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]

That helps to clarify it. Thanks very much.

Now, coming back to this issue...and of course we're considering amendments, so I'm a bit perplexed about some members around the committee who seem to say we should throw the whole bill out because there are some amendments that need to be brought forward. It's obvious that the bill can be improved. One component is around particularly small community endeavours, owner-operator newspapers or broadcasting entities such as community radio, as is often the case in smaller communities.

Can you speak to the importance of this approach that we saw in Australia with Country Press Australia representing about 150 small community newspapers across Australia and getting the important provision for funding that helped to revitalize the sector, and to the importance of ensuring that small community papers are included? That must mean considering some amendments to Bill C-18.

[Philip Palmer]

My problem is that I don't think it's a good first step. I think it's a bad first step, and it will be a fatal first step for a lot of journalistic organizations and news organizations. That's my concern about this.

The American model that is being suggested is to bring together a coalition of everybody who's in the news business. Bill C-18 doesn't do that. It allows for a partition between big players and small players. There's nothing that forces them into a collective. Without that, you're going to get a lot of losers and very few winners.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Palmer, I'd like us to go back to the regulation of companies that do business primarily through online platforms. We talk a lot about Google and Facebook, but you care more about the entire Internet. You care about making it easy for everyone to access and enjoy what the Internet has to offer.

Do you believe that commerce carried out by businesses should not be regulated in general, or do you primarily object to bills like C‑18 and C‑11?

Is your position on this general? Could you define it?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

If we get rid of Bill C-18 and put a fund in, that would be better. If we keep Bill C-18, are there amendments you would like to see to it?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I have a question for Ms. Gardner, the same question I asked Mr. Palmer.

Do you think that small media organizations will benefit under Bill C-18?

[Philip Palmer]

That's probably a better solution than Bill C-18 in terms of being able to get money into the very lowest levels of the journalistic community. I don't think the present system ensures that result.

[Philip Palmer]

Actually, no, I don't think so. It's hard to conceive of how these small organizations can coalesce and resource the kind of bargaining process that Bill C-18 envisages.

The principal difficulty with Bill C-18 is that it's a partitioned process. The big players can afford to enter into the bargaining process, hire the experts, the lawyers, etc., to support their positions and have them adjudicated. That's not true of similar efforts on behalf of small independent community newspapers, and so on, which we also don't have the infrastructure in place to support.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

It's Marilyn Gladu. Thank you, Chair.

My question is for Mr. Palmer.

Do you think that small media organizations will be benefited under Bill C-18?

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Singer, let's pick up on that line of questioning. Can you see anything in Bill C-18 or in your American equivalent, the JCPA, that would stifle innovation in news?

[Sue Gardner]

I do agree that a lot has been brought into the room today that is not germane to Bill C-18, and is not about news organizations and their relationship with news disseminating platforms.

I think we all agree, presumably, that there are many reasons to be critical of big tech. Those do include the algorithmic amplification of inflammatory material. I think that is something that the House is intending to grapple with through online harms legislation. That's a really important issue.

I'm on the board of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. That is what we track: anti-Semitism and hate of various kinds, and racism in Canada, including what's disseminated by the platforms. It's an important issue. I don't want to diminish or make fun of the importance of the issue.

I think your instinct is correct. There's an anti-big tech sentiment increasingly over the past, let's say, five years and it makes big tech a convenient target. I think that is some of what is happening here.

Big tech has a lot of money. I think it's perfectly reasonable to impose taxes upon big tech and, as I said, use that to fund journalism, but personally, I could live without the moral judgment because I don't think it's appropriate.

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

Thanks.

Mr. Singer, I would like to come back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago, hate and disinformation.

We have seen Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and the deliberate promotion by him of appalling disinformation around the attack on Speaker Pelosi's husband. We have had criticisms levied against big tech for their refusal to act promptly to counter disinformation. I wanted to see if you had any comments about that growing disinformation coming from big tech.

Also, there's the other side, which is having responsible journalism. We have the crazed extremism of Fox News and we counter that with the kind of journalistic integrity, for example, that comes from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is often opposed by extremists.

To what extent does the JCPA cover public broadcasting like PBS in the United States? To what extent do you feel it's important that public broadcasting be covered by an approach, for example, like Bill C-18 that helps to counterbalance this crazed extremism we see from Fox News and the deliberate disinformation that we're seeing from Elon Musk's Twitter and from other big tech companies that seem to profit from the engagement that comes from this disinformation?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Palmer, perhaps you could respond in writing later on. I have about 30 seconds left. I really have very little time.

Ms. Gardner, let's put aside our differing opinions on how appropriate Bill C‑18 is.

I know that you want to protect quality journalism. However, I must tell you that I don't entirely disagree with challenging the two journalists per media outlet rule. I don't think that's true for the new journalism models that define what quality media is. Nor do I feel that's what's going to protect regional media.

Do you feel we should place more emphasis on journalistic quality criteria and base it on journalistic standards rather than the number of journalists? Would that criterion be acceptable to you?

Please take only a few seconds to respond, because I have very little time left.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I will also have the 18 seconds of speaking time that Mr. Housefather didn't use.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Palmer, let's go back to the brief that you submitted to the committee last week.

In the brief, you talk about the definition of news content being too broad and unclear. In your view, the act could apply to podcasting services like Apple and Spotify, voice assistants like Alexa and Siri and potentially even app stores. However, you don't explain how that might be the case in your brief.

If you read section 27(1) of the bill, which specifies what businesses are eligible, how do you match these businesses with those criteria?

Can you clarify that for me?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

It's clear to me that Bill C-18 is not going to meet its desired goal of helping small local newspapers because we've excluded any that have less than two full-time journalists, and it's clear that Bell, CBC and Rogers are going to get the lion's share of the money.

I'm going to focus my time on amendments that we could make to the bill, because the NDP-Liberal coalition is going to force it through and I want to reduce the harm as much as possible.

Mr. Palmer, you talked about how we should delete the undue preference part of the bill because it's problematic and how 52D from the Australian act would be better.

You also mentioned another part of the bill that should be deleted, but I didn't catch that. Could you let me know what that is?

[Sue Gardner]

Yes, absolutely.

I would throw in there, too, the indie publishers and the digital start-ups—all the little guys, whether they're operating at a local level or not.

Originally, the indie start-up folks opposed Bill C-18. Then when it became pretty clear that it was likely to go through—and I think this has happened with a lot of entities—I think they shifted their focus to try to tweak it and have some amendments made so that they would be less disadvantaged by it.

They do not want it and it doesn't surprise that local news operations don't want it either, especially those that are explicitly excluded from it because they have fewer than two full-time journalist employees.

The unintended consequences—

I'm sorry. Go ahead.