About Saanich News

Saanich News

Overview

The Saanich News is a community newspaper serving the District of Saanich, British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Published by Black Press Ltd., it appears in print once a week, on Wednesdays, and is supported by a continuously updated website at saanichnews.com. Saanich is the most populous municipality in the Capital Regional District: the District of Saanich's own housing profile, drawing on Statistics Canada data, recorded 114,148 residents in the 2016 census, spread across neighbourhoods that range from the urban blocks bordering downtown Victoria to the semi-rural farms of the Blenkinsop Valley and the shoreline of Cordova Bay. The Saanich News is the community paper of record for that municipality, covering Saanich council, the Saanich school district, development and housing debates, and the everyday life of one of British Columbia's largest suburban communities. It is produced from Black Press's Victoria offices at 818 Broughton Street, alongside sister Greater Victoria titles such as the Victoria News and Oak Bay News, and it remains in active publication: the publisher's own page archive holds Wednesday print editions dated January 21, February 4, March 4 and April 1, 2026, and Saanich News stories were still appearing online in September 2026.

History

The Saanich News belongs to the Greater Victoria family of community weeklies that took shape in the late twentieth century. By the early 1990s it was part of the Island Publishers stable of Victoria-area community papers: publisher Reg Cowie's career record lists him as publisher of the Saanich News in 1992–93, and as group publisher of the six Greater Victoria community papers in 1994–96. Directory listings from Media Names & Numbers in 2009 show the paper publishing twice a week from 818 Broughton Street in Victoria as part of the VI News Group, with Jim Zeeben as editor. The 2013 edition of the Standard Periodical Directory likewise lists the Saanich News under Black Press Ltd. at the same Broughton Street address, with Penny Sakamoto as publisher and Jim Zeeben as editor, describing it as the paper serving Saanich residents on Vancouver Island. In the years since, the print schedule has settled at one edition a week, published on Wednesdays, while the website carries news daily. The paper's parent company has changed around it: Black Press announced a restructuring under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in January 2024, and in March 2024 the completed sale of the company to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group was announced, with the company emerging from creditor protection and remaining Canadian-controlled. Through that corporate transition, the Saanich News continued to publish without interruption, with its editorial pages carrying the same mix of council coverage, letters and commentary in 2025 and 2026 as in the years before.

Programming and Content

The core of the Saanich News is municipal coverage. Its reporters follow Saanich council through budget deliberations, zoning fights and housing policy; in July 2026 it reported council's unanimous backing of youth council proposals on transit and regional passenger rail, and in September 2026 it covered councillors calling on the province to restore a housing fund. Education is a second pillar: in March 2026 the paper reported the Saanich school board's review of a recommendation to charge families school bus transportation fees for the 2026–27 school year, a story rooted in School District 63's finances. The paper also reports on neighbouring Central Saanich, including its draft 2026 financial plan, and on regional institutions, as in its January 2026 report on how digital content licensing costs are squeezing Greater Victoria's libraries. Around the news report sit the traditional fixtures of a community weekly: an opinion page carrying the paper's own editorials under the "Our View" banner, guest columns and syndicated commentary, a busy letters section in which Saanich residents argue over development, traffic and the pace of change in their neighbourhoods, and the "Community Camera" feature, which invites readers to submit their own photographs of local scenes — from PKOLS (Mount Douglas) above Blenkinsop Road to Cadboro-Gyro Park — for publication in print. Public notices, community announcements and advertising from local businesses round out each edition.

Audience and Reach

The Saanich News is aimed squarely at the residents of Saanich, a municipality of well over 110,000 people that accounts for almost 30 per cent of the Capital Regional District's population — the Capital Region as a whole totalled 432,062 people in the 2021 census, according to figures reported by the paper's sister title, the Victoria News. Its coverage spills into Central Saanich and the wider Greater Victoria area where stories cross municipal boundaries, and its reporting is regularly cited by the people it covers: Saanich councillors collect and republish Saanich News coverage of council debates on their own websites, an indication of the paper's role as the record of municipal decision-making. As a free-standing community weekly within Black Press's Greater Victoria group, the Saanich News sits alongside the Victoria News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream News Gazette, Peninsula News Review and Sooke News Mirror — a cluster of 23 Black Press news platforms on Vancouver Island counted in reporting on the company in January 2024 — giving its stories a regional echo beyond Saanich's borders while keeping its editorial focus on the municipality itself.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is saanichnews.com, which its print masthead promotes for "breaking news 24/7." Stories from the site are picked up by national news-monitoring services — an August 2026 Saanich News story about musician David Foster's hometown concert in Victoria, for example, was logged by EIN News — and the site was still publishing fresh local stories in September 2026. Full print editions are preserved as digital page replicas in Black Press's online page archive, where Wednesday editions from throughout 2025 and the first months of 2026 can be read page by page. The Saanich News is also listed among Black Press's Greater Victoria social media communities, extending its reach to readers who follow local news through social feeds rather than the printed page. In April 2023 Black Press entered a partnership with Village Media to license its Villager content management system, with the migration of Black Press websites to that platform scheduled for completion in 2024, part of a wider modernisation of the group's digital publishing.

Ownership and Organisation

The Saanich News is published by Black Press Ltd., part of Black Press Media. Black Press was founded in 1975 by David H. Black, who bought the Williams Lake Tribune that year and went on to build one of Canada's largest community newspaper groups; the company's own announcement of its 2024 restructuring noted that it published more than 170 newspapers together with regional websites across British Columbia, Alberta, the Canadian North, Washington State, Alaska and Hawaii. News Media Canada reported that as of 2022 Black Press published 106 editions across Canada, 70 of them in British Columbia. On January 15, 2024, Black Press entered creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and announced a sale; founder David Black retired at the same time. In March 2024 the sale to Canso Investment Counsel Ltd., Deans Knight Capital Management Ltd. and Carpenter Media Group was completed and the company emerged from CCAA protection. Black Press stated that the company remains Canadian-controlled, and chief executive officer Glenn Rogers said the transaction put Black Press "in a much stronger position to serve our valued Canadian and American readers, customers, employees, and communities over the long term." Within that structure, the Saanich News operates as part of the Greater Victoria publishing group: a September 2025 masthead named Michelle Cabana as group publisher and Janet Gairdner as associate group publisher and publisher of the paper, with Megan Trudeau as managing editor, Dan Ebenal as city editor, and multimedia journalists Glen Butcher, Jason Ouellet, Olivier Laurin and Tony Trozzo.

Contact and Availability

The Saanich News is published by Black Press Ltd. at 818 Broughton Street, Victoria, BC V8W 1E4. The paper maintains a news hotline at 250-480-3278 for readers who see news happening, and letters to the editor — kept to less than 350 words, according to the paper's published guidelines — can be sent to newsroom@saanichnews.com. Reader photographs for the Community Camera feature go to the same newsroom address. Questions or concerns about editorial content can be directed to editor@saanichnews.com or by phone at 778-746-4010; the Saanich News is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, the independent body that deals with journalistic practices and ethical behaviour for Canadian news media, and unresolved complaints can be taken to the council. Print editions appear on Wednesdays, the website at saanichnews.com is updated daily, and recent print editions can be read in replica form through Black Press's online page archive.