Bill C-18

Online News Act

An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada

This enactment regulates digital news intermediaries to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contribute to its sustainability. It establishes a framework through which digital news intermediary operators and news businesses may enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by digital news intermediaries. The framework takes into account principles of freedom of expression and journalistic independence.
The enactment, among other things,
(a) applies in respect of a digital news intermediary if, having regard to specific factors, there is a significant bargaining power imbalance between its operator and news businesses;
(b) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting those factors;
(c) specifies that the enactment does not apply in respect of “broadcasting” by digital news intermediaries that are “broadcasting undertakings” as those terms are defined in the Broadcasting Act or in respect of telecommunications service providers as defined in the Telecommunications Act ;
(d) requires the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) to maintain a list of digital news intermediaries in respect of which the enactment applies;
(e) requires the Commission to exempt a digital news intermediary from the application of the enactment if its operator has entered into agreements with news businesses and the Commission is of the opinion that the agreements satisfy certain criteria;
(f) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting how the Commission is to interpret those criteria and setting out additional conditions with respect to the eligibility of a digital news intermediary for an exemption;
(g) establishes a bargaining process in respect of matters related to the making available of certain news content by digital news intermediaries;
(h) establishes eligibility criteria and a designation process for news businesses that wish to participate in the bargaining process;
(i) requires the Commission to establish a code of conduct respecting bargaining in relation to news content;
(j) prohibits digital news intermediary operators from acting, in the course of making available certain news content, in ways that discriminate unjustly, that give undue or unreasonable preference or that subject certain news businesses to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage;
(k) allows certain news businesses to make complaints to the Commission in relation to that prohibition;
(l) authorizes the Commission to require the provision of information for the purpose of exercising its powers and performing its duties and functions under the enactment;
(m) requires the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to provide the Commission with an annual report if the Corporation is a party to an agreement with an operator;
(n) establishes a framework respecting the provision of information to the responsible Minister, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, while permitting an individual or entity to designate certain information that they submit to the Commission as confidential;
(o) authorizes the Commission to impose, for contraventions of the enactment, administrative monetary penalties on certain individuals and entities and conditions on the participation of news businesses in the bargaining process;
(p) establishes a mechanism for the recovery, from digital news intermediary operators, of certain costs related to the administration of the enactment; and
(q) requires the Commission to have an independent auditor prepare a report annually in respect of the impact of the enactment on the Canadian digital news marketplace.
Finally, the enactment makes related amendments to other Acts.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The Meta representatives are telling us that they want to respect the committee, except that Mr. Clegg refused to come here today. They spoke about transparency, but they refused to disclose the figures for revenue generated in Canada. They are here to talk about Bill C‑18, and even though they admit that the bill has changed considerably, they continue to speak about the initial version rather than the current one.

I'm therefore somewhat skeptical about Meta's sincerity. Moreover, there have been some extremely serious allegations made against Meta.

I'm speaking of course, Madam Chair, of the horrific allegations contained in reports recently about Facebook amplifying hate. The Amnesty International report found that Facebook amplified hate ahead of the Rohingya massacre in Myanmar, and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has talked about Facebook letting activists incite ethnic massacres with hate and misinformation in Ethiopia. We have reports that Facebook's ethical failures are not accidental; they are part of the business model.

How do you respond to these serious, egregious allegations that amplifying the most horrific human rights violations and ethical failures are part of Facebook's and Meta's business model? How do you respond to those allegations, and why should we believe you now when you come to this committee and say that you want to respect laws and respect Canadian values?

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, sir.

I want to point out that this fund actually represents a very small percentage of what Facebook paid under the news media bargaining code in Australia and what it would be mandated to pay under Bill C-18.

I want to go a bit into your statement that news has no value to Facebook.

We know that Facebook collects millions of data points on its 21.5 million Canadian users. Your company has pushed back against regulation internationally that would limit your ability to harvest data for ad tracking. Are you really telling us that the data collected on the content a user views on your platform is of no value to Meta?

[Kevin Chan]

—out from under the challenge of Bill C-18.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate that and I appreciate getting your overall revenues in Canada, because then we can determine, and Canadians can determine, whether it's a fair share of taxes.

