Canada's increasingly influential ethnic-press industry will seek a financial boost from the upper levels of government to better its business and journalistic know-how.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, right, listens as master of the ceremonies Thomas Saras hosts a gala dinner at a professional development seminar for the National Press and Media Council of Canada in 2009. Saras is asking for federal and provincial government funding for future training seminars for multicultural journalists. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)

While minority-language publications remain anonymous to most Canadians, their combined readership is in the millions -- more than the country's largest daily newspapers.

The ethnic press also wields clout inside the Prime Minister's Office, where, more than ever, the industry is viewed as a coveted conduit to the multicultural vote.

Canada's ethnic newspapers and magazines -- often one-person operations typed up in the homes of recent immigrants -- are now hoping to raise their game even higher.

The man who represents 540 of the publications says many of these editors scrape by on tiny budgets and still have a lot to learn about Canada.

But Thomas Saras has a plan to improve the situation.

His goal is to ensure publishers learn their journalistic rights and boost their profitability, and he's banking on help from the PMO as well as the premiers of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.

Saras, the president of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, will ask for up to $300,000 to help fund a three-day seminar that would hire university professors to train the people behind the minority-language press.

He will be armed with what he calls the sector's first-ever socio-economic report, a soon-to-be-released document that recommends members receive instruction in subjects like business and marketing. Another key goal of the training is to help them avoid legal trouble, such as getting sued for libel.

"This is a matter of a healthy democracy," said Saras, leader of the ethnic-press council for 15 years and editor-in-chief of the Greek-language newspaper Patrides for over four decades.

"We have to persuade these members of the press to be loyal to the country, to know what exactly the system is in the country. They are in a profession, in fact, they don't know."

He's confident politicians will come through -- particularly the federal Conservatives, who he says have paid more attention to his sector than past governments.

Tories target 'captive audience'

While reporters in Ottawa note that Stephen Harper's Parliament Hill news conferences are exceedingly rare, the prime minister makes himself available for roundtable interviews with the ethnic media.

The government understands that ethnic media offer a captive audience because newcomers who arrive in Canada rely heavily on them if they don't speak English or French.

Saras argues that his industry, which he says boasts more than five million readers, needs more support. He adds that Canadian associations representing journalists and community newspapers also receive public funding.

"The face of this country has changed," said Saras, whose council has grown from 125 members in 1985. "You have to hear the concerns and the problems of the people, and the ethnic press is the one who is in touch daily with the reality."

He plans to push for improvements that reach beyond business strategy, after several publishers ran into trouble because they didn't understand their journalistic rights, or Canadian law.

In one example, he recalled how a Bangladeshi-community newspaper in Vancouver declared bankruptcy a few years ago when it had lost around $100,000 in a lawsuit.

Some 25 association members also shuttered their doors over the last four years for reasons Saras says might have been avoided.

"Over the years, many of them have found themselves in front of a judge for running an article against someone from the community," he said.

"I know that some of them proved to be very costly."

While the sector faces challenges, finding Harper's ear isn't one of them.

Saras says his members have enjoyed unprecedented access to the prime minister and his cabinet ministers, particularly over the last year.

They receive regular government updates, interviews with senior officials and roundtable meetings with Harper -- exclusively for the ethnic media.

Saras also credits the Tories for making government subsidies more accessible to minority-language publications through Canadian Heritage's two-year-old Canada Periodical Fund.

The Conservative outreach, he says, is paying off.

"It gives the impression that even a publication in another language, other than English or French, has equal status with the rest of them," he said.

"The publisher and the people around him, they feel much easier, much (like) being home than being a foreign publication on a foreign land."

PMO's Persichilli cements ethnic media ties

The Tories' ethnic-media courtship started back in 2002 and was led by senior party staffers like Dimitri Soudas.

The party's goal was not to pigeonhole ethnic media by constantly discussing immigration issues. Instead, there would be exchanges on broader subjects, like the economy and crime.

In the process, the Tories discovered that many of the consumers of these publications were small-C conservatives.

"There was a clear, untapped potential in multicultural media," said a Conservative source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Very few people pay attention to them because they don't realize the strength and, quite frankly, how big the megaphone that they have is."

At first, Conservatives thought the tactic was a waste of energy, but now they have bought in, said the source.

The source said another skeptic of the early Tory solicitations was Angelo Persichilli, then the editor of the Italian-language newspaper, Corriere Canadese. He didn't think the outreach would last.

But it lasted long enough. Several years later, Persichilli was hired to replace Soudas as the prime minister's director of communications, further strengthening the PMO's link to multicultural media.

Saras said Persichilli, a former member of his organization who joined the PMO last summer, has very good relationships with members of the ethnic press.

But he insists the connection, and added attention, won't stop minority-language newspapers from holding the Conservative government accountable.

Saras says the Tories are already well aware of it, too.

"They know you're going to criticize them and they try to avoid you, exactly the same way they do with your guys (in the mainstream media)."