Editorial

October 28 2026

The public is not a checkbox

There’s a difference between making information public and making sure the public is informed. Unfortunately, more and more organizations, both public and private, seem content to overlook the distinction.

The temptation is obvious. Facebook costs nothing, and a notice there can be posted in seconds to announce a meeting, circulate a survey or explain a change in public policy. Done. Another task completed, another box ticked.

But who has actually been reached? And how would anyone know? The questions are becoming more pressing as governments change the rules governing public notices.

In Nova Scotia, legislative amendments in 2024 allowed municipalities to publish certain notices on their own websites instead of in newspapers. New Brunswick permits similar arrangements. In other words, governments are increasingly permitted to meet certain public-notice requirements by publishing information about themselves, by themselves.

But there’s a world of difference between satisfying a legal requirement and ensuring that people actually know what’s being done in their name, and why.

Consider the evidence. The Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University found that just 29 per cent of Canadians aged 16 to 29 named Facebook as a news source in 2025. Among those aged 60 and older, the figure was only 23 per cent.

And that’s assuming everyone can get online in the first place. Statistics Canada found that nearly one-quarter of Canadians aged 75 and older had no internet access at home in 2022. For older residents, particularly in rural communities, the digital town square isn’t as accessible as some may think. Nor has the rural divide disappeared.

Federal figures show that in 2024, high-speed internet service was available to 87.4 per cent of rural households, compared with 99.8 per cent in urban areas. That’s a measure of service availability, not actual subscriptions or readership. But it hardly supports the assumption that posting something online means the intended audience has received it.

And there’s another problem that no amount of online traffic can resolve.

An organization’s website or Facebook page provides information on its own terms. It may invite comments or questions, but it cannot provide the independent examination of its decisions that a community needs to understand what is really going on.

That’s where local journalism comes in. Reporters examine records, question officials, seek competing views and give residents a forum in which to challenge decisions and one another’s assumptions. At its best, a community newspaper is not merely a source of information. It is a place where the public conversation takes shape.

And that distinction goes to the heart of democratic accountability. People cannot participate meaningfully in decisions they haven’t heard about, much less assess decisions presented only through the institutions that made them.

There is nothing wrong with saving money or using technology to communicate. But neither cost savings nor a convenient platform can substitute for public engagement and independent scrutiny.

The box may be ticked. But the public may still be in the dark.

A.B.