One of the members of the Weston family, Galen Weston, in 2016.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Canada’s billionaire Weston family, which controls the Loblaw grocery empire, is funding the launch of a national digital-media startup, according to four sources familiar with the venture.
The online publication, being developed under the working title Be Giant, is preparing to launch this spring, according to the sources. It will be a non-profit, and not reliant on advertising or subscription revenue.
The Globe and Mail is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to speak about the project, which has yet to be announced publicly.
A spokesperson for the Westons’ holding company, Wittington Investments Ltd., confirmed the information when contacted by The Globe for this story, but declined to comment further.
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The Westons are investing millions of dollars and see the project as a multiyear commitment, the sources said, and want the publication to focus on issues such as Canadian sovereignty and the need to invest in economic independence. Stories will also focus on covering Canadian entrepreneurs, researchers and innovations that contribute to the country.
The new online publication will be run by former Maclean’s magazine editor Alison Uncles, the sources said. Ms. Uncles did not respond to a request for comment.
The Weston-funded effort joins a number of digital publications launched in recent years to compete with mainstream media outlets. Those newcomers include The Logic, The Hub, The Peak and several titles owned by Overstory Media Group, based in B.C., among others.
The Westons own billions of dollars’ worth of private assets through the Wittington holding company. In recent years, Wittington has shifted its investment strategy to focus more on innovations such as clean energy and early-stage technology companies.
It is understood that the new publication will operate at arm’s length from the family, with editorial independence.
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As one of Canada’s most prominent retailing families, the Westons have frequently been the subject of media coverage themselves. The family owns controlling interests in grocer Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and the country’s largest pharmacy chain, Shoppers Drug Mart, as well as the Holt Renfrew luxury department stores.
Galen Weston, chairman of Loblaw and chairman and chief executive officer of parent company George Weston Ltd., was subject to public blowback over Canada’s food-inflation crisis in recent years. Mr. Weston repeatedly said that retailers were unfairly blamed for rising food prices.
The public-relations issue was difficult to remedy, partly because Canadians’ trust in the grocery sector had previously been shaken by Loblaw and George Weston Ltd.’s public disclosure in 2017 that they had participated in a years-long, “industry-wide” conspiracy to fix the price of bread. The two companies agreed to pay $500-million in 2024 to settle two class-action lawsuits over their role in the scheme.
This is the Weston’s first philanthropic investment in the media space. The leadership team of the new publication has been recruiting staff, including writers who have worked at Canadian magazines in the past.
This is not the first time Ms. Uncles has been involved in a high-profile media startup. A respected editor, she was among the journalists who helped to launch the National Post in the late 1990s. Ms. Uncles was also an editor at The Toronto Star for more than a decade, before joining Maclean’s as a deputy editor. She was later named editor-in-chief at the magazine.
In late 2018, Ms. Uncles led a group of Rogers Media employees who put forward a plan to to purchase the company’s print magazines, including Maclean’s and Chatelaine, as well as digital titles Canadian Business and Flare, after Rogers Communications Inc. put them up for sale.
The magazines were ultimately acquired by Toronto Life owner St. Joseph Communications. Ms. Uncles continued at Maclean’s until 2022, when she joined the Public Policy Forum think tank.
“I’ve been lucky to have had some pretty rewarding adventures in journalism so far. But the biggest of my life is coming up,” Ms. Uncles wrote on LinkedIn after leaving the Public Policy Forum earlier this year. “It’s a build. Stay tuned.”