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.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you so much.

Madam Chair, I want to put forward the motion. It's a very long motion, so I'm not going to read the entire thing. It's the motion I gave notice of yesterday and that the clerk has circulated.

In the French version, second bullet, the words “et ont reçu l'ordre de comparaître devant le Comité“ should be deleted. I have already spoken to the Clerk about it. The rest is correct.

Basically, Madam Chair, we all saw what happened last week when Ms. Geremia was here. I don't think any of us were satisfied with the answers she gave, although I very much appreciate that Google has now agreed to send its two top American executives to us.

This motion is similar to what my colleague, Mr. Bittle, put forward. It's a motion about international ways that large companies are seeking to subvert parliamentary accountability. We're going to look at current and ongoing use of intimidation not only in Canada but around the world. We're going to learn from what happens around the world.

One meeting would be with Meta, and we would summon Mark Zuckerberg, Nick Clegg and Chris Saniga.

We would ask Meta to provide the documents that Google was asked to provide earlier, as set out in (i) and (ii), but we will not ask for third party documents. Parts of what were in Mr. Bittle's motion, (iii) and (iv), are gone. I've revised part two of his motion because Google has accepted to appear, so there's no need to order them to appear again. We're simply recognizing that Mr. Walker and Mr. Gingras will appear here for two hours at a publicly televised meeting and that it will be incorporated into the study.

We would hear from government officials, civil society and experts from other jurisdictions, like the European Union, Australia and also the United States, that have experienced tactics that are similar to what has happened in Canada. We note that the Department of Justice in the United States is taking antitrust actions against Google.

One meeting would be allocated to the study of tech giants' abuse of power around the world. We'd hear from domestic and international antitrust and competition experts.

Basically, this is a motion that I think would enable us to delve deeper into the international field. This is not only about Bill C-18. I think we can agree or disagree with Bill C-18 and still support this motion, because this motion speaks to larger issues of how very large companies use anti-competitive monopolistic tactics to seek to influence parliaments to meet their desires. This is not whether Bill C-18 is the right approach or the wrong approach. It's about how tech companies are tackling it and other similar laws around the world.

I hope we can find unanimous support for that motion.

I'm happy to listen to my colleagues.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I just want to re-emphasize the difference here in the fact that Bill C-18 is not law, yet Google Canada has gone forward and, as Mr. Bittle clearly pointed out, limited specific information to specific people based on this random test.

It's been discussed, of course, before, by you, Ms. Geremia, that Google has quite a significant impact and quite a significant share in terms of how Canadians find out information and how they access news. Censorship of the specific news that people see cannot be minimized. Every single member of this committee has specifically said that.

As Mr. Champoux mentioned as well, it's very important that you take that back and that we see some changes in terms of how that testing is implicated.

I also never really got a response in terms of this randomization of your so-called testing. I find it very dangerous to try to call it that, because it's ultimately a minimization of what you're doing, but it could have implications for someone like a member of Parliament, and the limiting of a member of Parliament's access to information, as was somewhat seen here today, is a violation of their parliamentary privilege.

In terms of that testing, have you and your legal team entirely considered the implications of what you have done in terms of Canadian safety and in terms of that legal side of limiting information?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay. Theoretically, they seem to have sent you here in their name, and you obviously do not, since you didn't meet with them, have access to their personal knowledge, which this committee wanted to get. I think we're going to need to hear from them and we're going to need to make sure they come.

Let me go to another question.

Google claimed that Bill C-18 could help spread misinformation and propaganda in Canada. However, in response to legislation, Google ran similar tests in Australia in January 2021. At that time, it blocked access to fact-based news sources and, in their place, as was shown, promoted sources of questionable quality—like The Epoch Times, for example—that were known for spreading a certain side of the story.

Did you do this when you did these tests in Canada, or did you take steps to make sure the errors you acknowledged having made in Australia were not made in these tests?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Under oath, you're saying specifically that the tests and the timing of these tests have absolutely nothing to do with the passage of Bill C-18.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Did you discuss what, ultimately, Mr. Housefather was trying to get at in terms of the timing of this committee, the timing of your testing and the timing of the Senate's passage of Bill C-18?

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Right, so my question again is.... You knew that Canadians would become aware and what the end result would be. This was an attempt to pressure parliamentarians to do the amendments in the Senate that Google wanted for Bill C-18, and that seems to me to be the end result of what you actually intended to do.

I have one other question.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I think that you were aware, and I think you wanted us to be aware. You wanted the House of Commons and the Senate, particularly, which will now vote on Bill C-18, to be aware of this threat.

