Post Tagged with: "c-18"

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Salvaging Bill C-18: Government Upends Legislation To Bring Google Onside the Online News Act

The government has announced that it has reached agreement with Google on deal that will ensure that news links are not blocked on the search engine and that the company pays $100 million to support the news sector in Canada. To be clear, this is good news for all given that the alternative was bad for news outlets, the government, Canadians, and Google. Indeed, over the past few months in discussions with representatives of media outlets, the consistent refrain I heard was that there *had* to be a deal. The harm from Facebook and Instagram blocking news links was taking a significant toll with lost revenues, lost traffic, and lost deals, meaning that something had to be salvaged from Bill C-18.

It turns out the way to salvage the bill was essentially to start over by tossing aside most of the core elements in the bill in favour of a single payment by Google negotiated by the government on behalf of the news sector. What is left is a $100 million payment into what amounts to a fund to be managed by the news sector itself. Google has agreed to pay $100 million to a single collective (there will be a battle over which collective will represent the news sector) and the collective tasked with allocating the money based in large measure on forthcoming regulations.

The broadcast sector will remain the big winner, though speculation of the possible removal of the CBC from the system would increase the distributions to the remaining companies. Regardless, allocating the majority of the money to broadcasters presumably helps explain why the government announced a $129 million bailout that expands the available money in the labour journalism tax credit, for which only print and digital publications (known as Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations) are eligible.

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November 29, 2023 12 comments News
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On Media Bailouts and Bias: Why Government Media Policy Is Undermining Public Trust

Yesterday I was a guest on a Toronto-area radio station where I was asked to discuss the government’s plans to more than double the amount available per journalist as part of the labour journalism tax credit. After a discussion of the tax credit program and months of blocked news links on Facebook as a consequence of Bill C-18, the host shifted the discussion by suggesting that the media had largely become propaganda on behalf of the government, insisting that these measures were consistent with a strategy of either blocking or influencing news coverage. I paused for a moment and said I disagreed, noting that there was good journalism and bad journalism, and his take was bad journalism. The segment ended immediately after that.

That experience came to mind later in the day as the debate over media bias and government funding captured further attention after Jenni Byrne, a leader in the Pierre Poilievre team, tweeted that criticism of Poilievre’s interactions with a journalist could be chalked up to the increased funding and that the bailout would mean journalists “would do whatever the PMO says.” Byrne’s comment strikes me as absurd as those of the radio host. All journalists have some biases. They wouldn’t be human if they didn’t. But the suggestion that a government tax plan would influence their individual coverage is just not credible.

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November 25, 2023 5 comments News
Freedom_Homes,_Government_Bailout_Money_(3473264448).jpg, Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Bill C-18 Bailout: Government Announces Plans to Pay For 35% of Journalist Costs for News Outlets as It More Than Doubles Tax Credit Per Employee

The government has taken the first step to creating a bailout for its disastrous Bill C-18 by agreeing to News Media Canada demands to increase the support under the Labour Journalism Tax Credit. While the current system covers 25% of the journalist costs up to $55,000 per employee (or $13,750), the government’s fall economic statement increases both the percentage covered and cap per employee. Under the new system, which is retroactive to the start of this year, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations (which covers print and digital but not broadcasters) can now claim 35% of the costs of journalist expenditures up to $85,000 per employee. The increases the support to up to $29,750 per employee or an increase of 116%. This new support will run for four years at a cost of $129 million ($60 million this year alone).

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November 21, 2023 30 comments News
Signing of the constitution / Signature de la Constitution by LAC CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/bXT7Df

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 184: Philip Palmer on the Constitutional Doubts About the Government’s Internet Laws

Is the Canadian government’s Internet legislation constitutional? That question arose during the hearings on Bills C-11 and C-18, but has taken on a new urgency given the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision involving an Alberta challenge to federal environmental assessment legislation. With limits on federal powers back in the spotlight, the vulnerability of the legislation requires further examination.

Philip Palmer is a former Justice lawyer who appeared before the House of Commons committee studying Bill C-11 to make the case that the law does not fall within the scope of federal powers. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to explain why and what it might mean for the Internet streaming and online news laws.

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November 13, 2023 2 comments Podcasts
2017 - Vancouver - CBC News Photographer by Ted McGrath https://flic.kr/p/XYB969 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The Broadcasters’ Online News Act Submission: Demanding An Even Bigger Piece of the Bill C-18 Pie for Bell, Rogers and the CBC

The government has yet to release its final regulations for the Online News Act, but recent comments from News Media Canada seemed to suggest that it is hoping to find common ground with Google, stating that it supports the company’s proposed amendments to Bill C-18 draft regulations. While that may be a long shot – I posted that Google’s call for legislative changes signals that it has arrived at the conclusion that regulations alone cannot fix the foundational flaws in the law – the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has created yet another complication. The lobby group representing private broadcasters such as Bell and Rogers isn’t looking to find a compromise position. Instead, its submission indicates that wants all broadcasters (which given the law would include the CBC) to get an even bigger portion of the potential Bill C-18 revenues by expanding the definition of “journalist” to include everyone from sound and video engineers to researchers and fact checkers. The expansive definition prioritizes many broadcasting jobs, which would mean conventional newspaper services likely would get even less than the current estimate of 25% of revenues.

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October 23, 2023 11 comments News