Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) speaks at the U.S. Capitol on June 21, in Washington, DC. Ms. Klobuchar is urging Canada’s political leaders to stand their ground against pressure tactics from Google and Meta over the recently passed Bill C-18.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The U.S. senator leading the push in Washington for a new American law that would force Google and Meta to pay news publishers says political leaders must stand firm in response to pressure tactics such as threats to block links to Canadian news stories.
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar introduced and co-sponsors the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which was approved in June by the Senate judiciary committee. It still requires support of the full Senate, the House of Representatives and ultimately President Joe Biden.
The U.S. legislation is similar to Canada’s Online News Act, which Parliament approved last month and is scheduled to become law within six months after the drafting of regulatory details.
In a statement to The Globe and Mail, Ms. Klobuchar said Google and Meta’s tactics must be challenged.
“We’ve seen this show before. It is part and parcel of the tech playbook,” she said in response to a request for comment on the companies’ plans to block Canadian news.
“Of course monopolies will fight us every step of the way,” she said, “but we won’t back down – we must stand up for small businesses and competition while ensuring people have access to their local news.”
Ms. Klobuchar’s bill has 15 additional co-sponsors, including seven Republicans and one Independent. Senior South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is among the Republicans who have signed on to co-sponsor the bill.
There is also bipartisan support at the state level. A bill called The California Journalism Preservation Act was approved in the California state assembly last month by a vote of 55-6. The legislation, which also shares similarities with the Canadian law, will now be debated in the state Senate.
Both Google and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, are headquartered in California. Like in Canada, the two U.S. bills have generated heated debate in public-policy circles as to whether they will ultimately help or hurt the news industry.
Ariel Pollock, a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, said Washington is monitoring the Canadian debate to assess its potential impact south of the border.
“We are continuing to watch developments around the implementation of Bill C-18 and encourage Canada to consider U.S. stakeholder input as it implements this bill,” she said in an e-mail Monday.
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressed concern last year that the bill could discriminate against U.S. businesses.
Support for both bills in the U.S. from across the political spectrum is at odds with the Canadian political reaction to the Online News Act. The Liberal government’s bill was supported by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, but strongly opposed by the Official Opposition Conservative Party.
Google announced on June 29 that it intends to block Canadian news on its platform. It also said it will participate in discussions with the Canadian government about regulations, which leaves open the possibility of a last-minute arrangement. Meta had previously said it will block access to Canadian news as it believes the legislation is not workable.
Both companies have also said they will wind down existing voluntary deals with Canadian news organizations, including The Globe, related to compensation for use of news content. Meta is also ending a journalism fellowship program with The Canadian Press newswire that has funded about 30 positions for early-career journalists since 2020.
The companies’ tactics are generating international headlines. Large numbers of news organizations worldwide are trimming staff or shutting down entirely, which is putting pressure on policy makers to respond.
The Canadian and American bills are widely supported by major news publishers, but have been criticized by groups representing smaller news organizations.
LION Publishers, representing about 450 smaller publishers that are mostly in the U.S. but also in Canada, has said that the California bill would incentivize publishers to produce “cheap clickbait” and fail to support quality local journalism. Similar concerns have been expressed about the Canadian bill by the Independent Online News Publishers of Canada, which has some overlapping membership with LION.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has strongly criticized the government’s handling of the issue, stating that Liberal efforts to support journalism have essentially backfired and will do more harm than good.
“Big Tech will now pay less for Canadian news after your law,” he said in a recent tweet directed at Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. “They have now stopped funding journalism. And you have made news disappear. The opposite of what you promised.”
Mr. Rodriguez recently told The Globe that he was surprised to see Google and Meta announce plans to block Canadian news. He speculated that it could be a negotiating strategy. He also said the companies are trying to send a message to other countries that are considering similar policies.
The Canadian law and the U.S. bills all take inspiration from Australia’s News Media and Digital Platforms Bargaining Code, which took effect in March, 2021.
The premise of the Australian code is that there is a power imbalance between large platforms and news publishers seeking compensation for news that appears on those sites. The law gives a regulator – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) – the power to mediate disagreements. However it strongly encourages platforms and publishers to reach deals outside of the code, which so far has occurred in each case.
Australian politicians faced intense lobbying from Google and Meta not to adopt the law. Both companies threatened to block news in Australia and Facebook briefly did so before reversing course.
Researchers in Australia have since found that the rules appear to be generating a significant hiring boost in the journalism sector.
An April, 2023 report by The Australia Institute found that job ads for journalists increased by 46 per cent after the new rules were implemented. The report said it is hard to provide specific numbers as most media outlets have not disclosed the terms of their agreements with Google and Meta.
By November, 2022, Google had reached 22 commercial agreements representing 183 media mastheads in Australia and Meta had reached agreements with 13 news businesses, the report said.
Two large media outlets did disclose hiring details. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said the deals led to an additional 50 journalist roles and the Guardian Australia increased the size of its newsroom from 100 to 150 journalists.
Rod Sims, who chaired the Australian regulator from 2011 until 2022, told The Globe in an e-mail exchange that he’s hopeful Google and Meta will ultimately back down from their threats, as they did in Australia.
“Google and Meta have much at stake here so I am not surprised that they are adopting aggressive tactics,” said Prof. Sims, who teaches at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.
“In Australia, they backed down on their threats and agreed to pay media companies for their content after some very minor concessions from the Australian government that did not alter the excellent outcomes achieved,” he said. “I hope something similar happens in Canada.”
Prof. Sims said Canada may need to adjust its rules to ensure that if Google and Meta do block news, they would have to block all news, not just news from Canada.
“It is very hard for Google or Meta to provide their services without drawing on any news at all,” he said.
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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