By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — In a rare display of non-partisanship support for government legislation, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez – joined by his opposition counterparts Martin Champoux of the Bloc Québécois and Peter Julian of the New Democrats – announced at a Parliament Hill news conference on Wednesday that the federal government will suspend advertising on Facebook and Instagram in response to parent company Meta Platforms Inc.’s decision to end news availability on both platforms prior to bill C-18 taking effect.
Last week, Google followed suit and announced that it would remove links to Canadian news from its search, news and discover products in Canada when the Online News Act comes into force and will require it and Meta to share revenues with news publishers for news content that appears on their platforms.
“We’ve met with both Google and Meta multiple times to better understand their concerns,” said Rodriguez. “We believe we have a path forward and we’re willing to continue talking with the platforms.”
“We’re not going into details because we don’t negotiate in public but we’re deeply convinced that Google’s concerns will be resolved through regulations,” he said.
The minister said that while the platforms have no “obligations” under C-18, “Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible and started blocking news,” said Rodriguez.
In a statement to Cartt, Meta spokesperson Lisa Laventure reiterated the company’s view of the Online News Act as “flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them and the value we provide news publishers.
“Meta does not proactively collect links to news content to display on our platforms; instead, publishers actively choose to post on Facebook and Instagram because it benefits them to do so,” she said.
“Unfortunately, the regulatory process is not equipped to make changes to the fundamental features of the legislation that have always been problematic, and so we plan to comply by ending news availability in Canada in the coming weeks.”
Google declined to provide any reaction to the government’s decision to stop buying ads on Meta’s mega-platforms, which Rodriguez estimated represents about $10 million annually.
However, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) welcomed the ad-buy suspension.
“The government has taken an important step to stand up to Meta, effectively standing up for Canadian newsrooms,” said CAB president Kevin Desjardins in a statement. “We encourage all levels of government and businesses that care about the future of our democracy and journalism in Canada to consider the actions of these platforms when they choose where to invest their advertising dollars.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Quebec Premier François Legault tweeted that in “solidarity with the media,” his government would stop advertising with Meta, noting that “no business is above the law.”
CBC News reported that the Bloc stopped advertising on Meta platforms on June 29, but both the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties will continue to buys ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Quebecor, Cogeco and the CBC also announced Wednesday they were suspending ad buys on Meta products.
At the Wednesday joint news conference, the Bloc’s Champoux called C-18 “a necessary tool” that the tech giants should view as a means to uphold a free press and combat misinformation.
“We have parliamentarians representing two-thirds of the House of Commons saying very clearly that the web giants need to respect Canadian law,” the NDP’s Julian said.
“They have profited enormously from Canada. Now it’s time to give back some of those funds to help support local journalism across the country and help to revive our journalistic sector.”
Desjardins said that “these foreign web giants use their dominant positions in digital advertising to take tens of billions out of the Canadian economy without giving back.”
“We call on both Google and Meta to act responsibly and to stop allowing misinformation and disinformation to flourish by deliberately damaging access to high-quality, professional journalism.”
