Committee recommends Publisac limits

A committee of councillors at city hall is recommending limiting distribution of Publisacs to people who actively opt in. On CBC radio just now, a Transcontinental spokesman said – which we’ve heard before – that the Sac is worthwhile because it helps keep local newspapers alive.

My next door neighbour is not usually around, so I’ve picked up a few of her Publisacs to look at. (I have an anti-junk-mail sticker, so I don’t get them.) There is no local paper where I live in Villeray, any more. (The Metro paper has sections for the various boroughs, but the section on VSMPE contains mostly news from Rosemont right now.)

That said, there are a lot of circulars, which, for people living on limited funds, would help them find sale prices, and I happened on a catalogue that has been useful to me at work. I don’t see why we can’t simply extend the sticker system, and make the stickers easier to get – apply for them on line and they get mailed to you, for example.

As someone who’s done a lot of print media design, I see squelching the Publisac as a benefit to the environment, but also an attack on print media generally. People in my business will lose their jobs.