QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Canadian Heritage
Online News Act
December 6, 2023
Minister, you and your government have been busy congratulating yourselves for coming to an agreement with Google at the eleventh hour, before they carried through on their threat to stop linking to news articles in Canada — a move that would have decimated a mainstream news media that is already on life support thanks in large part to your flawed legislation. Can you tell the chamber specifics of how this deal differs from what Google had offered one year ago, before your government rammed through your short-sighted Bill C-18?
Minister, can you give us three or four specific differences between what Google had offered a year ago and what was negotiated recently?
You mentioned the crisis facing the media for over a decade now. This crisis was brought on by the arrival of the various platforms that are currently taking the lion’s share of advertising revenues. This means Google and Facebook, in the media sector.
For more than a decade, these platforms have refused to contribute to our system, to support newsrooms and to recognize the value of the content produced by our newsrooms. They have also refused to take action to support Canadian media.
The only reason agreements have been reached in recent years with certain media outlets chosen by Google or Facebook is because those companies knew that Canada was working on new legislation to regulate them. They knew that Canada was going to create a more equitable system.
The reason we have an agreement with Google today, not only to pay and compensate the media of their choice but all Canadian media outlets eligible under section 11(1) of the act, is because we took action, because we passed legislation that comes into force on December 19. Otherwise, make no mistake, we would have nothing.
Minister, many news outlets already had deals with platforms. The truth is that there is no discernible difference. The government could have agreed to this deal a year earlier, and even used it as a framework to negotiate a similar deal with Meta that would have prevented them from blocking news links altogether.
The truth is that Bill C-18 has done much to harm not only traditional news outlets, but also online digital start-ups. They are also suffering because of Bill C-18. My question to you is this: How can anyone in the communications domain trust your government with anything it does?
I will say it one more time: Google entered into agreements with certain media outlets in recent years because it was well aware that the law would compel it to do so.
Google thought it could persuade the government not to regulate the sector, similar to the way things unfolded in other countries, which could enter closed-door agreements with the major media of their choice. Our government decided to enact legislation so that Google not only continues to enter into agreements with the media, but also so that media with no access to assistance and no compensation from Google for their content —
Like the CBC —
— would be included in the act and receive fair compensation.
