Most provinces pass on Ottawa and Quebec's boycott of Facebook, Instagram

Facebook and Instagram logos. The federal government has received most of its support in its brewing battle against Meta and Google from Quebec. Photo by Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

OTTAWA – Most provinces say it will business as usual for their advertising plans on Facebook and Instagram, after Wednesday’s announcements by the federal and Quebec governments that they would boycott of the Meta-owned platforms over the company’s promise to completely block Canadian news on in its platforms in the next few weeks.

Spokespeople for the governments of Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and British Columbia all told National Post this week that they have no plans to pull ads from Facebook and Instagram. Spokespeople for the governments of Manitoba and Alberta did not respond to emailed questions by deadline.But on Thursday, the head of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce announced his group would join Ottawa and Quebec’s ad boycott and called on businesses to do the same.

On Wednesday, federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said his government would cease all ad purchases on Facebook and Instagram as long as Meta was proceeding with its declared plans to block Canadian news from its platforms in response to the Online News Act.

Quebec Premier François Legault followed suit the same day, stating that he was doing so in solidarity with the media, because “no company is above the law.”Rodriguez’s decision was the latest escalation in a growing conflict between the Trudeau government and tech giants Meta and Google over the Liberals’ Online News Act, formerly known as Bill C-18, which became law in June.

When the new law takes effect later this year, it will obligate tech companies to reach commercial deals with news publishers to share revenue for news stories that appear on the tech companies’ platforms. (Postmedia, publisher of the National Post, is in favour of the legislation.)

If the companies do not publish news stories, they will be exempt from the requirement to negotiate with news publishers.Both companies have denounced the legislation as flawed and opposed it repeatedly as it passed through Parliament. They both argued it did not take into consideration how their platforms work and that the law could even force them to pay for people sharing links to news stories.

But while Google has only threatened to remove Canadian news from its various platforms before the law takes effect, Meta has already begun limiting access to news for some users on Facebook and Instagram. That earned them a particularly harsh rebuke from Rodriguez, who accused Meta of being “unreasonable” and “irresponsible.”

In a statement Thursday, Meta spokesperson Lisa Laventure said its news blocking would extend to all Canadian users “in the coming weeks.”“Unfortunately, the regulatory process is not equipped to make changes to the fundamental features of the legislation that have always been problematic, and so we plan to comply by ending news availability in Canada in the coming weeks,” she said.

Google spokesperson Shay Purdy declined to comment on Rodriguez’s boycott announcement. Instead, he pointed reporters to a blog post by the company’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, arguing that the Online News Act “remains unworkable.”

“The Government has not given us reason to believe that the regulatory process will be able to resolve structural issues with the legislation,” Walker wrote.

“We have now informed the Government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada, and that C-18 will also make it untenable for us to continue offering our Google News Showcase product in Canada.”The federal government has received most of its support in its brewing battle against Meta and Google from Quebec.

On Thursday, Montreal Chamber of Commerce CEO Michel Leblanc called on the business sector to send a “clear signal” to web giants like Google and Meta that “no company is above the law.”

“For us, (Meta’s) strategy is an affront to the decision of a democratically elected government, which works in the interest of the Canadian economy,” Leblanc wrote in an open letter announcing that his organization would be suspending its activities on Meta-owned platforms until it “complies with Canadian law.”

On Wednesday, all major Quebec media organizations — namely Quebecor, La Presse and Cogeco —announced they would cease advertising on Facebook and Instagram until they cancelled plans to block Canadian news.CBC/Radio-Canada also confirmed it was pausing advertising on Meta’s platforms Wednesday evening.

“Access to news, a plurality of voices and a diversity of viewpoints are all cornerstones of a healthy democracy. We join other Canadian media organizations that are calling for Canadians’ access to news — all news, from all outlets, both public and private — to be protected,” the public broadcaster said in a statement.