Newspaper men call for C-18 amendments; advocate passage of the bill

The editors and executives of Canada's largest newspapers were on Parliament Hill Tuesday to convince Senators of the necessity of Bill C-18, and to call for some amendments to the bill that seeks to create a collective bargaining regime for news producers to negotiate compensation from tech giants. Philip Crawley, the publisher and CEO of the Globe and Mail, asked the Senators of the Senate Transport and Communications Committee for amendments to remove three specific items from the bill. Crawley wanted the Senators to remove language allowing the CRTC to compel information from news organizations in the process of enacting and overseeing the bill, as well as language creating mandated reporting requirements for news organizations. The Globe and Mail boss also wanted language removed from the bill allowing the CRTC to unilaterally designate news organizations as a "qualified Canadian journalism organization." While the threatened, or even promised, exit of Meta Platforms Inc.'s Facebook from sharing Canadian news content would be worth "millions of dollars" for the Globe and Mail, Crawley said, he is "more concerned about the threat to the independence of media than the loss of a couple of million dollars." President of the trade group News Media Canada also called for the CBC/Radio-Canada to stop collecting advertising revenue on its news and current affairs programming, arguing that the presence of CBC in the news advertising market draws dwindling advertising dollars away from more cash-starved media outlets. Editor of Le Devoir Brian Myles echoed many of the complaints about CBC, and called for C-18 mandated negotiations to be based around the cost of various news organizations' payrolls, rather than a purely negotiated rate. Myles added that there is a particular sensitivity around Francophone media outlets in negotiations with the web giants, and called for the CRTC to be required to facilitate "linguistic duality" in negotiations with the web giants. "The CRTC should have expertise and a very fine knowledge of the markets and French culture," Myles told the senators. Some senators, along with the newspaper publishers, expressed concern about the CRTC's lack of experience when dealing with newspapers, in comparison to its long history of dealing with broadcasters. Broadcasters have been generally supportive of the bill.

Newspaper men call for C-18 amendments; advocate passage of the bill

Brief | May 30, 2023

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Newspaper men call for C-18 amendments; advocate passage of the bill

Brief | May 30, 2023

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