Government urged to collect from Google and Facebook

Group calling on media giants to pay for Canadian content says situation more dire post-virus

ACanadian media lobby group is calling on the government to make social media giants Facebook and Google pay for the Canadian news content they share on their sites, saying the COVID-19 pandemic has made the plight of our media industry more acute.

Daniel Bernhard, executive director of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, spoke to the finance committee Tuesday about the organization’s new “Wanted” campaign, urging the government to make advertising “middlemen” such as Facebook and Google pay for the news content they aggregate so Canadian news organizations get a share of the advertising revenue.

Facebook declined to comment on the campaign. Google did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, a Facebook spokesperson said the company has provided funding to multiple Canadian news organizations.

“Canadian journalism is in a death spiral,” and COVID-19 has only accelerated that spiral, Bernhard said. Advertising revenue has dropped and numerous local newspapers have shuttered for good, even as Canadians want and need news more than ever, he said.

“It’s middlemen like Facebook and Google that are getting the vast majority of the money, even though they don’t employ a single journalist.”

Bernhard wants Canada to follow in the footsteps of France and Australia, which in recent months instated rules that would make media giants including Facebook and Google pay news sites for content.

In April, Australia’s competition bureau announced it would force Facebook and Google to share advertising revenue with Australian news agencies, after negotiations between the two parties broke down. The same month, France’s competition bureau ordered Google to work out a repayment agreement with French news agencies and publishers for using pieces of their content for free on its site.

Media experts in Canada said at the time of the decisions that these changes are indicative of a momentum building in the international media landscape, but that similar changes in Canada are not on the horizon.

At that time, a spokesperson for Canada’s competition bureau said Canada’s Competition Act doesn’t provide the authority to create a code similar to Australia’s and that the authority regarding

legislative policy belongs to the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.

On May 2, a group of publishers representing a majority of Canadian newspapers sent an open letter to the federal government urging it to make the digital giants share their advertising revenue with Canadian media companies. (The letter does not specifically address the Competition Act.)

The letter pointed to Australia as an example of a way forward, and said COVID-19 has made the situation more dire — Australia fast-tracked the completion of its measures for that very reason.

“We need to treat this as a real, true emergency,” Bernhard said. “It’s time for Ottawa to take back control, and to reassert Canadian sovereignty over these Silicon Valley companies.” Bernhard said the cases in France and Australia show that instating such policies isn’t as complicated as it’s made out to be.

He estimates that if Facebook and Google had to pay between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the ad revenue generated from Canadian news content back to its creators, using a royalty fee similar to the one paid by radio stations to musicians, it could double the revenue of Canadian news companies.

The campaign involves largescale postering in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver, Bernhard said. It includes a national media campaign and a website. “Our goal is to convey to people that actually, this is not so complicated,” he said.

“What’s happening here is really simple. There is an original sin at the heart of Facebook’s success, and that is they are a content company that has decided not to pay for content.” Facebook announced in March it would spend $100 million (U.S.) to support the news industry during COVID-19, and Google also has a Google News Initiative.

“It’s time for Ottawa to … reassert Canadian sovereignty over these Silicon Valley companies.”

DANIEL BERNHARD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FRIENDS OF CANADIAN BROADCASTING