Tech giant Meta has decided to block Canadians’ ability to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram if Ottawa’s online news bill becomes law, The Globe and Mail has learned.
The company made the decision this week amid concerns that it is not clear what the financial burden imposed by the legislation, known as Bill C-18, will be.
The bill would make Google and Meta compensate news organizations for posting or linking to their work.
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the company is planning to remove Canadians’ access to both written and broadcast news after Bill C-18 becomes law, if changes to the legislation are not made. The tech giant said it would warn Canadians of changes to its services in advance.
The online news bill has passed through the Commons and is currently being considered in the Senate. It is expected to complete its passage through Parliament by summer.
“If the Online News Act passes in its current form, we will end the availability of news content on Facebook and Instagram for people in Canada,” said Lisa Laventure, a Meta spokesperson. “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 platform, is neither sustainable nor workable.”
Posts with links to news articles make up less than 3 per cent of what Canadians see on their Facebook feeds, she added. She said this is not a significant source of revenue.
Facebook has warned that the system Bill C-18 would set up would allow publishers to charge it for as much content as they want to post on the platform, “with no clear limits.”
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Meta’s decision to pull back from news is a threat intended to persuade the government to make changes that would reduce the amounts the tech platforms would be required to pay news organizations.
Facebook temporarily withdrew access to news in Australia in response to a similar law, and restored it after the Australian government agreed to make changesthat lessened the legislation’s impact on the platform.
Mr. Rodriguez said it is “disappointing to see that Facebook has resorted to threats instead of working with the Canadian government in good faith.”
“This tactic didn’t work in Australia, and it won’t work here. Canadians won’t be intimidated. All we’re asking Facebook to do is negotiate fair deals with news outlets when they profit from their work,” he said. “This is part of a disappointing trend this week that tech giants would rather pull news than pay their fair share.”
Facebook has previously warned that withdrawing from news could be an option for it in Canada.
Publishers can currently share links and other content from their websites on their Facebook pages. The platform has argued this provides free marketing for news organizations, with an estimated value of more than $230-million.
For the past four weeks, Google has been blocking some Canadians’ access to news through its search bar, which it has said is part of a five-week-long test of a potential response to Bill C-18. Jason Kee, a Google public policy manager, told a Commons committee on Friday that “no decisions have been made” about whether it will restrict access to news permanently.
On Friday, MPs on the Commons heritage committee criticized Google for failing to warn the around 1.2 million Canadians included in the tests that it was restricting their access to news.
In a dramatic scene, Sabrina Geremia, the head of Google Canada, who was giving evidence to the committee via video link, was accused of failing to answer MPs’ questions and made to swear an oath partway through the two-hour hearing.
Chris Bittle, The Heritage Minister’s parliamentary secretary, told Ms. Geremia that “the members of this committee don’t think you are being truthful.”
He told her “you pretend to not know anything.”
“I think you’re being evasive,” he added. “You owe it to the Canadian people to answer these questions. You do billions of dollars worth of business here and Canadians expect answers. And we are here to ask them. So I expect answers.”
He said the committee may need to talk to the law clerk about her “wholly unacceptable” responses.
The committee also complained that Google had failed to complywith a request that it produce internal documents about its response to Bill C-18. Members said the company had produced only public information.
“Our experts and teams are going to continue to evaluate this document request,” Ms. Geremia said.
She admitted, after sustained questioning, that Google executives in the U.S. were aware of the decision to carry out the tests.
Last month, MPs voted to call Ms. Geremia and several other Google executives to testify for two hours. The others summoned were Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai; Kent Walker, its president of global affairs; and Richard Gingras, its vice-president of news.
But Google agreed to send only Ms. Geremia and Mr. Kee, who is based in Canada.
Conservative MP Martin Shields suggested Google had made a strategic mistake with the tests, and should have found another mechanism to resolve its objection to Bill C-18 “instead of playing games.” He said the tests had not gone down well with “grassroots” Canadians.
Conservative MP Kevin Waugh told Ms. Geremia: “We are not getting a lot of answers and we are very disappointed in your testimony today.” He said Canadians had not been warned about the tests.
“You’re a $1.2-, $1.3-trillion-dollar company and I think you’ve over-exceeded your boundaries,” he said.
Bloc QuebecoisMP Martin Champoux also expressed frustration over Ms. Geremia’s failure to answer questions, accusing Google of “disloyal bad-faith pressure tactics.”
Google’s Mr. Kee told the Commons committee that the company doesn’t know if it will be able to continue to link Canadians to news, because Ottawa’s online news bill will “radically change” the legal framework for providing free links to articles and broadcasts.
He said Google is testing a “range of potential responses” to Bill C-18.
Some Canadian news organizations, including The Globe, have already made compensation agreements with big tech platforms.
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.
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