Online News Act

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

Sponsor

Pablo Rodriguez  Liberal

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is, or will soon become, law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.

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.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

June 22, 2023 Passed Motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada
June 21, 2023 Failed Motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada (reasoned amendment)
June 20, 2023 Passed Time allocation for Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada
Dec. 14, 2022 Passed 3rd reading and adoption of Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada
May 31, 2022 Passed 2nd reading of Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada
May 31, 2022 Failed Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada (amendment)

CBC/Radio-CanadaOral Questions

December 5th, 2023 / 2:25 p.m.


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Papineau Québec

Liberal

Justin Trudeau LiberalPrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, we have always supported CBC/Radio-Canada and the services it provides to local communities across the country.

One of the first decisions we made as a government was to cancel the Harper government's cuts to our public broadcaster. Supporting local news and journalists in this difficult juncture is exactly why we introduced Bill C‑18.

While the Leader of the Opposition rejoices as Canadian families are facing layoffs, we will continue to support local news and journalists in Canada.

CBC/Radio-CanadaOral Questions

December 5th, 2023 / 2:25 p.m.


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Papineau Québec

Liberal

Justin Trudeau LiberalPrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, we have been very concerned about what is happening in our media, our art and our culture for years now.

That is why the government has taken concrete action to support media across the country, to invest in local journalism and to stand up against the web giants in favour of journalists and the work they do, which is essential to our democracy. For example, we were pleased to reach an agreement with Google regarding Bill C‑18.

We will continue to be there to support and defend journalists across the country, especially local journalists who play an essential role in our democracy.

Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB

Thank you, Mr. Menzies.

My follow-up to that, then, would be that Google went into a back room, entered into a deal with the government, and said that it would give $100 million to a collective of its choosing.

I find that very interesting. You have a big tech company that is going to ultimately determine which collective, if there are multiple, it is going to enter into this bargaining agreement with. It's going to hand the collective $100 million, and then that's supposed to go towards the perpetuation of news in the nation.

The minister has announced that the CBC has one-third of all the journalists in the country, and according to the regulations, we know that the money is supposed to be allocated according to the number of journalists in each office. The CBC, then, having one-third of the journalists in the country, would stand to gain $33 million. It already gains $1.4 billion in taxpayer money, and then it has access to another $400 million through advertising revenue and now the most recent Liberal announcement of $129 million in tax benefits.

I'm curious about the comment you made in your opening remarks with regard to the CBC and the fact that we actually can't level the playing field until it is omitted in terms of its ability to generate ad revenue. You also stated that it should be excluded from Bill C-18 or the $100 million that Google is granting. Can you comment on that further?

Peter Menzies

Sure. Unfortunately, one of the things that didn't get addressed in the way Bill C-18 ended up was the power imbalance issue. I had quite a bit of sympathy for that. Phillip Crawley used to raise that issue quite elegantly before this committee and before the Senate transportation committee. We're left without that.

Google would have to speak with regard to its intention regarding the fund, but putting the media in a position of being dependent on both taxpayers' money and taxpayers' benefits, and on big tech money—the two most powerful entities in our world that we need media to hold to account—which is the path we're going down right now, is just not where we want to be. We want to move forward. That's what I am trying to encourage here: that people think forward as to how we can get past these hurdles with Bill C-18, this roadblock that we've ended up with, this dead-end road that we've ended up with, and move forward to a place where the Unifor jobs can happen, where we can be flourishing and where journalists can be serving who they want to serve, i.e., readers and citizens.

That's basically where we are with that. Also, in terms of that, you don't have to like big tech to realize that. If you look at the National Post's editorial the other day, you will see that it went on about how terrible Google is and about some of the things like the antitrust suits in the States. Then it said that they looked forward to being great partners with Google. That's where we are.

December 5th, 2023 / 11:30 a.m.


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Research Manager, American Economic Liberties Project

Dr. Erik Peinert

Okay—we will try that.

I will continue where I left off.

I earned a Ph.D. from Brown University, where my research focused on competition, monopoly and antitrust and has been published in leading academic journals.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about big tech's pattern of coercion in response to regulation and specifically Meta's recent action to block Canadian access to news articles across its platforms in retaliation for the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act. This follows a nearly identical action in 2021 by Meta, then Facebook, to extract concessions from Australia with respect to its news media bargaining code.

