Social media news bill fades to background

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This article was published 19/05/2021 (1841 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is unlikely to pass a bill that would make social media companies help pay for news ahead of a widely anticipated fall election.

In an interview, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault blamed opposition wrangling over unrelated legislation.

“Our agenda regarding web giants is an ambitious one,” Guilbeault told the Free Press.

The idea is to require sites such as Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for using their copyrighted content, instead of displaying articles and videos in ways that divert advertising revenue to the social media companies.

Guilbeault has been warning the window is closing on getting a bill tabled in time for it to be passed ahead of the summer recess.

“I’m not sure we will be able to table this before the House rises, but we are working to table it as soon as it’s ready,” he said Tuesday.

There are only four sitting weeks remaining on the House schedule, with a crammed legislative agenda and an unpredictable Senate.

Many on Parliament Hill expect an election this fall, after most of the population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and before Canadians start needing to pay back pandemic supports.

Guilbeault is still proceeding with a bill to weed out online hate speech, and another to bring online streaming platforms under some federal regulation.

He said Ottawa had laid more of the groundwork on those two initiatives than for measures to shore up the news industry.

“It’s certainly not, in our view, doing one at the expense of the other. We want to get all of those done,” Guilbeault said.

The newspaper lobby was unimpressed.

“We’re a bit perplexed by the minister’s comments,” said John Hinds, president of News Media Canada.

Last September, the Liberals’ throne speech promised legislation to have social media firms pay publishers. Canada’s journalism sector has continued to shrink since then, Hinds said.

“This is an industry that is not doing well. When you look at the advertising market, it has not come back from COVID,” he said.

“This is not something where (a few) months can go by without any problems.”

Guilbeault said his staff have been seized with Bill C-10, which would expand the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s mandate to include some online platforms such as Netflix and Spotify, to ensure they feature Canadian content.

The Conservatives initially supported the bill, but changed course last month over its unclear language.

The Liberals then removed a clause that exempted social media postings, sparking concerns over freedom of speech.

Eventually, the government explained it was trying to include services such as YouTube music streaming, but not after Guilbeault and his staff gave conflicting information to journalists about the scope the bill.

The Tories still have questions about how the CRTC will regulate online platforms, with vague language about how popular influencers need to be in order to be subject to federal regulation.

Guilbeault said his department has been so busy responding to opposition queries, it simply doesn’t have time to craft legislation to support the news industry.

That didn’t convince Hinds, who argued the government has already consulted about both bills, and Bill C-10 involves an entirely different branch of regulation.

“They appear to have done their homework.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca