The Trudeau government tabled its bill on Tuesday that proposes to fund Canada’s news media from the revenues of the Web’s biggest players. It gives the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the role of deciding whether Google and Facebook fund enough news production.
“More than ever, we need a news ecosystem that is vibrant and healthy. And as you know, the sector is in crisis. […] Web giants will have to be accountable, contribute to an ecosystem [qui] strengthens our democracy,” said the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, at a press conference on Tuesday.
The text presented the same morning before the Parliament provides that it is the CRTC which will act as “regulator” of the new law. The organization that currently manages radio and television in the country, which is also given the role of regulating the broadcasting of online programs in another bill, will have the task of judging the value of the agreements concluded between media and platforms.
If these agreements are insufficient, according to six criteria, the major platforms will be subject to a compulsory arbitration process, by an independent committee which will itself decide on the amounts to be paid to the media. Only “dominant” companies in the search engine and social media market are targeted, “most likely Google Search and Facebook. All other types of platforms are not covered by the law.
As reported The duty last week, the federal government decided to draw heavily on the Australian model to force Internet giants to share their revenues with the media, but including criteria favoring the financing of smaller press organisations. The minister thus wishes to draw between 150 and 200 million dollars from the platforms to finance Canadian journalism.
Both Facebook and Google have already entered into agreements with several media, including The duty. Details and amounts are confidential. The CRTC will therefore have to study them in the next six to twelve months to determine whether these platforms can already be exempted from arbitration. These agreements could be revised, and new ones could be concluded with new media, which have the right to collective bargaining. Finally, the CRTC can impose a fine of up to $15 million per violation.
Criteria
The regulator will have to base itself on a series of criteria to judge the overall value of the agreements: fair compensation to news companies; that the compensation be used to support the production of local, regional and national news; that the media retain their independence and freedom of expression; that platforms contribute to “the viability of the Canadian news ecosystem”, as well as the viability of local and independent media; and finally that the agreements cover a range of media that reflect languages, racialized groups or Aboriginal people, for example.
Any written and digital media already recognized as a qualified Canadian journalism organization (QCJO) are eligible to receive funding under this law, but also radio and television media, private or public, and even foreign media that employ two or more reporters for news production in Canada.
“What we are proposing in this bill is transparency. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are fundamental,” promised Minister Pablo Rodriguez.
Even before the bill was tabled, Facebook had already entered into agreements with 18 Canadian press publishers in the past two years. Among them : The dutythe regional newspapers of the National Cooperative of Independent Information (Cn2i), the National Observerthe Globe and Mail or Torstar who publishes the Toronto Star. Google had signed agreements with 11 Canadian media.
– With Annabelle Caillou