s highest-circulation daily, and a group of other Ontario papers. Founded in 1958 by the Atkinson family.

In addition to the Star, it owns daily papers in cities like Hamilton (The Spectator), Waterloo Region (Record), St. Catharines (Standard), Niagara Falls (Review), Peterborough (Examiner), and Welland (Tribune). Torstar’s Metroland Media Group operates over 70 weekly community newspapers across Ontario.

In 2020, Torstar was taken private by NordStar Capital, a private investment firm co-founded by Jordan Bitove and Paul Rivett. NordStar acquired Torstar for about C$60 million, ending decades of Torstar as a public, family-influenced company.

In February 2023, a settlement gave Jordan Bitove full control of Torstar. Bitove remains the sole owner (via NordStar) of Torstar Corporation as of 2023.

Today, Bitove’s NordStar is the parent company, and Torstar no longer has public shareholders. (Torstar also holds a one-third stake in the Canadian Press newswire – see below.)

Since going private, Torstar’s internal governance is less transparent. Jordan Bitove serves as Publisher of the Toronto Star and Torstar’s co-owner. Neil Oliver is noted as Torstar’s CEO as of 2022.

Torstar’s governance thus centers on Bitove’s control; any board members are likely Bitove family or NordStar appointees.

Other daily news brands under Torstar include: The Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Region Record, Niagara Falls Review, St. Catharines Standard, Welland Tribune, and Peterborough Examiner. All are in Ontario. Through Metroland Media Group, Torstar owns dozens of local weekly newspapers and community news sites across Ontario. (Metroland covers many small-town papers and community flyers.) Torstar also owns digital assets like the news site Torstar Syndication Services, and until recently had stakes in non-news businesses (it launched an online casino venture NorthStar Gaming in 2022, which was later spun off). Torstar additionally maintains a 33% ownership of The Canadian Press (CP), jointly with the Globe and La Presse.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

The Globe and Mail is privately owned by The Woodbridge Company Limited, the investment holding firm of Canada’s Thomson family. The Thomson family (Canada’s wealthiest) have been majority owners since 1980.

Thus, as of today, the Globe is entirely Canadian-owned, with the Thomson family (Woodbridge) in full control. Woodbridge’s chairman is David Thomson, who is also the chair of The Globe and Mail. Notably, Woodbridge also owns a majority stake in Thomson Reuters Corp., but the Globe and Mail is run independently of Thomson Reuters.

The Globe and Mail’s board is tightly aligned with its ownership. David Thomson serves as Chairman of The Globe and Mail Inc., representing the Thomson family’s interests. Other board members are not publicly listed, as the company is private, but typically include senior Woodbridge executives and Globe executives. The publisher and CEO of the Globe (Phillip Crawley – publisher, and David Walmsley – Editor-in-Chief) manage day-to-day operations, likely reporting to the board.

The Thomson family’s commitment to the Globe’s editorial independence is well-known.

QUEBECOR

Quebecor is a diversified media and telecom conglomerate based in Montreal. Through its subsidiary Quebecor Media, it is the dominant player in French-language print media and a major broadcaster in Quebec. Relevant to “written media,” Quebecor publishes the popular tabloids Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, which are the highest-circulation French dailies in Quebec. It also operates the QMI Agency newswire and formerly the free commuter paper 24 Heures (Montreal). Quebecor’s media holdings extend to magazines (through TVA Publications) and numerous websites (e.g. Canoe.ca). The company was founded by Pierre Péladeau in 1965 and remains run by the Péladeau family. In 2015, Quebecor sold its English-language Sun newspapers to Postmedia, focusing on its francophone market. Today, Quebecor Media’s news division centers on its two Journal dailies, the TVA News network, and various digital news platforms.

Quebecor Inc. is a publicly traded company (TSX: QBR) but is tightly controlled by the Péladeau family. Founder Pierre Péladeau’s son, Pierre Karl Péladeau (PKP), is the controlling shareholder, primarily via Les Placements Péladeau Inc.. The family’s holding company owns about 74% of Quebecor’s voting shares, giving PKP effective majority control. (As of recent data, Placements Péladeau held ~74.1%, public shareholders about 25% of equity.) PKP is President and CEO, and also serves as Chairman of the Board of Quebecor Media.

Quebecor’s board is composed of business leaders, many from Quebec, with PKP at the helm. Pierre Karl Péladeau serves as Chairman and CEO. The board’s independent members have included figures like Françoise Bertrand (former CRTC chair, who has served as Chair of the Board of Quebecor Inc.) and others from Quebec’s corporate sphere. According to company disclosures, recent board members of Quebecor Inc. include Sylvie Lalande (who has served as board chair in the past), Françoise Bertrand, Pierre Laurin, Michel Lavigne, Jean La Couture, Geneviève Marcon, Normand Provost, and Érik Péladeau (PKP’s brother).

The board oversees both Quebecor’s media and telecom operations (Videotron, etc.), so it has committees for governance, audit, etc. Importantly, Quebecor Media (the subsidiary) also has its own board/executives; for example, PKP chairs Quebecor Media and its TV network TVA’s board, and media operations are managed by Quebecor EVP Lyne Robitaille (for news content). Overall, governance is tightly held, with the Péladeau family’s interests dominant and independent directors largely drawn from Quebec’s business establishment.

The Péladeau family’s political ties (PKP briefly served as leader of the Parti Québécois in 2015) also brought scrutiny to Quebecor’s newsroom independence.