The Canadian government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is edging closer to bailing out the country’s print media as the sector, especially the English-language outlets, staggers under the weight of falling revenues, advertising, the assault from social media, led by Facebook, and stupid, greedy management. A series of newspaper closures, trading losses, asset impairments, rising debts and mass sackings by some media groups so far in 2016 seems to have brought the sector’s problems to a head.

Now the Canadian government has asked a body, known as the independent Public Policy Forum, to assess the state of Canada’s struggling news industry as it mulls over potential policy options. This will be based around three questions: does the deteriorating state of traditional media put at risk the civic function of journalism and thus the health of democracy? If so, are new digitally based news media filling the gap? If not, is there a role for public policy to help maintain a healthy flow of news and information, and how could it be done least intrusively?

The looming 2017 deadline for the cost-cutting and refinancing of Postmedia — Canada’s biggest publisher — has given the review a deadline. Talks start next week in a series of roundtables to discuss the problems. It’s not that the Canadian-owned media hasn’t already been helped by government policy. In 1965 the company’s tax laws were changed to give advertisers in Canadian-owned media more favourable benefits than those advertising in foreign-owned media coming into Canada (read American). There have been several royal commissions and major government studies on the news media, and pay TV content rules have been changed to favour Canadian made material ahead of programming originating outside the country (again, read, American).