This discussion comes at a time when the news industry across the globe is in peril. It's an industry I've watched closely since I was a child. I was raised by a journalist. My mother began her career as a reporter for a local paper in rural New England, moving to various editorial roles in minor cities, to the newsroom at The Boston Globe, and then to executive positions at The Boston Globe and GateHouse Media, now Gannett. She now owns several successful, independent local papers in Massachusetts suburbs.

My personal and professional experiences lead me to make two principal points today, the first being about the platforms' business models in this market.

Media companies pay to produce and distribute content that a large mass of readers find valuable. They then sell ads to businesses that want their offerings in front of those readers. On one side, Meta and Google have become a central way for readers to access news media, which gives them power over journalism outlets, with an implicit threat to cut off readership.

On the other side, Meta and Google also have an effective duopoly over digital advertising, and both face or have faced antitrust lawsuits for illegal monopolization in this space.

These companies are not providing viewership so much as using their dual control over Internet traffic and advertising to monetize content that journalists produce at considerable expense. Recent research by economists at the University of Zurich indicates that 40% of Google's total revenue from search advertising would go to publishers and other journalism outlets if it faced more competition. With media companies paying to produce the product [Technical difficulty—Editor]

December 5th, 2023 / 11:20 a.m.


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Director , Center for Journalism and Liberty, Open Markets Institute

Dr. Courtney Radsch

Yes.

Sorry about that.

First, tech giants use their platforms to propagandize against regulation they oppose, distorting public perception and debate. We saw this in Australia, Canada, Brazil and the U.S. with news media bargaining legislation. Google used its search page to advocate against proposed laws, and reportedly told evangelical preachers in Brazil that they would no longer be able to quote the Bible online. The Brazilian judiciary accused Google of undue influence in the legislative process.

Second, tech giants censor news and withdraw access to data and APIs, as well as threatening to leave entire markets to avoid meaningful regulation and deter oversight. Meta even impeded sharing links from Australian government sites during parliamentary deliberations about the bargaining code there as part of its negotiation tactics, according to a whistle-blower.

Google and Meta have threatened to ditch news entirely, despite the fact that disinformation degrades their platforms while news provides greater value and a better user experience, and they have pressured news outlets to kill stories, including coverage of a recent study that estimated they owe U.S. publishers more than $12 billion a year. This pattern of censorship and distortion can also be seen in motions to suppress information, destruction of evidence and obstacles to public scrutiny, as with the historic antitrust trial against Google happening now in D.C., where it opposed audio livestreaming.

Third, they undermine democratic institutions, seek to handicap regulatory agencies and evade laws they don't like. We saw this in Meta's decision to censor news in Canada rather than comply with Bill C-18, and in its lawsuit against the FTC over attempts to force the company to comply with restrictions on data gathering.

Fourth, big tech companies spend more money in Washington, Brussels and other world capitals than virtually any other sector, through direct lobbying and by funding industry groups and fellowships that help shape how policy-makers think about issues they regulate, putting big tech-funded experts into the heart of policy-making.

Fifth and finally, big tech provides funding to most civil society, research and advocacy groups working in tech policy, digital rights, AI governance and the media bargaining code space, as well as journalism.

I do not want to disparage the work of these organizations, but the perception of interference, along with the potential to divert attention for more important and consequential issues, is a way to subvert demand for regulation. Research shows that big tech funding to media correlates with countries where governments are considering fair compensation legislation, and now AI companies are following the same playbook.

In conclusion, big tech companies generate chaos and disruption, which then they leverage to blame governments for crafting unworkable regulation that only becomes workable once modifications that benefit them the most are made.

Peter Menzies As an Individual

Thank you.

I hope I can provide some constructive remarks that you can take forward to help Canada's news organizations flourish once again.

First, though, I wish to clarify a couple of points.

I represent only myself. The blend of my experiences of three decades in journalism and a decade with the CRTC has given me a relatively unique perspective. I have been outspoken in raising the alarm concerning the problematic unintended consequences of legislation, much of which has unfortunately come to pass.

I've always done so only on behalf of myself. I am not a member of any political party, federal or provincial, nor do I contribute to any. I am not a member of any organization, a paid lobbyist or a shill for big tech, as has been inferred. I am just a citizen with a passion for sensible public policy and independent, competitive journalism.

I have no intention of retelling the story of Bill C-18. You all know that well enough.

The role of journalists in society is often described as being to hold the powerful to account, but in Canada, we now unfortunately have a news ecosystem in which most of our journalists could soon have at least half of their pay dependent on the government, Google and any other offshore money the CRTC might come up with as a result of hearings this week. Given that the two most powerful entities in our society are governments and large data-vacuuming tech companies, this is not where we want to be, for as much as the news organizations and journalists involved may swear on their mothers' graves that these realities do not and will not influence their coverage, what they say or how they view the situation, frankly, doesn't matter.

