CANADA — Canadian pension funds invested nearly $1 billion in a water privatization scheme led by Brazil’s right-wing President Bolsonaro. The Natural Resources Department is doing the bidding of the oil industry. Despite promises to change and huge profits, Tim Horton’s is still short-changing its workers.
These are the kinds of headlines to be expected from The Breach, a new member-funded, not-for-profit media outlet that has launched this week with some groundbreaking investigations.
The Breach’s first crowdfunding campaign was a runaway success, raising $100,000 in just 10 days through small donations from more than 700 founding members. That number has since risen to $180,000, from almost 1400 members, making the campaign the most successful in Canada media in recent years.
These founding members are making it possible for The Breach to pursue investigations and video journalism about the bold transformations Canadian society needs to create a liveable future.
The Breach’s team includes Mi’kmaw writer and lawyer Pamela Palmater, journalist and poet El Jones, author and journalist Linda McQuaig, and journalist and scholar Azeezah Kanji, among others.
“We’re seeing an appetite for independent journalism that reflects the desire to imagine and build an economy and society that transcends systemic racism, colonialism, and climate breakdown,” said Amy Miller, filmmaker and senior video producer with The Breach.
The Breach will also give voice to bold ideas in line with a viable future. In the coming days, it will feature distinctive voices articulating proposals like a Green New Deal, the end of policing, Land Back, and public ownership of telecommunications.
It is part of the Indiegraf network, a collaboration of independent news outlets filling community news gaps. “The overwhelming response to The Breach’s founding membership campaign demonstrates that Canadians are hungry for quality journalism they can trust,” says Erin Millar, co-founder and CEO of Indiegraf. “The Breach’s success is further evidence of the sea change happening in Canadian media. As traditional models struggle, independent news is seeing tremendous growth across the country.” The Indiegraf network launched in 2020 with seven initial publishing partners and has since grown to 34 publishers across North America.
“The Canadian media landscape will benefit from a journalistic organization that rigorously tackles the crises of inequality, racism and climate,” said journalist and managing editor Martin Lukacs.
The Breach has already won endorsements from supporters including scientist David Suzuki and author Naomi Klein. “We need an outlet, a source of information, that is credible, that is progressive, and that we can believe in,” says Suzuki.
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Media contact:
Martin Lukacs, Managing Editor
514-550-8706
