(OTTAWA) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemns Google’s decision to ban certain Canadian users from viewing news content to demonstrate opposition to the federal government’s Online News Act C-18.
Posted at 3:35pm
Touring Toronto on Friday, Mr. Trudeau wanted to vent his anger at the very end of a press conference without being challenged on the matter.
“It is a big mistake to do this,” said the Prime Minister. “I find it extremely surprising that Google would rather deny Canadians access to the news than pay journalists fairly for the work they do as professionals. It’s really sad,” he added in the same breath.
Bill C-18 would force digital giants like Google and Meta, owners of Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media for republishing their content on their platforms.
Google recently said it limits access to online news content to less than 4% of its Canadian users across its products, including its popular search engine and the Discover feature on Android devices that broadcast news and sports coverage.
The US company said all types of news content will be affected by the test, which will last around five weeks, including content created by Canadian broadcasters and newspapers.
In response to Google’s decision, the office of Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canadians would not be intimidated, calling it disappointing that Google is borrowing from Meta’s Playbook. The latter last year threatened to block news from its website in response to the bill.
“We are briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 affecting a very small percentage of Canadian users,” Google spokesman Shay Purdy said in a written statement Wednesday.
The company conducts thousands of tests each year to evaluate potential changes to its search engine, he added.
“We have made fully transparent our concerns that C-18 is too broad and, if left unchanged, could affect the products that Canadians use and rely on every day,” said Mr. Purdy.
“We remain committed to supporting a sustainable future for news in Canada and providing solutions that fix Bill C-18,” he added.
Supporters of the print and digital media industries have slammed Google’s move, which they say intimidates Canadians by restricting access to online news amid a row with Ottawa.
“Canadians are going to see this as a foreign company that intimidates Canadians, and I don’t think it will be well received,” said Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada, which represents hundreds of publications across Canada.
According to the President of the Quebec Journalists Association (FPJQ), Michaël Nguyen, Google “unfortunately shows that it places more importance on its profits than on the public’s right to reliable and verified information”.
“So this digital superpower says it’s willing to leave the field open for misinformative content, rather than forfeiting a tiny fraction of its income paying the media royalties for content that enables it to enrich itself,” said Mr Nguyen.
Big media companies hailed the bill as a way to level the playing field with Google and Facebook, which compete with them for ad revenue. Tech companies have criticized the law, arguing it is the wrong approach to ensure the vitality of journalistic information.
“The advertising revenue that was once the mainstay of local journalism, the big tech companies are now benefiting from that journalism but have not paid for it,” Peter Julian, NDP leader in the House of Commons, said on Thursday.
With the Canadian Press