The Maple and Passage are merging…

In a lot of ways, it’s a no-brainer. The Maple and Passage have a lot in common, including our audiences, editorial perspectives and areas of coverage. We also share a reader-funded journalism model. In fact, although the two publications operate independently, they exist under a single media non-profit organization.

We often hear that independent media is fractured and that there are too many different publications. We believe the mission of both publications will be easier to accomplish by teaming up, as doing so will give us more collective resources. In the spirit of building independent public-interest journalism and giving readers more for their support, we’ve decided this merger is the best way forward for our communities.

It was a tough decision. Ultimately, The Maple has a larger number of paying members. Because budgets are tight, we decided we didn’t want to cause too much confusion with the change and risk losing subscribers.

We’ve tried to bring together the branding of Passage to show off the combined publications. 

The merger will free up time and resources for us to undertake more ambitious, investigative projects, while maintaining the high-quality daily content that you expect as a subscriber. It will mean more collaboration, more editorial oversight and a richer diversity of content. In short, we’ll be a more comprehensive publication with greater resources at our disposal.

The editorial direction and stories chosen by the editorial team will not change.

Yes. We will be incorporating Passage’s high-quality, thoughtful and fact-based commentary as part of our regular content. This won’t diminish or decrease the amount of news content we produce, but will complement it.

There will be no change in this regard. We are a left-wing journalistic organization focused on the issues of working-class Canadians. We will continue to be a space for critical reporting and debate on the biggest issues of the day.

You can see our values here.

Alex Cosh, The Maple’s managing editor, will become the publication’s news editor. Davide Mastracci, Passage’s managing editor, will become the publication’s opinion editor. Both will continue to determine what stories get published, and important decisions regarding the publication as a whole will be made based on consensus.

The merged publication will continue as a non-profit organization.

In fact, The Maple and Passage existed under the same media non-profit, but were separate organizations with editorial independence. You can read more about the history of the publication here. 

In short, your membership will not be affected. You will still have access to member-only content, receive exclusive newsletters and continue paying the same you always have. You’ll essentially be receiving what was previously the benefits of two separate memberships for the price of one. We’ll also be rolling out some additional membership perks.

If you have memberships at both publications, rest assured that you won’t be double charged. Your less expensive membership will stay unchanged, while the other will be automatically cancelled.

We are also offering pro-rated refunds for those with double memberships. If you have memberships at both publications and would like to get one refunded, please fill out this form so we can process your request.

We aim to have refund requests processed within 5-10 days from submission, but it often takes an additional 5-10 business days for the refund to appear on your card. Rest assured we will get through all refund requests, but due to the size of our audience, it may take some time.

(For reference a pro-rate refund would work as follows. If you have a $70 annual Maple membership and a $90 annual Passage membership, we’ll cancel the latter. Once you have sent a refund request we will send you a refund for the number of months left until your renewal on the more expensive $90 membership.)

Yes, you will continue to receive all the perks you were promised, including:

• Exclusive daily newsletter
• Class Struggle newsletter
• Members-only courses

But, we will also be expanding membership perks to include:

• Commenting privileges
• Participation in our debate series
• Quarterly impact reports

And, we plan to continue rolling out more benefits for our members. You are the backbone of this publication and we want to continuously improve your experience with us and our community of readers.

Members will continue to get a newsletter each weekday. However, there are some slight changes: The Maple and Passage’s newsletters will be merged into Maple Digest.

Two days of the week, readers will get The Maple’s flagship news reporting. Two other days will feature Passage’s critical roundup of commentary and analysis on the stories fueling the news. The Friday newsletter will be in a brand new format! These issues will have Alex and Davide unpacking the top news of the week, digging deeper and in a more engaging style. This newsletter will also feature comments from readers.

We will also introduce the ability to customize your newsletter experience through your account. For example, you can choose to only receive Friday newsletters or newsletters two or three times per week.

When you login, your plan may say $0. Don’t worry, you’re still supporting us and you’re still a member — transitioning over your payment information to the site will take some time (good old technology!).

In the meantime, if you want to make changes to your payment information, or update your card information, use this link.