While Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge confirmed she held “productive” talks with Meta over Bill C-18, she told the tech giant she would not give in to demands to “roll back” the legislation.
“We’ve had, I would say, a very positive and constructive and also honest conversation,” Ms. St-Onge told The Globe and Mail in an Aug. 24 report, adding that she told the company the legislation would not be brought back to Parliament and changed.
“I confirmed to them that we will not roll back the bill.”
The Online News Act (Bill C-18), which received royal assent on June 22, mandates that major tech companies pay Canadian media outlets for news content linked on their platforms.
On Aug. 1, Meta began the process of ending news availability in Canada on its Facebook and Instagram platforms saying Bill C-18 was “fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers.”
Matthew Horwood
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Matthew Horwood is a reporter based in Ottawa.
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