The owner of an independent digital news outlet serving Indigenous communities in Atlantic Canada says she’s scrambling after Meta’s decision to remove Canadian news from its platforms.
Maureen Googoo, owner and editor of Ku’ku’kwes News, from Sipenkne’katik, 31 kilometers north of Halifax, says her work is important, because Indigenous communities are looking for someone to provide context and explain what issues of the day mean to them.
She told CBC Indigenous her site depends on the traffic from social media sharing and Meta’s pushback, related to the recently introduced Canadian Online News Act, is detrimental to her work.
“To me that’s more bread and butter than anything and I am concerned down the road of what it’s going to mean for us for a revenue stream,” Googoo said.
“Every month it’s always a balance for us. Are we making enough money to pay the bills?”
The act, known as Bill C-18 as it worked its way through Parliament, received royal assent on June 22.
The government’s stated rationale for the legislation was it would ensure digital platforms curating Canadian news shared revenues with news providers.
Meta promised to push back and earlier this month, some Canadian users of Facebook and Instagram were blocked from viewing or sharing media content.
“We have been transparent and have made it clear to the Canadian government that the legislation misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms,” a statement from Meta posted online said.
“The legislation is based on the incorrect premise that Meta benefits unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, when the reverse is true.”
Googoo said Facebook became a place where Indigenous communities held important conversations and she feels she helped play a role in contextualizing some of those conversations. Now, she’s forced to get that audience to come to her website in other ways.
Elsewhere, another Indigenous organization feels unfairly targeted by Meta’s sweeping ban.
Justus Polson-Lachache is the director of public relation for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke and said their public service announcements have been blocked on Facebook. ( Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke)
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK), through a press release, said its public service announcements were blocked on Facebook.
“Social media for us has become one of our biggest mechanisms to deliver information to the community and its definitely hindering how we inform our community members,” said Justus Polson-Lahache, director of public relations for MCK, told CBC Indigenous.
He said MCK, which represents the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community, south of Montreal, is not a news organization and should be allowed to share content on social platforms.
Polson-Lahache said there are about 8,000 people in Kahnawà:ke and Facebook was a vital tool to communicate instantly with them.
He said the community’s public service announcements are still broadcast over radio and published in newspapers and local media, but the ban on Facebook prevents a two-way conversation.
Sandy Maloney, host of Shubie FM, a local radio station in Sipekne’katikik and said she used her Facebook page to share other Canadian news the Mi’kmaw community may find interesting.
Meta’s ban doesn’t affect her business operations as much because she’s still able to stream and broadcast on the radio waves and her website. But Facebook was a quick way to engage with her audience and now she can’t do that as well, Maloney said.
“It just kind of angers me, it just gets me like, are you kidding?” said Maloney of Meta’s decision.
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.
