Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.
I'm going to make a preliminary observation and then suggest four recommendations.
First of all, I'm stunned to hear Meta and Google spokespersons say that information has no value for them. I would note that a French researcher, Tristan Mattelart, clearly documented Facebook's efforts, when it was starting out, to encourage the media to create their own Facebook pages. At the time, Meta/Facebook was looking for high-quality content to enhance its subscribers' experience.
Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has regularly stated that his company's mission is to build better communities. In 2017, he specified that the communities Facebook wanted to build had to meet five criteria, one of which was to build informed communities.
Meanwhile, Google realized as early as 2001 just how valuable information could be. At the time of the September 11 attacks, Google realized that users were searching for keywords such as “World Trade Center” and “attack”, and that they couldn't find anything about the events because Google's indexing robots only visited each website once a month. So the company's engineers thought they'd better start indexing news websites much more often to meet the needs of their users. Information enriched Google's search results and has also enriched the company for over 20 years.
Now I'm going to make four recommendations regarding the Online News Act, the former Bill C‑18. We now realize that it perhaps wasn't the best approach. I would encourage you legislators to trust in your role as parliamentarians to avoid falling victim to the intimidation tactics that the online platforms use.
My first recommendation is based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 3 of the charter guarantees the democratic rights of Canadians. As stated on the justice department's website, “A measure that denies electors sufficient information to enable them to make an informed choice in voting may compromise the right to vote guaranteed by section 3.”
The blocking of news by Meta is, in my opinion, such a measure. The public's right to information is not expressly guaranteed by charters, but I think everyone here would agree that it's a fundamental right. Insofar as 45% of Canadians today get their information from social networks, I believe the legislator would have an argument for obliging online platforms to provide information to Canadians, or at the very least prohibiting them from blocking information of public interest to Canadians. I think that section 51 of the Online News Act is a step in this direction. It simply needs to be made retroactive.
Moving on to my second recommendation, web giants Google and Meta have both said they are ready to contribute to a fund to support journalism in Canada. That's great. Except that it will now be up to the legislator to define the amount. It could amount to a percentage of the Canadian sales of online platforms that have provided Canadians with access to information over the past 15 years. You may be wondering how we can calculate these sums if we have no financial information regarding activities on these platforms in Canada. That brings me to my third recommendation.
You're no doubt familiar with Australia's ongoing inquiry into online platforms, which is scheduled to run from 2020 to 2025. The seventh progress report from that survey was just released yesterday. When you read it, you realize that Australia requires listed multinationals to provide information to it. I'm not just talking about those on the web, but rather about all multinationals that have subsidiaries in Australia. They are required to provide Australia with detailed financial statements on their subsidiaries. Why doesn't Canada have the same tools? Give us the means to acquire that information.
My last recommendation is that we collectively give ourselves more resources. In order to protect citizens, governments have given themselves the right to see how certain companies handle food, for example. They have given themselves the right to inspect aircraft and search travellers' luggage. There are a lot of good reasons to conduct this kind of activity.
Online platforms, for all their benefits, can also have harmful effects. Insofar as they have demonstrated, over the past 12 years, their inability to mitigate these harmful effects themselves, I believe the time has come for Canada to give itself the right to inspect what information these companies possess about Canadian citizens. I'm not just talking about Meta and Google, but also about Uber, Netflix, Spotify and OpenAI.
In my opinion, while of course respecting users' privacy, Canada should give itself the right to access these companies' databases and examine their algorithms. I know that the algorithms are like the Caramilk secret, but the well-being of Canadians supersedes the commercial interests of these companies.
This right should also be accompanied by obligations for these platforms to provide, again while respecting user privacy, programming interfaces, APIs, to enable researchers like me, Mr. Geist and others in Canada, to study what's happening on these platforms, which are playing an increasing role in the lives of Canadians.