What matters is what the people who read, watch and listen to their news think. While, for sure, some people won't care, a great many will believe that news organizations are fatally compromised. As a result, the public's faith in journalists will continue to wither, and trust in journalism will eventually die. Many will increasingly come to see news organizations as businesses that saved their skin by selling their souls.

We need to find a better way forward. To that end, I recommend to you “And now, the news”, a policy paper authored by myself and Konrad von Finckenstein, published this spring by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. It calls for the development of a national news industry policy framework that would ensure that the news consumer is served by a healthy, modern, competitive and refreshed news ecosystem that delivers fair, balanced and accurate news that is trusted.

There's a lot to unpack in that paper, but there is one recommendation in it that you can act on, beginning right away. Get the CBC out of the advertising business.

There will be no flourishing for news organizations until the CBC's dualistic distortion of the marketplace is replaced with a level playing field. We will never have one of those, provided the CBC continues to compete for advertising revenue while being paid $1.3 billion a year by Parliament to be a public broadcaster.

That money is intended to allow the CBC to achieve its public mandate, and no doubt much of it does. However, it also allows the CBC to out-resource companies like The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Postmedia, Le Devoir and dozens of smaller start-ups, while soaking up as much as $400 million in advertising revenue. That's significantly more than all the government and Google supports combined.

This is not to say there is not a role for a public broadcaster, but that's not what we have. What we have is a publicly funded commercial broadcaster and online platform.

Meanwhile, TVA and CTV lay people off and Quebecor and Bell are begging the CRTC to get Netflix and Disney+ to subsidize their newsrooms. It's ridiculous.

A flourishing future for a free and independent press in this country is just not possible so long as the CBC exists not as a pure play public broadcaster but as a publicly funded commercial broadcaster and online platform operator. No industry could thrive in such circumstances.

CBC/SRC needs to be stripped of its ability to earn domestic advertising revenues and needs to streamline its operations to focus on its mandate and make its news freely available to others. Immediately eliminating it as a recipient of the Google fund would be a good start.

Thank you.

The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to meeting No. 103 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.

While public health authorities and the Board of Internal Economy no longer require mask-wearing indoors or on the precinct, masks and respirators are still excellent tools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. Their use is strongly encouraged, because these diseases are on the rise now.

I want to take this opportunity to remind all participants about some simple housekeeping.

You're not allowed to take screenshots of the proceedings, because it will be out there on the web later on.

This room is equipped with a powerful audio system. When you are speaking, it's really important that you not have other devices around to cause feedback. When you finish speaking, just press and turn off the mic. When you turn it on, be really careful that you're not echoing in the room, because it really affects the ears of the interpreters.

Finally, I want to remind everyone that questions go through the chair. This goes for the committee members as well.

Also, I will give you a 30-second heads-up when your time is up, so you will need to start thinking about how you will end your sentence.

I will also remind you that the way we speak to each other is really important. At committee and in parliamentary proceedings, it's important for us to be respectful of each other. We can differ, absolutely. That's what most of these meetings are about—differing and being argumentative with each other, etc. However, let's try to do this with a certain amount of decorum.

I want to thank the witnesses for coming today.

As you know, we're doing a study on the tech giants. This has been a real problem for us after the passage of Bill C-18.

As individuals, we have Peter Menzies and Pierre Trudel, who is a professor in the public law research centre at the Université de Montréal law school. We have the American Economic Liberties Project, Dr. Erik Peinert, research manager. We have the Center for Journalism and Liberty, Open Markets Institute, Dr. Courtney Radsch, director.

The Hub is in your notes, but they're not coming today. They are going to come another day.

Lastly, we have, from Unifor, Marc Hollin, national representative, and Julie Kotsis, media representative, national executive board.

I will begin.

You will all have five minutes to present. I will give you that 30-second shout-out so you can wrap it up. If you don't get to finish your presentation, remember that you can get your little bits in during the Q and A period.

Now, the five minutes is per organization, not per person, so if you're sharing your time in your organization, remember that you have only five minutes.

I'll begin with Peter Menzies and Pierre Trudel.

Peter Menzies is an individual and then Pierre Trudel is another individual.

Peter Menzies, please begin, for five minutes.

December 5th, 2023 / 8:55 a.m.


