We got a letter this week informing us that we were now a creditor of Metroland Media Group.

Yes, us, the little Picton Gazette, circulation just under 14,000, is now helping a major conglomerate, owner of 70 newspapers across the province, exit stage left.

How so, you ask?

Well, first off, Metroland owes us money. Not a lot in the scheme of things, but enough, about $10,000.

Calling us a creditor, however, suggests we are not so much owed money, as loaning money.

I admit, when I got the letter from Metroland’s lawyers, on letterhead, from a high office on Bay Street, in Toronto, I was a little chuffed.

I stood a little taller.

I am now a creditor. Like a bank.

I don’t beg for loans. I give them.

But then I kept reading.

The Gazette, like almost every other business to which Metroland owes money, is an unsecured creditor. We don’t have any collateral for what we’ve “loaned” it. There is nothing to hold over it to force it to pay up.

As our crack business manager said, holding a cigar, “You’ll be lucky if you see pennies.”

Somehow, somewhere, Metroland’s bankruptcy proceeding turns us, not into the victims of a predatory business, but its enablers.

The Picton Gazette, and hundreds of other businesses, from A & B Courier Service to Zayo Canada, has been working for free for Metroland. We’ve been distributing its flyers across the County at no charge every week since July 12, which is the last time it bothered to pay us.

The situation is even worse for the 608 former employees of the company. They, too, are considered unsecured creditors. And Metroland owes them $16 million. Long-term employees who thought they had secure jobs on Thursday 14 September were let go with nothing on Friday. No notice. No severance. And, in many cases, no pay.

Those lowest on the totem pole, the ones who drove around hand-delivering Metroland’s flyers throughout Ontario, were not even paid for their final two weeks of work.

The distribution of printed paper flyers to every mailbox across the province is a huge job. Metroland contracted it out, passing the responsibility for gas, and functional trucks, way down the chain. Distributors rented space to store thousands of newspapers and flyers, where they would do the inserting, meaning, put a group of “flyers” next to or inside a newspaper, bag it, and deliver. Metroland was careful not to pay its contractors before they declared insolvency. So they, like us, were left to discover they had been working for free.

Who will get paid? Ah. We already know the answer to that, don’t we? Banks are first on the list. They are secured creditors. And those corporations to which Metroland owes the most. They take priority. Who are they, exactly? That’s where things get interesting.

Metroland owes by far the largest portion of its $71 million debt to its owner.

A company called Nordstar owns Metroland. NordStar purchased Torstar and its three divisions—Metroland, the Toronto Star and a thriving digital operation — three years ago from the family that had owned it since 1957. According to the balance sheet the lawyer sent, Metroland “owes” Torstar $41 million in “intercompany payables.” If that money is paid out, it means Metroland has it, and Nordstar/Torstar will keep it. Something to watch.

It could well be that Metroland has begun bankruptcy proceedings so Nordstar can rid itself of major legal, financial, and moral obligations, such as leases, contracts, and severance pay, not to mention fair payment for services rendered, while continuing to own its company.

The end goal of the filing is to restructure to get on a healthier footing. That Nordstar will emerge from this process still owning Metroland, and that Metroland will still be functional, seems indicated in the fact that just before filing, it converted its 70 weeklies to digital format and laid off half its workforce. It kept the other half. Those kinds of moves suggest it intends to forge ahead, just leaner, and even meaner.

We do not miss our flyers, which certainly did not fly. They were expensive to distribute – even more than we knew. For those who relied on them to conserve some of their own pennies, they are all still here. Some other outfit rushed to fill the gap within a week.

Flyers represent an economy that flies high above the little guys, PEC’s small businesses. They come from the national chains, Canadian Tire, Foodland, Rexall, Giant Tiger, and the like. Their advertising is directed by head offices, in Toronto and Calgary and Vancouver. They use national distribution systems, which are more cost-effective — if you are at the top. The business model leaves those on the ground not just empty-handed, but out-of-pocket.

The failure of Metroland is just another chapter in the hijacking of local newspapers, gutted and turned into a flyer distribution system for national conglomerates. It is true that in the age of social media newspapers are in trouble, that selling ads the old-fashioned way is much harder than it used to be. But there are other dark forces at work, preying on the remains like crows on carrion.