Thank you, Chair.
Again, thank you, guys, for taking the time to be with us here today and providing us this briefing from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. I share the chair's remarks on now fully understanding the full name but knowing what it was only in short form before now.
I want to ask you today about the Online News Act, Bill C-18. One of the factors the CRTC must consider under the act is whether local and independent news outlets are truly benefiting.
However, we've already heard from local outlets, such as the River Valley Sun, that their audience essentially disappeared overnight when Meta pulled out. Before Bill C-18, the River Valley Sun, which distributes 6,000 free newspapers monthly, relied heavily on Facebook to share its content. It saw around half a million engagements in a typical month before the news ban saw the audience abruptly cut off.
The ban is also causing financial pain. The River Valley Sun, Theresa Blackburn's newspaper, “used to go live on Facebook at some local events, with the businesses paying for that coverage.” Blackburn said that losing that ability has cost them “the equivalent of two months of printing newspapers, or the cost of hiring a summer student.”
Given what we've seen so far, do you think you can confidently say that independent rural and start-up publishers are benefiting from this legislation, or do you feel that they're being further marginalized?