After months of tough negotiations, the Trudeau government managed to extract an agreement from Google which will see the multinational pay no less than $100 million to the country’s media each year.
“We have been standing up for months to demonstrate that we must support local journalism, independent journalism and the work that the media do in our democracy. It wasn’t easy,” rejoiced Justin Trudeau on Wednesday.
The amount of $100 million will be indexed to inflation and paid annually to a collective which will bring together all eligible media. This collective will determine at the appropriate time how the pieces of the pie will be cut.
This news should give the government a breath of fresh air, as Google recently threatened to follow in Meta’s footsteps by blocking journalistic content from its search engine and its other products.
“It’s truly historic and something new that is being introduced to the world. Many people thought we wouldn’t make it. […]», Launched the Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, who has been leading the file since July.
Meta “abdicates”
However, good understanding is not there with the other heavyweight targeted by the Online News Act, Meta, which eliminated news from its Facebook, Instagram and Threads platforms in August.
In an email, a spokesperson for the multinational explained that the only way to comply with the law was to remove the news from its platform, since “unlike search engines [comme Google]we do not proactively pull news from the internet to integrate it into our users’ news feeds.
Mr. Trudeau accused the multinational of having “completely abdicated its responsibilities as a Web giant.”
Hear from the marketing and technology expert and podcast co-host Don’t take it for cash react to the news, available in podcast or in audio-visual.
A crack in the wall
Rather cautiously, the leader of the Bloc Québécois Yves-François Blanchet still said he was “happy” with a result in which the party “still recognizes itself”.
The deputy leader of the NDP, Alexandre Boulerice, welcomed a “step in the right direction”. “This perhaps adds pressure on Facebook, because there, if there is an agreement with Google, that means that the wall of the web giants has just cracked.”
The Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec highlighted “excellent news” for the sector, which “suffers from the almost total domination of web giants in the advertising market in Canada”.
“All the pressure is now on Meta who has the opportunity to show that he can be a good corporate citizen in Quebec and Canada,” continued President Éric-Pierre Champagne on X.
Unanswered questions
Details of the agreement will emerge over the coming weeks and months. A final version of the Act’s regulations is expected before December 19, the date Bill C-18 on online news comes into force.
For the moment, it is impossible to know whether or not Radio-Canada/CBC could have its share of the pot, the crown corporation already being almost entirely financed by the public. “I can say that we considered the comments concerning our public broadcaster very seriously,” Minister St-Onge said.
The latter indicated that the government retained the right to renegotiate the agreement if another, more advantageous agreement emerged elsewhere in the world.