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Gerald Tracey, the editor and publisher of the Eganville Leader – which proudly declares itself “Renfrew County’s largest paid circulation newspaper”– is putting the finishing touches on the front page.
In a week dominated elsewhere by news of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and details of Canada’s federal election campaign, the Leader, as it’s known, has taken a different approach. “The weekend from hell for the fire department,” declares Mr. Tracey as he gestures to the front page, which features a large picture of a house engulfed in flames.
Mr. Tracey, who turns 72 next month, manages a newspaper his father and uncle bought during the Second World War.
It’s not that Mr. Tracey doesn’t care about the federal election. It’s just that, as he sees it, the job of the Leader – which has been in print for the past 123 years – is to present the community back to itself. “Our mandate here is to report the news and record the history,” says Mr. Tracey, who turns 72 in May. “That’s what we’re doing, basically – recording history of the area.”
Mr. Tracey, whose father and uncle bought the paper in 1944, has been recording history on broadsheet for almost 53 years. But he recently announced The Leader will cease publishing next February, citing his health and an inability to find a local buyer.
Eganville, population 1,300, is an unassuming town straddling the Bonnechere River in the Ottawa Valley, about an hour-and-a-half west of the capital. A convenience store advertises hunting and fishing licenses and the Legion puts on a Tuesday evening fish-fry.
Local industries include logging and a nuclear research facility, as well as a nearby military base, and the main street is dotted with a few small businesses.
Mr. Trump’s tariffs, and how they will impact exports such as softwood lumber, are on people’s minds. Concerns of residents mirror those of the nation: affordability, housing prices, food bank use. “But rural people are a pretty resilient people,” Mr. Tracey says. “They can survive on a lot less.”
The area has been solidly Conservative for the past 25 years, and is widely expected to remain so in the coming election, with long-time MP Cheryl Gallant running for the party again.
“If Jesus Christ was running for the Liberal Party right now, it wouldn’t make a difference,” Mr. Tracey says with a chuckle.
In the break room of the Leader’s compact single-storey building, a short drive from the main street, the topic turns to the budding federal campaign. Mr. Tracey sits beside veteran reporter Debbi Christinck, who has been at the paper on and off for 32 years.
“We were saying, what the hell can we talk about? Because there is no election here,” Mr. Tracey says.
But he says the national campaign is interesting, with affordability, and tariffs, dominating the discussion.
The paper plans on profiling all the local candidates before election day.
Independently owned since 1902, the newspaper itself is a relic of the past, operating as if the internet and social media barely exist. The newsroom, which includes a few offices, a buzzing police scanner, and walls littered with local awards, is located across the river from downtown Eganville, near a park set to be named after Mr. Tracey this spring.
Fires, accidents, deaths – these were traditionally the bread-and-butter of the local paper. That includes the notorious domestic violence triple-murder that shook Renfrew County a decade ago. Mr. Tracey was the first reporter on the scene in 2015 after Basil Borutski killed three women, including one victim, Nathalie Warmerdam, who was once Mr. Tracey’s nurse.
The Leader’s impending closing is part of a larger trend across Canada that has created local news deserts.
According to the Local News Research Project, 518 news outlets – mostly community papers – have shuttered since 2018. Funding from federal government’s Local Journalism Initiative has helped keep some smaller publications afloat. But its future is unclear if Mr. Poilievre – who criticized the initiative under the Trudeau era – forms government. Mr. Poilievre has said he will propose a new program that he says would better support independent media.
The Leader has benefited from the federal program, which helps pay its freelancers, but it has continued to maintain a strong subscription base of 3,800, printing 5,700 copies a week in the winter. While his small town compatriots have sold their publications to get swallowed up by large conglomerates, Mr. Tracey has held on.
Ms. Christinck worries about the impact the closing will have on the community’s knowledge of local politics.
She recalls her days of covering county council, when up to eight reporters would attend. At the end, she said, it was just her, watching the decision-makers, warning them to heed the wallets of ratepayers.
“I was the last one standing,” she says. “Isn’t that sad?”
Readers’ loyalty to the paper, according to community members, stems from its dutiful chronicling of local council meetings and events, and the advocacy Mr. Tracey himself has engaged in for initiatives such as bringing a 36-unit assisted living facility to Eganville.
“I use Gerald Tracey and the Leader synonymously, because they are one and the same,” says Fred Blackstein, 84, who has been a community volunteer for the past 40 years.
When the paper announced it was closing, “we were all ... very, very concerned. Because without that local paper, that particular paper, I’m not sure how I’d mount the next big community project. Social media doesn’t seem to have as large an impact in rural Renfrew County as it does in Toronto and Ottawa,” he says.
Sean Conway, a former Liberal MPP for the area, says the paper is committed to the principles of local journalism. “They have a point of view. They have a backbone. They’re not afraid of controversy. And they’ve got an amazing instinct,” he says, adding that he’s been trying to help the paper find a buyer.
Mr. Tracey’s periodic heart problems made the decision to retire easier, though finding a replacement proved to be a challenge.
Mr. Tracey, who has a heart condition, has been trying to sell the paper in recent years. He almost had a heart attack six weeks ago, solidifying his decision that it was time to close.
He did, in fact, sell to another independent owner in November, 2024, with the promise that he’d stay on for two more years. But ultimately he decided he wants someone local to buy it.
“At the 11th hour, I said, ‘I can’t do it,’ ” Mr. Tracey says. “They’re not going to find someone to replace me. If they’re not here, it’s not going to work.”
Until then, he and his staff – which includes one part-time and two full-time reporters, plus a small army of freelancers – soldier on.
Mr. Tracey hopes he can still find a local buyer before it’s time to close. But he’s also at peace with his decision.
“I thought the best thing for us,” he says, “was to put the paper to bed – to rest – myself.”
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