A new human rights report released by the U.S. State Department says Canada’s Online News Act could be used to discriminate against “disfavoured” independent media outlets. It also says that government funding for some media could lead to “self-censorship.”
The law empowered the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to set mandatory bargaining guidelines between platforms and news outlets, such as codes of conduct and eligibility of news outlets to participate. The U.S. human rights report says these powers “could be used to discriminate against political speech or disfavored independent media outlets.”
The law prompted Meta to stop users from posting news on its platforms including Facebook and Instagram, saying the financial burden of complying with the regulation wouldn’t be worth it for the company.
While Carney did not answer directly, he said his government is a “big believer” in the value of the work local media outlets do and ensuring news is “disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible,” which he said his government would “look for all avenues” to make happen.
Government Funding for Media
In addition to taking aim at the Online News Act, the U.S. human rights report also said that government funding for media outlets led to “self-censorship.”“The public media and majority of private media were substantially dependent on government sources of funding for their activities,” the report said, adding that government funding favoured media that “did not diverge from government-suggested bounds of political speech.”
The report indicated that the government used a variety of methods to fund public and some private media outlets, such as through grants and tax credits, as well as funds collected from broadcasters, streaming services, and news platforms that are regulated by the government.
“News organizations faced direct and indirect pressure to conform their political speech in order to gain or maintain access to these funds, leading to self-censorship,” the report said.
The department added that independent media were often disadvantaged by government policy and practices, and those that did not take government funds faced “a substantial market disadvantage.”
“In September, a Federal Court judge upheld the government’s decision to disqualify an independent news organization from journalism tax credits,” the department said. It noted that the organization involved was one of few media outlets in Canada that produced “critical reporting on the government’s response to protests of the COVID-19 lockdowns.”
