Canadians would no longer be able to access news on Facebook or Instagram if the federal government’s proposed Online News Act passes in its current form, the parent company behind the two popular social media platforms said.
Meta spokesperson Lisa Laventure shared the decision in an email on Saturday, saying the bill’s current provisions would place the company in an untenable position.
“A legislative framework that compels us to pay for links or content that we do not post, and which are not the reason the vast majority of people use our platforms, is neither sustainable nor workable,” she wrote.
Tech giants like Meta and Google have long fought against the proposed law known as Bill C-18, which would require digital giants such as Meta and Google to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
Large Canadian media companies and the federal Liberal government have supported the bill, saying it would level the playing field for news outlets that compete with tech firms for advertising dollars.
“Once again, it’s disappointing to see that Facebook has resorted to threats instead of working with the Canadian government in good faith,” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement.
“This tactic didn’t work in Australia, and it won’t work here.”
His remarks were a reference to Facebook’s move to block access to news in Australia after a similar law was discussed in 2021. The tech company quickly backtracked after the Australian government made changes to an arbitration mechanism in the bill.
But the company has since threatened to block news access in other countries such as the United States, where Congress was considering similar legislation last year known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act.
Facebook has been floating the potential to block news access in Canada for many months as Bill C-18 wound through parliament.
Marc Dinsdale, Meta Canada’s head of media partnerships, raised the idea in an October 2022 statement, where he argued the proposed legislation presumes his company “unfairly benefits from its relationship with publishers, when in fact the reverse is true.”
He claimed posts with links to news articles made up less than three per cent of what people see in their Facebook feed and said Canadians tell his company they want to see less news and political content on its platforms.
“We have repeatedly shared with the government that news content is not a draw for our users and is not a significant source of revenue for our company,” he said.
But Rodriguez and publishers have argued tech companies are snatching advertising revenues away from media companies.
A 2018 report from the Canadian Media Concentration Project revealed Google had snagged half the country’s internet advertising market share that year, with Facebook trailing at 27.3 per cent and Bell, Torstar, Twitter and Postmedia sitting at under 2 per cent each.
That equates to $3.8 billion in advertising revenue for Google, up from $2.8 billion in 2016.
Facebook made $2.1 billion in advertising in 2018, while Bell made $146 million, Torstar earned $120 million, Twitter got $117.5 million and Postmedia made $116.4 million.
Yet Facebook has argued that it is helping publishers rather than harming them.
The company’s feed delivered more than 1.9 billion clicks worth $230 million to publishers in the 12 months leading up to April 2022, Dinsdale said.
This content was all voluntarily placed on Facebook by publishers, he added.
“We are being asked to acquiesce to a system that lets publishers charge us for as much content as they want to supply at a price with no clear limits,” he wrote.
“No business can operate this way.”
But Rodriguez said Canadians “won’t be intimidated” by Meta’s tactics.
“All Facebook has done up to this point is show up at committee, delay, obstruct, refuse to answer questions, and threaten Canadians,” he said.
“We’ve always said we’re open to working with Facebook, and we still are.”
Google recently began a five-week test that limited access to news for some Canadian users. It is set to end March 16.
At a House of Commons heritage committee meeting on the bill on Friday, Sabrina Geremia, the head of Google Canada, argued the proposed legislation would “radically change” the framework her company uses to host free news links.
“The bill is a moving target, with key questions left unanswered,” she said. “We don’t know if we will be able to continue to link to news as we do today, so we are testing potential changes to the way we currently freely link to news under that framework.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 11, 2023.
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Meta funds a limited number of fellowships that support emerging journalists at The Canadian Press.
Torstar holds an investment in The Canadian Press as part of a joint agreement with subsidiaries of the Globe and Mail and Montreal’s La Presse.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