I think that you intentionally intended to make Canadians aware of it, so that we would be afraid to pass Bill C-18 in the Senate because of the threat that you would block news content.

Was that not the real reason you did this test, and did it with this timing?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I have to move on, because my time is very short.

I take that as a yes, because you are doing it. We had a previous member speak up and ask you a simple question about blocking news on a car seat, and you agreed that it was happening.

I will move on, though, from us on this side in opposition. We don't trust Justin Trudeau either, frankly, or the legislation put forward by his government. Remember, this is the same government.... We talk about online monitoring and the digital public square and the threats that Bill C-11 poses to it, along with C-18. I think a lot of Canadians are fearful of what the Prime Minister can decide in terms of whether or not somebody will see a particular news item or cannot see it, or in terms of deplatforming a certain user or boosting another. Then we have what's before the House right now, the issue of foreign interference in our elections—and also the demonizing of peaceful protesters not that long ago.

I'm going to ask you a question about your concerns around Bill C-18. We have heard a lot of concerns about the Internet tax and the possible threat to freedom of information for Canadians.

What is the risk to freedom of information if Bill C-18 passes?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Can I just follow up on that? Seeing all of the accounts of this C-18 legislation in reference to your company and the precedent it's supposed to set globally for you, I would have thought that at least you would send your CEO to speak to a country that represents 38 million people—or to the House of Commons that represents 38 million people.

I will move on to my next comment or question. I just spoke two days ago in the House of Commons about Bill C-27 and its implications for Canadians' privacy. Google once attempted to build a smart city in Toronto that would have collected massive amounts of personal and very private information for money. The basis of your business is surveillance, and you make a lot of money doing it.

We now see you as a company threatening Canadians that you will be censoring, or you have censored, 4% of the news content in Canada.

I have a simple question. Yes or no, do you think it's okay to block any news content to Canadians?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Could you give the committee the list of product tests you have done in this country in 2023? I'm going to narrow it down for you. After this committee, can you give us a list of the product testing you have done in this country from January 1, 2023 until today, in March? We have no idea.

I say that because, in the last two weeks...Beijing interference in this country. I say it's Google interference now. I don't know what you're testing for. Canadians don't know what you're testing for. We have no idea. Guess what? You're going to give us the list, because I'm going to demand it from Google Canada. Give us a list of what you're product testing on Canadians.

Today we find out that 1.2 million—4% of the population—happen to.... Their democratic right has been put to the side, wouldn't you say? I don't know. You might have Google-tested me. I might be one of the 1.2 million who.... All of a sudden, I can't get the Google search. Is that fair to me—not knowing you're doing this to me or other Canadians?

I don't think that's fair. You're a $1.2- to $1.3-trillion company. I think you exceeded your boundaries. I think Canadians would also say, today, that Google has exceeded its boundaries. I know you're upset about Bill C-18 and want product testing and all of that, but that's not what we're here for. I think Google has overstepped its boundaries in this country in deciding what the product testing is all about. We have no idea.

I would like to assure this committee that you will give us a list of what Google, in this country, has done for product testing in the last two and a half months. That will give Mr. Kee something to do, because I don't really want to hear from him. That will give him something to do when we leave committee today.

Thank you.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

There is no need, Ms. Geremia. I'll leave my question hanging, because I won't get the answer. I think you are telling us absolutely nothing about this. You can't contradict the people who are being tested now.

At every meeting this committee has held to study this issue, Google representatives have always said that they do not agree with the bill, but that they will comply with the legislation, as they do in every country where they do business.

Ms. Geremia, Bill C‑18 is going to pass, whether you like it or not. Since Google claims to act as a good corporate citizen in every country it does business in, will it comply with the legislation, yes or no?

[Jason Kee]

The Google news showcase commercial arrangements had no bearing on the application of the test. Again, those are not secret, nor is the test.

The specific definitions of eligible news business and the application of Bill C-18 were the basis on which the tests were being undertaken, because it was really to understand what the impact would be on both the product and the users in the event that we were no longer able to serve links.

[Jason Kee]

In the case of Bill C-18, the effort was to utilize that bill—

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I'm sorry, but we're not talking about Bill C-18 here, sir. I asked you specifically how Google is deciding what's news and what's not news for the purpose of this arbitrary test.

[Jason Kee]

As part of the normal course, product teams, legal teams and other experts, including, where appropriate, leadership, will conduct assessments with respect to what the potential impacts of legislative initiatives like Bill C-18 might be.

In the case of Bill C-18—