It's in the billions of dollars, of course. We know this, and with billions of dollars, you seem unaware that Bill C-18 was substantially changed through this committee process. The NDP tabled a whole range of amendments that put the focus on small local news organizations.

In your testimony to begin, Mr. Chan, you didn't seem to be aware of those amendments passing and the overall impact that it has on the thrust of the bill. The PBO report that you cited took place before all of these amendments were brought forward by the NDP to put in place a framework that favours local businesses and community businesses that are providing information in communities across the country.

Are you aware of those amendments being passed?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The questions that Mr. Champoux just asked are altogether legitimate.

Mr. Clegg is an experienced parliamentarian. I therefore find it hard to believe that he didn't know he was muddying the waters by requiring an invitation rather than a summons. He can prove that he is prepared to come and testify by responding to our summons and coming to answer our questions next Monday.

We'll see. I remain skeptical with respect to some of the answers, but grateful in other instances for your clarifications.

Ms. Curran, you talked about the product team that is currently working on what I perceive to be a threat to parliamentarians and our democracy, saying that you will respond if Bill C-18 is passed in the Senate.

At this point, is that product team examining limiting access by Canadians to emergency services information? You can understand that in an emergency, people need information immediately. Meta Platforms did that in Australia, and I find it absolutely reprehensible that Meta may be looking at doing that in Canada.

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Mr. Champoux.

We are frustrated too. We really wanted Mr. Clegg to appear here. He was eager to appear to discuss the online news act, to discuss Bill C-18. We received last-minute notice on Thursday evening last week that the title of this hearing would be changed, and we took that, understandably, as a very significant change to the framing of the hearing, in that that it would not be about Bill C-18 but about a suite of other matters altogether, and on that basis Mr. Clegg decided not to appear.

He was really looking forward to being here and talking about Bill C-18 and the impact of that bill on Canadians and globally.

[Kevin Chan]

I don't know about that. As I said, we received an email and all I saw was an invitation to come and discuss Bill C‑18. We are still transparent and would like to work with you.

[Kevin Chan]

I couldn't tell you what he was thinking, but to me, it wasn't at all clear that the motion of March 20 was related to the invitation we had received. It was an email inviting us to appear for the study of Bill C‑18. We were delighted to…

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

These discussions should have been held before we voted to send Bill C‑18 to the Senate. It's now being studied by the Senate. We're a bit late for that.

I understand from the way you're nodding that you have indeed met government representatives.

Did they listen to your concerns? Did you get the impression that you had been answered? Tell me a bit about what happened.

[Rachel Curran]

Look, Mr. Champoux, we would love to meet with you about Bill C-18, and we can certainly rectify that very quickly. We'd love to have a conversation with you about it and about the amendments we've proposed.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Ms. Curran, what you're saying is very interesting. I never received a request to attend a meeting to discuss Bill C‑18 with Meta representatives. And yet I believe we might have been able to have some very interesting conversations. We could have debated our respective ideas.

Did you have direct discussions with government representatives during the debate surrounding Bill C‑18?

[Rachel Curran]

Yes, we have met with some MPs and some senators to discuss our concerns with Bill C-18, and all of those interactions and engagements are recorded in the lobbyist registry, as required by Canadian law.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

When a bill is tabled in the House of Commons, it goes to committee for debate, where MPs from all parties meet the stakeholders and organizations affected by the bill so that they can explain their concerns or expectations.

Have you met MPs from various parties In connection with Bill C‑18?

[Rachel Curran]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

I can confirm that the way Australia unfolded was not ideal. There were some technical errors made in the way that we removed news from our platform. We fully intend that those errors will not be made in the Canadian context, and we're preparing very carefully to ensure that this is the case. We're going to make sure that we're fully transparent with Canadians, with parliamentarians, as we move towards news removal, if we're forced to do that.

Of course, Mr. Housefather, that's going to depend on the final scope of Bill C-18, and we don't want to pre-empt the work of the Senate in that regard.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

You don't know.

Was the decision to do content-blocking in Canada if Bill C-18 was adopted made exclusively by the Canadian team?