About The Equity

The Equity

Overview

The Equity is an English-language weekly newspaper published in Shawville, Quebec, and serving the Pontiac, the rural county along the Ottawa River in the Outaouais region west of Gatineau. First published in 1883, it is one of the oldest continuously published community newspapers in Quebec and describes itself, in its own words, as having been "the Voice of the Pontiac" for more than 140 years. The print edition is delivered weekly and is also sold at locations throughout the Ottawa Valley, while a relaunched website and mobile apps carry its reporting between editions. Although the paper is primarily English, it serves both of the Pontiac's language communities in a county where a large share of residents are French-speaking.

History

The Equity was founded in 1883 in Bryson, then a busy Ottawa River port, by Smith and Cowan, according to the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network's account of the paper. The Cowan family anchored its early decades: J.A. Cowan founded the newspaper, and his son W.G. Cowan served as editor from 1931 until his death in November 1948. The paper's own issue of November 3, 1949, announced its sale to James Gray, formerly editor of the Arnprior Chronicle and previously with weekly newspapers in his native Scotland, and publication continued without a break. After a number of moves, the paper settled in Shawville, where it has long been based in the 1850s Shawville Academy building.

A second long family era began in 1953, when Rosaleen Dickson purchased the paper. Ross Dickson served as publisher for many years and was a veteran figure in Quebec's English-language community press, at one point travelling to the Magdalen Islands to help the fledgling First Informer newspaper adopt computer production. The Dickson family ultimately gave the paper 72 years of service. The Equity was also an early mover among small Canadian weeklies on the internet: on January 11, 1995, it published an article marking its leap into the digital world, in which Rosaleen Dickson foresaw the internet as a platform where newspapers could thrive and described the emerging technology as creating a "global community."

By 1990 the paper was in its 107th year of publication, appearing on Wednesdays from Shawville under Ross Dickson as publisher, and a digitized issue from that March preserved by BAnQ shows the texture of the era's editions — agricultural society meetings, school and church notices, and advertising from businesses across the county. Through the later Dickson decades the paper kept its Wednesday rhythm and its role as the printed record of Pontiac life, even as the county's population aged and many of its young people left for work in the cities.

The most recent change of structure came in January 2025. On January 7, 2025, Calumet Media, a Pontiac digital services firm launched in 2023 by media executive Jon Stewart, announced that it and Pontiac Printshop, the parent company of The Equity, were moving to merge their operations. Calumet Media had already relaunched The Equity's online presence and built new digital apps for the paper. Retiring publisher Charles Dickson received the Pontiac Paddle of Accomplishment in honour of the Dickson family's 72 years in the community, and Charles and Sophie Kuijper Dickson remained at the helm of the paper, with Sophie Dickson continuing as editor.

Programming and Content

The Equity's reporting is built around the institutions of the Pontiac. Its news pages follow the MRC Pontiac regional council in detail — debates over municipal cost-sharing bylaws, property assessment, recycling contracts and renewable-energy planning — along with the county's many small municipalities, school and health matters, and provincial decisions that affect the region. Its editorial page comments weekly on local and national questions, from Santé Québec's first-responder dispatch rules and spring flooding on the Ottawa River to federal byelections and Quebec language legislation. Community coverage is extensive: 4-H clubs and the Women's Institute, farm heritage columns written by local farmers, school events, and election features such as its "Conversation with the Candidates," in which Pontiac candidates answer questions at length ahead of federal and provincial votes. Recent editions illustrate the range: a December MRC meeting at which councillors argued over standardized property evaluations and a proposed cost-sharing formula weighted by each municipality's resources and infrastructure; a Women's Institute information day showcasing 4-H members from Shawville selected for an international 4-H conference in Washington, D.C., and the 4-H Canada Citizenship Congress in Ottawa; a weekly provincial roundup carrying Quebec-wide developments such as the new PSTQ immigration program; and a running farm-memories series by Clarendon farmer Chris Judd recalling the arrival of electricity, milking parlours and running water on Pontiac farms. The paper also maintains a digital archive of historical issues, republishing pages from editions as far back as 1949 and 1998.

Audience and Reach

The paper's audience is the population of the Pontiac county, a largely rural territory of small towns and farming communities — Shawville, Bryson, Fort-Coulonge, Campbell's Bay, L'Isle-aux-Allumettes and their neighbours — together with readers across the river in the wider Ottawa Valley. The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network put the county's population at about 18,000 in 2001, roughly 40 per cent of it French-speaking, and described The Equity at that time as the Pontiac's only bilingual weekly; the paper remains primarily an English-language publication that serves both language groups. Print copies are delivered weekly to subscribers and sold at many locations throughout the Ottawa Valley. Announcing the 2025 merger, Calumet Media owner Jon Stewart said more people by then connected with the paper through its website than read the printed edition, a trend the company expects to continue as it develops the paper's digital-first future.

Digital Presence

The Equity publishes online at theequity.ca, the website relaunched for the paper by Calumet Media alongside new digital apps. Its stories and editorials are posted continuously between weekly print editions, and recent editions' content — council coverage, editorials and community reporting — is also carried on the Pontiac Printshop website of its parent company. The paper maintains a presence on social media and has drawn readers' attention to workarounds for sharing its links on platforms that block Canadian news content. BAnQ, Quebec's national library and archives, holds digitized historical issues of the paper, including editions from 1990, as part of its Quebec press collections.

Ownership and Organisation

For most of the modern era The Equity was a Dickson family business: Rosaleen Dickson bought it in 1953, Ross Dickson was its longtime publisher, and Charles Dickson succeeded him as publisher, with Charles's daughter Sophie Kuijper Dickson as editor. In January 2025 the paper's parent company, Pontiac Printshop, moved to merge operations with Calumet Media and Consulting, the digital services firm founded in 2023 by Jon Stewart, a Pontiac native who had led digital strategy at the Ottawa Citizen and other Eastern Canadian newspapers before returning to the county. Under the arrangement, Charles and Sophie Kuijper Dickson continue to lead the paper editorially. The Equity is a member publication of the Quebec Community Newspapers Association, the provincial association of English-language community newspapers.

Contact and Availability

The Equity is based at 133 Centre Street, Shawville, Quebec J0X 2Y0, and can be reached by telephone at 819-647-2204 and by email at support@theequity.ca. The print edition is delivered weekly to subscribers and is available at many locations throughout the Ottawa Valley. Its website, theequity.ca, publishes new material continuously, and subscriptions and single-issue access are offered through the site and the paper's apps.