Canada’s heritage minister insists the federal government is still working to get Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal to compensate Canadian news organizations as part of the regulatory process for the controversial Online News Act.
Bill C-18, or the Online News Act, passed in June, and lays out a framework that would require digital giants such as Google and Meta to develop agreements with Canadian news sites to provide them with compensation for hosting their journalistic content on their platforms.
Pascale St-Onge — who was tasked with overseeing the negotiations over Bill C-18 with Google on behalf of the government — told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday, she’s still willing to bargain with Meta.
“We’re still looking at everything that we can do to try to bring Meta back to the table,” St-Onge said. “And of course, my door is always open.”
In response to the legislation, Meta started blocking Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram this summer, while Google threatened to do the same and block certain news content from its search engine.
But the federal government announced this week it had reached a deal with Google, which will see the tech giant pay $100 million annually to publishers, indexed to inflation, and continue to allow access to Canadian news content on its platform.
“But what I can say is that Meta, yes, decided to ban news in Canada, but we’re seeing that they’re doing this across the world,” she also said, citing the examples of Meta’s different rules and agreements with Australia and some European countries, as examples. “So this looks also like a business decision from Mark Zuckerberg to leave their platform to disinformation and misinformation, and I think that the public should be very worried about that.”
Reuters reported in August that data from different independent tracking firms showed Meta blocking news links on its platforms in Canada “had almost no impact on Canadians’ usage of Facebook.”
And when pressed on what should be inferred from the data showing Meta blocking Canadian news from its platforms hasn’t affected the company’s bottom line, St-Onge said the tech giant should still negotiate with the government as Google did.
“We passed the bill because it’s important that the platforms that make money off of Canadian content should compensate the newsrooms that create that content,” she said. “Meta took a bad decision, in my opinion, their platform would be much better with news on it.”
On Wednesday, St-Onge also told Kapelos on CTV News Channel’s Power Play that she’s “had conversations” with Meta, but that “Facebook has made it pretty clear that they’re against the principle of compensating the news sector for the value that they bring to their platform.”
She also said she’d met with Rachel Curran, the head of public policy for Meta Canada, to discuss the issue, and reiterated that her “door is always open.”
“Ms. Curran met with the minister at her request in August, to keep the government informed as we ended news availability,” Meta spokesperson Lisa Laventure said in an email statement to CTVNews.ca. “As we have repeatedly shared, regulations cannot address the fundamental challenges of the legislation, and we relayed this to the minister at that time. “
Laventure also reiterated the company’s stance that pulling Canadian news entirely from its platforms is “the only way (to) reasonably comply with the Online News Act.”
The legislation comes into effect on Dec. 19.
With files from CTVNews.ca’s Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello and CTV’s Question Period Senior Producer Stephanie Ha
MTY Food Group Inc. says its profit and revenue both slid in its most recent quarter.
The restaurant franchisor and operator says its net income attributable to owners totalled $34.9 million in its third quarter, compared with $38.9 million a year earlier.
The results for the period ended Aug. 31 amounted to $1.46 per diluted share, down from $1.59 per diluted share a year prior.
The company behind 90 brands including Manchu Wok and Mr. Sub attributed the fall to impairment charges on property, plants and equipment along with intangibles assets.
Its revenue decreased slightly to $292.8 million in the quarter from $298 million a year ago.
While CEO Eric Lefebvre saw the quarter as a sign that the company’s ongoing restructuring is starting to bear fruits, he said the business was also hampered by significant delays in construction and permitting that resulted in fewer locations opening.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
Taiga Motors Corp. says the Superior Court of Québec has approved its sale to a British electric boat entrepreneur.
The Montreal-based maker of snowmobiles and watercraft says it will be purchased by Stewart Wilkinson.
Wilkinson’s family office is behind marine electrification brands that include Vita, Evoy, and Aqua superPower.
Wilkinson and Taiga did not reveal the terms or value of the deal but say Wilkinson will assume Taiga’s debt to Export Development Canada and has committed to funding Taiga’s business plan.
The companies say the transaction will allow them to achieve greater economies of scale and deliver high-performance products at compelling prices to accelerate the electric transition.
The sale comes months after Taiga sought bankruptcy protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act to cope with a cash crunch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
Toronto-Dominion Bank is facing fines totalling about US$3.09 billion from U.S. regulators in connection with failures of its anti-money laundering safeguards.
The bank also received a cease-and-desist order and non-financial sanctions from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that put limits on its growth in the U.S. after it was found that TD had “significant, systemic breakdowns in its transaction monitoring program.”
