Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez rises during question period in the House of Commons, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Feb. 4.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
The federal government’s bill to require large tech companies to share advertising revenue with the news media will be more transparent and have less political interference than the Australian system it is modelled after, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez says.
The Liberals are pushing a suite of legislative measures to regulate big digital platforms, including a bill that would address the fact that Facebook and Google earn the lion’s share of revenue from digital advertising in Canada. News outlets argue that the dominance of the two companies has left little advertising revenue for everyone else, including the creators of the news content that is shared on those platforms.
Mr. Rodriguez said the government’s legislation will be modelled after a system first introduced in Australia, in which large tech companies are required to reach agreements – through arbitration, if necessary – with news outlets to share ad revenue.
“The legislation will create a framework that makes sure that news publishers and journalists receive fair compensation for their work,” Mr. Rodriguez said at a Wednesday discussion hosted by Canada 2020, a public policy group.
However, he said, the rules would differ from Australia’s in some ways. For example, in Australia the finance minister has the final say on which digital platforms will be required to enter into talks with news outlets. Mr. Rodriguez said that his bill will instead give that role to a regulator, so that a politician does not have control over that part of the process.
He also suggested that Canada’s regime could require greater disclosure of deal terms than in Australia, where the details of the agreements are confidential, but pointed out there would be some commercial sensitivities to consider.
“When we say we’ll be looking at [Australia] as a model, we will, but we will adapt it to our reality and the fact that we want it to be more transparent than any other system that exists on Earth,” Mr. Rodriguez said.
He also said the legislation would apply to news organizations across media, including print, radio and television outlets.
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After the minister’s comments, a panel of news industry representatives discussed the legislation positively, though they disagreed on the level of transparency needed in agreements.
David Skok, chief executive officer of news startup the Logic, said details of agreements that publishers reach with the tech giants should be made public for competitive reasons, so that other outlets can know they’re getting fair deals in their separate negotiations.
“I am actually deeply concerned about the market imbalance, not necessarily from Big Tech, but from these relationships and deals being struck independently in silos, privately, among Big Tech and some very big publishers,” Mr. Skok said.
John Boynton, vice-president of Nordstar, a company that owns publications that include the Toronto Star, said that he was not against transparency, but argued it was less important than the overall goal of the legislation, which was forcing the tech giants into a form of arbitration.
“These are commercial deals between two commercial entities,” Mr. Boynton said. “These aren’t bailouts, these aren’t handouts, these are levelling the playing field so one entity, which is a trillion dollars, and another entity, which could be five thousand to a couple million dollars, can negotiate on a level playing field, fairly.”
Facebook and Google have already signed partnerships with some news organizations, including The Globe and Mail, to pay for the rights to link to news articles.
As the Liberals hold a minority of seats in the House of Commons, they will require the help of another party to pass the bill. The NDP say they support policy that would require tech giants to pay their “fair share” to journalists, and hope the bill is tabled soon.
According to the Heritage Minister’s 2021 mandate letter from the Prime Minister, the legislation should be tabled in “early 2022.” When asked about the timing of the bill on Wednesday, Mr. Rodriguez said only that he hoped to table it “as soon as possible.”
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