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Facebook blocking Canadian news draws closer as Ottawa rejects Senate changes

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Bill C-18 would require Google and Facebook to compensate publishers when posting or linking to their work.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The prospect of Facebook permanently blocking Canadians’ access to news on its platform drew one step closer Tuesday after the government rejected a key Senate amendment pushed for by the technology giant.

The Senate transport and communications committee voted against a bid by Conservative senator Claude Carignan to exclude links to news under Bill C-18, after the government opposed the amendment.

Senators made a series of changes to the bill Tuesday, as the Prime Minister and Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez reiterated their condemnation of Facebook’s decision to block some Canadians’ access to news.

The online news bill would make Facebook and Google compensate news organizations for posting or linking to their work to support Canada’s news industry, which has seen advertising migrate to tech giants.

Facebook has warned that it will withdraw Canadians’ ability to see and share news on its platform if Bill C-18 passes without significant changes. This month it began conducting tests restricting about 1.2 million Canadians’ ability to find news.

“We’re not going to put up with Facebook’s bullying,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Tuesday.

“Facebook is choosing to block Canadians’ access to local news instead of paying their fair share. That’s unacceptable. Canadians need to be able to access news. It’s fundamental to our democracy.”

After some Canadians discovered they could not find news sites, including Le Journal de Québec, on Facebook Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez accused the social-media platform of “trying to intimidate the government of Canada.”

“It’s a clear attack on our democracy and they’re trying to intimidate a sovereign government,” he said. “They’re trying to intimidate the senators actually working on the bill and it happens exactly at the same moment that the bill comes out of the Senate committee.”

Facebook, which is owned by Meta, said it had not started the tests to coincide with the Senate hearing.

“Tests are underway and they began last week,” said Lisa Laventure, a Facebook spokeswoman.

Paul Deegan of News Media Canada, which represents the news industry, said the government should halt advertising with any company that blocks news, urging large corporations to follow suit.

“Blocking access to real news is fundamentally undemocratic. Canadians expect more from leading corporate citizens,” he said.

Facebook and Google oppose having to pay for posting links to news. Earlier this year, Google restricted around 1.1. million Canadians’ ability to search for news in tests of its response to the online news bill.

“We’re very concerned about the path we’re on and continuing to do everything we can to avoid a negative outcome for Canadians,” said Shay Purdy, a Google spokesman said on Tuesday. “We’re urgently seeking to work with the government on a compromise that would be workable for both platforms and publishers and clear the path for us to increase our investments in the Canadian news ecosystem.”

Google, Facebook and Apple have already signed some partnership deals with news organizations in Canada, including The Globe and Mail.

The Senate transport and communications committee voted to allow news organizations to opt out of the Bill C-18 bargaining framework, which would be regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission.

The bill will go this week to the Senate for its third reading. The Heritage Minister, who is keen for it to pass before Parliament’s summer break, will consider whether to accept the Senate amendments as the bill goes back to the Commons.

Quebec Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne introduced an amendment to make the C-18 regime kick in within six months of gaining royal assent. This would give Google and Facebook – if they do not withdraw from news – a deadline to conclude voluntary deals with news groups before the regulator gets involved.

In spite of government opposition, the committee also voted for a change to the bill proposed by Senator Miville-Dechêne to make the “value” of news central to negotiations between tech giants and news groups.

The government rejected a string of changes proposed by senators, including an attempt to stop the publicly funded CBC from being compensated under Bill C-18.

It failed to pass an amendment to try to prevent the CRTC “snooping” in newsrooms.

The Globe and Mail’s publisher and chief executive, Phillip Crawley, appeared before the Senate committee in late May and warned that Bill C-18 could pose a threat to media freedom by giving the CRTC “open-ended powers” to compel news organizations to hand over information.

The government introduced its own amendment to further protect the confidentiality of publishers’ commercial information. If members of an arbitration panel, helping facilitate deals between platforms and news groups, leak confidential data, they would now face financial penalties.

 

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Federal money and sales taxes help pump up New Brunswick budget surplus

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FREDERICTON – New Brunswick’s finance minister says the province recorded a surplus of $500.8 million for the fiscal year that ended in March.

Ernie Steeves says the amount — more than 10 times higher than the province’s original $40.3-million budget projection for the 2023-24 fiscal year — was largely the result of a strong economy and population growth.

The report of a big surplus comes as the province prepares for an election campaign, which will officially start on Thursday and end with a vote on Oct. 21.

Steeves says growth of the surplus was fed by revenue from the Harmonized Sales Tax and federal money, especially for health-care funding.

Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs has promised to reduce the HST by two percentage points to 13 per cent if the party is elected to govern next month.

Meanwhile, the province’s net debt, according to the audited consolidated financial statements, has dropped from $12.3 billion in 2022-23 to $11.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year.

Liberal critic René Legacy says having a stronger balance sheet does not eliminate issues in health care, housing and education.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Rent cap loophole? Halifax-area landlords defend use of fixed-term leases

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HALIFAX – Some Halifax-area landlords say fixed-term leases allow property owners to recoup operating costs they otherwise can’t under Nova Scotia’s rent cap.

