Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge speaks to reporters during the Liberal Cabinet retreat in Charlottetown on Aug. 21.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge says she has held productive talks with executives at Meta, which is blocking Canadians’ access to news on Facebook and Instagram, but told the tech giant she will not give in to demands to “roll back” Ottawa’s Online News Act.
“We’ve had, I would say, a very positive and constructive and also honest conversation,” Ms. St-Onge, who became Heritage Minister in last month’s cabinet shuffle, told The Globe and Mail in an interview. She added that she is preparing regulations on how the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, would work in practice, which she said will create “an extremely positive, viable path forward for them.”
The talks were with Rachel Curran, Meta’s head of public policy in Canada, and Marc Dinsdale, head of media partnerships. They appear to break an impasse between the federal government and Meta, which is protesting the legislation by blocking Canadians’ access to news on both Facebook and Instagram, a move condemned by the Prime Minister.
Ms. St-Onge said she has also met with Google since taking on the Heritage role. Google has warned it is planning to block Canadians’ ability to search for news over Bill C-18, but unlike Meta, it has yet to carry out its threat and has been negotiating with the government.
“The relationship with Google is extremely constructive,” she said. “And both for Facebook and Google, I think that there’s a way that we come out of this with viable agreements.”
The Online News Act, which received royal assent last month, was designed to support the Canadian news industry, which has seen advertising migrate to the Big Tech platforms. It would make Meta and Google negotiate deals to compensate news outlets in Canada for posting or linking to their work.
Meta has said Bill C-18 is vaguely worded, flawed and imposes uncapped liabilities. It said regulations would not be enough to fix the legislation and has asked for changes to the text of the act.
“We met with the minister at her request and will continue to keep the government informed as we end news availability,” Ms. Curran said Thursday. “As we’ve previously stated, regulations cannot address the fundamental challenges with the legislation, and we relayed this to the minister today.”
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According to Le Devoir, Ms. Curran told specialists at a question-and-answer session last month on Meta’s decision to restrict news access that she is “super optimistic” that the government will modify the Online News Act so Google and Meta can continue to support journalism and local news.
But Ms. St-Onge made clear in the interview that this is not an option. She said she will not bring the legislation back to Parliament to change it, and has no plans to stall the legislation so it does not come into force at the end of the year.
“I confirmed to them that we will not roll back on the bill,” she said.
She said there had been an extensive parliamentary process where Facebook and Google and other stakeholders could have made comments on the legislation, which does not come into force until December.
“Facebook has taken a decision to pull news without good reason because the law has been voted [on] … but is not being applied right now. The phase that we are going through is a regulatory process.”
But Ms. St-Onge expressed hope that Meta will take part in a consultation about the regulations, saying she is “extremely confident that if they do participate in a fair way and open way in the regulation process that they will find that there is a great solution for them.”
Ms. St-Onge said she asked Meta to take part in the process when they met. After the regulations are published – which she said would happen soon – there will be 30 days for stakeholders, including Meta, “to participate and give input.”
She signalled that the regulations could address many of the tech giants’ concerns.
“Through the regulations and what we are putting in place there is an extremely positive, viable path forward for them and I invited them to participate in an open way,” she said.
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The Minister said she had also told Meta that removing the ability of Canadians to access news on the platform did not engender trust or bode well for “the success of their business model.”
“Taking away the right for users to share news and journalistic information to their family and friends is not a right way to build trust with a community, especially in a context where there is so much misinformation and disinformation going around,” she said.
Google has also threatened to block the ability of Canadians to search for news in response to the bill, and earlier this year conducted tests in this country affecting more than one million people.
She said both big tech companies are looking for “predictability” about what it means for them financially.
Ms. St-Onge, the former sport minister and one-time president of Quebec’s biggest media and cultural-sector union, took over as Heritage Minister from Pablo Rodriguez, who is now Transport Minister.