Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao Daily News, with offices in Richmond, British Columbia, and Toronto, Ontario, is closing its operations in Canada due to financial reasons. The closure affects 60 employees, with termination effective on January 31. The final editions in Vancouver and Toronto will be published on January 16, followed by the closure of newsrooms and offices on January 31. The decision to shut down the Canadian operations was made by Ming Pao’s headquarters in Hong Kong. Ming Pao, founded in Hong Kong in 1959, has received various awards, including the B.C. Jack Webster Award for best Chinese reporting in 2018 in Vancouver.
Former journalists expressed sadness over the closure. Teresa Wat, a B.C. Conservative MLA who previously worked as an assignment editor at Ming Pao in Richmond in 1996, described the newspaper as a crucial resource for Chinese-speaking immigrants from various regions. Another former reporter, Austin Feng, expressed hope that English-language media would step in to cater to Ming Pao’s readers. The newspaper has been instrumental in providing guidance to new immigrants on housing, employment, and cultural integration, covering topics often overlooked by mainstream English media.
Ming Pao had launched a petition in 2024 seeking government subsidies from the Canada Periodical Fund, but it did not receive any funding. Feng, who worked as a daily news reporter for Ming Pao from 2005 to 2017, recalled an era of vibrant competition among Chinese-language media in British Columbia, particularly on entertainment and celebrity news. While many of Ming Pao’s Canadian stories were also published in their Hong Kong publication, its main competitor in Canada, Sing Tao, ended its print editions in Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary in 2022, continuing its operations solely online.