Their comments to a legislative committee today are in reaction to plans by the government to extend the five per cent cap on rental increases to the end of 2027.

But opposition parties and housing activists say the bill’s failure to address fixed-term leases has created a loophole that allows large corporate landlords to boost rents past five per cent for new tenants.

But smaller landlords told a committee today that they too benefit from fixed-term leases, which they said help them from losing money on their investment.

Jenna Ross, of Halifax-based Happy Place Property Management, says her company started implementing those types of leases “because of the rent cap.”

Landlord Yarviv Gadish called the use of fixed-term leases “absolutely essential” in order to keep his apartments presentable and to get a return on his investment.

Unlike a periodic lease, a fixed-term lease does not automatically renew beyond its set end date. The provincial rent cap covers periodic leases and situations in which a landlord signs a new fixed-term lease with the same tenant.

However, there is no rule preventing a landlord from raising the rent as much as they want after the term of a fixed lease expires — as long as they lease to someone new.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Former military leader Haydn Edmundson found not guilty of sexual assault

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OTTAWA – Former vice-admiral Haydn Edmundson has been found not guilty of sexual assault and committing an indecent act, concluding a trial that began in February.

Edmundson was head of the military’s personnel in 2021 when he was accused of assaulting another member of the navy during a 1991 deployment.

The complainant, Stephanie Viau, testified during the trial that she was 19 years old and in the navy’s lowest rank at the time of the alleged assault, while Edmundson was an older officer.

Edmundson pleaded not guilty and testified that he never had sexual contact with Viau.

In court on Monday, a small group of his supporters gasped when the verdict was read, and Edmundson shook his lawyer’s hand.

Outside court, lawyer Brian Greenspan said his client was gratified by the “clear, decisive vindication of his steadfast position that he was not guilty of these false accusations.”

Justice Matthew Webber read his entire decision to the court Monday, concluding that the Crown did not meet the standard of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

He cited concerns with the complainant’s memory of what happened more than 30 years ago, and a lack of evidence to corroborate her account.

“There are just too many problems, and I’m not in the business of … declaring what happened. That’s not my job, you know, my job is to just decide whether or not guilt has been proven to the requisite standard, and it hasn’t,” Webber said.

During the trial, Viau testified that one of her responsibilities on board the ship was to wake officers for night watch and other overnight duties, and that she woke Edmundson regularly during that 1991 deployment.

The court has heard conflicting evidence about the wake-up calls.

Viau estimated that she woke Edmundson every second or third night, and she told the court that his behaviour became progressively worse during the deployment.

She testified that he started sleeping naked and that one night she found him completely exposed on top of the sheets.

Viau said she “went berserk,” yelling at him and turning on the lights to wake the other officer sleeping in the top bunk.

That incident was the basis for the indecent act charge.

Webber said he did not believe that Viau could have caused such a disruption on board a navy ship at night without notice from others.

“I conclude that (Viau’s) overall evidence on the allegation that Mr. Edmundson did progressively expose himself to her as being far too compromised to approach proof of those allegations that she has made,” he said in his decision.

Viau alleged that the sexual assault happened a couple of days after her yelling at Edmundson.

She testified at trial that he stopped her in the corridor and called her into his sleeping quarters to talk. Viau said Edmundson kept her from leaving the room, and he sexually assaulted her.

When Edmundson took the stand in his own defence he denied having physical or sexual contact with Viau.

During his testimony, Edmundson also said Viau did not wake him regularly during that deployment because his role as the ship’s navigator kept him on mostly day shifts.

Defence lawyer Brian Greenspan took aim at the Crown’s corroborating witness during cross-examination. The woman, whose name is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, was a friend of Viau’s on the ship.

She testified that she remembered the evening of the assault because she and Viau had been getting ready for a night out during a port visit, and she misplaced her reading glasses. She said Viau offered to go fetch them from another part of the ship but never came back, and that she went looking for her friend.

On cross-examination, the woman explained that she had told all of this to a CBC reporter in early 2021.

Greenspan produced a transcript of that interview that he said suggests the reporter told her key details of Viau’s story before asking her any questions.

Greenspan argued the reporter provided information to the witness and she wouldn’t have been able to corroborate the story otherwise.

In his decision, Webber said the woman’s evidence “cannot be relied upon in any respect to corroborate that evidence of the complainant, because it’s it’s clearly a tainted recollection, doesn’t represent a real memory.”

Edmundson was one of several senior military leaders accused of sexual misconduct in early 2021.

He stepped down from his position as head of military personnel after the accusation against him was made public in 2021. The charges were laid months later, in December 2021.

Edmundson testified that in February 2022, he was directed by the chief of the defence staff to retire from the Armed Forces.

The crisis led to an external review by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour in May 2022, whose report called for sweeping changes to reform the toxic culture of the Armed Forces.

The military’s new defence chief, Gen. Jennie Carignan, was promoted to the newly created role of chief of professional conduct and culture in an effort to enact the reforms in the Arbour report.

Outside court, Edmundson declined to comment on whether he was considering legal action against the government or the military.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.



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