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Research Manager, American Economic Liberties Project

Dr. Erik Peinert

Hello. My name is Erik Peinert. I am the research manager at the American Economic Liberties Project, a Washington, D.C.-based policy and advocacy organization focused on reducing concentrated economic power to broaden opportunity for small businesses, workers and communities. I earned a Ph.D. from Brown University, where my research focused on competition, monopoly and antitrust and has been published in leading academic journals.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about big tech’s pattern of coercion in response to regulation, specifically Meta’s recent action to block Canadian access to news articles across its platforms in retaliation for the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act. This follows a nearly identical action in 2021 by Meta—then Facebook—to extract concessions from Australia with respect to its news media bargaining code.

This discussion comes at a time when the news industry across the globe is in peril. It’s an industry that I’ve watched closely since I was a child. I was raised by a journalist. My mother began her career as a reporter for a local paper in rural New England in the late 1970s, moving to various editorial roles in minor cities, to the newsroom at The Boston Globe, and then to executive positions at The Boston Globe and GateHouse Media, now Gannett. She now owns several successful, independent local papers in Massachusetts suburbs.

My personal and professional experiences lead me to make two principal points today, the first being about the platforms' business model in this market. Media companies pay to produce and distribute content that a large mass of readers find valuable. Then they sell ads to businesses that want their offerings in front of those readers. On one side, Meta and Google have become the central way that readers access news media, giving them power over journalism outlets, with an implicit threat to cut off readership. On the other side, Meta and Google also have an effective duopoly over digital advertising, and both face or faced antitrust lawsuits for illegal monopolization in this space.

These companies are not providing viewership so much as using their dual control over Internet traffic and advertising to monetize content that journalists produce at considerable expense. Recent research by economists at the University of Zurich indicates that 40% of Google’s total revenue from search advertising would go to publishers and other journalism outlets if it faced more competition. With media companies paying to produce the content and big tech getting the ad revenue, this destroys the model of journalism that a democracy needs.

Google’s decision to broker a deal with the Canadian government last week, to pay about $100 million Canadian per year to journalism outlets and publishers, simply confirms this. It acknowledges the value the platforms gain from journalism. The dispute was over the scale of payments and the terms of negotiation—whether to have one deal or require multiple bargaining groups—rather than whether compensation was owed at all.

This brings me to my second point: why these companies respond to regulatory proposals with bullying, threats and coercion. Rather than making rational business decisions in response to regulatory changes—as Meta claims it is doing with respect to Bill C-18—they see oversight and market governance as an existential threat to their predatory business models, and they react with hostility.

For example, these tech giants have been leveraging trade and investment frameworks to stop governments around the world from regulating them. Their latest strategy is pressuring governments to include digital trade clauses in bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. In this way, big tech companies are better positioned to argue that policies like the Online News Act are violations of trade law because they unfairly discriminate against companies like Google and Meta by virtue of their American origin, ignoring that these companies are targeted due to their size and not their place of incorporation.

This is also even though, as American, multinational companies, their home country is considering many of the same or similar policies, with the journalism competition and preservation act being repeatedly introduced in the American Congress. They succeeded, to a degree, by getting the North American governments to include expansive digital trade clauses in the 2020 CUSMA. U.S. industry associations are already making use of this language to claim that the Online News Act violates Canada’s commitments under the CUSMA.

More egregiously, Meta last week filed a lawsuit against the American Federal Trade Commission, one of its primary regulators, arguing that the commission itself is unconstitutional and, thus, effectively illegal as a regulator, rather than face an amended consent decree based on privacy violations that the company has repeatedly committed over the past decade, which the FTC has found involved children’s data.

Adding little of clear social value but having learned to profit from it nonetheless, Meta repeatedly shows disdain for the rule of law in this space, preferring to destroy the legal system in the United States and elsewhere rather than come up with a business model that is both profitable and socially beneficial.

Having seen the continually worsening struggles of the news industry over the course of my life, I applaud the Canadian government for passing the Online News Act. We hope to see similar policies passed in the United States.

Thank you.

November 30th, 2023 / 10:05 a.m.


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Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage

Isabelle Mondou

I will answer the second question. The work is very advanced on the bill, which was designed based on the consultation, the advisory committee and all the work that Minister Rodriguez led across the country on the consultation. I think the committee will be sad if I don't turn at least once to Owen for a question on Bill C-18, so I will do that.

November 30th, 2023 / 9:50 a.m.


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Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage

Isabelle Mondou

I think it's a very important message. They should not be forgotten.

You may know that in the department one of the things we've founded is the Indigenous Screen Office. It is giving indigenous people the capacity to do, under their own sovereignty, movies and productions of their own. I think you're raising a very important point, and I think Bill C-18 is putting the rules in place to make sure their voices are not forgotten.

November 30th, 2023 / 9:45 a.m.


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Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage

Isabelle Mondou

Madam Chair, I have two answers to that.

The first one on Bill C-18 is that, as the minister said, indigenous newspapers, print and radio will be included, and they will be at the table. They have already engaged.

The point you've raised is very important. They're trying to make sure that everybody in Canada knows about it and that no small community is forgotten. The outreach is going to be very important, and there will be a call when the legislation comes into force to make sure that people can raise their hands.

I also want to mention another program to you. We have in Canadian Heritage a broadcasting program for the north. If you want to put me in contact with those organizations, I will be happy to follow up with them.

Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB

I understand your good intentions. Unfortunately, they're misplaced. Those local media outlets will receive very little and possibly nothing at all.

This bill has killed them. Big tech has colluded with big government to do away with news in this country. There will be less choice for Canadians and less access for Canadians. It's a shame.

Let's not forget the fact that, actually, Google isn't signing on to Bill C-18. It's actually been granted an exemption.

Minister, when you celebrate the success of Bill C-18, let's look at this. Facebook walked away. It's not carrying news anymore, so it's not under Bill C-18. Google is the second one the bill applied to. It applied for an exemption. You entered into a backroom deal with Google, and it got what it wanted. Bill C-18 technically applies to no one. It's an absolute failure. It's a boondoggle, Minister. Let's be really clear about the facts here.

My next question is with regard to Laith Marouf, who received $130,000 from the heritage department. He used that money to perpetuate vile comments towards the Jewish community and towards the francophone community, which you claim to defend. Meanwhile, that $130,000 has been outstanding—

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Minister, thank you for joining us today. We hope you will come back often.

I'm going to ask you three questions. I would like brief answers, please.

First off, Laith Marouf, who was providing the most vile expressions of anti-Semitism and hate, was given a contract through Canadian Heritage. The NDP was the first party to call for the cancellation of that contract, and the government cancelled the contract. However, I want to know whether the money has been paid back—around $125,000—and what steps have been taken within Canadian Heritage to ensure that those who promote hate in any form will no longer get contracts through the government.

Secondly, on Meta, in testimony before this committee just this week, the Center for Countering Digital Hate stated very clearly, and its studies have shown us, that Meta, in its algorithms, is promoting the most vile anti-Semitism. Meta is not only refusing to respect Canadian democracy with Bill C-18, but has also been cited numerous times for that expression of vile anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. However, we provide subsidies to Meta and Google, according to the Library of Parliament, that are in the order of more than $1 billion every year. That is in the advertising tax credit as an indirect subsidy for Meta.

Why do we continue to subsidize Meta when it is not respecting Canadian democracy and when it has been implicated in the most vile expressions, through its algorithms, of anti-Semitic hate, Islamophobic hate, racism, misogyny, and homophobic and transphobic hate?

My final question concerns the agreement with Google.

We know that, with a crisis hitting news media across the country—we saw what happened at TVA—we need the web giants to contribute to our society and to the dissemination of news.

Google is also receiving this subsidy. Given that there is a shortfall between what the government was seeking and what we are receiving under this agreement, are you considering taking the subsidy away from Google? It represents $1 billion for Meta and Google combined, according to the Library of Parliament. The government could give that money to the media, whose job it is to provide news and inform Canadians about what is happening in their communities.

Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC

This leads me to a question that was raised earlier about CBC/Radio-Canada. Ms. Tait, the Crown corporation's president and CEO, was in your seat a few weeks ago. She openly admitted to us that, in addition to the funding granted to the corporation, which is $1.4 billion, CBC/Radio-Canada had other sources of financing, including advertising and subscription revenue. This other revenue amounts to $400 million. That piece of information raised everyone's eyebrows. Although we were aware of this reality, the fact that it was announced so casually, in the current context, was difficult to take. I think some restraint would have been in order.

That said, we agreed here in committee, when we studied Bill C‑18, that CBC/Radio-Canada met the criteria. CBC/Radio-Canada is also suffering the consequences of the arrival of the digital giants, but it isn't in the same boat as privately owned media.

In the current context, since we won't be receiving as much money as we'd hoped under an agreement with Google, do you think it would be appropriate for CBC/Radio-Canada representatives to announce that the corporation will not be joining the collective, in order to leave the money entirely for the media outlets that really need it?

Do you think this would be the right thing to do? Will you encourage them to do so?