Canada forces independent media to register with government

A decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) last week will force independent media, including some podcasters and livestreamers, to register with the government.

“[T]he CRTC is setting out which online streaming services need to provide information about their activities in Canada,” the CRTC said in a press release Friday. “Online streaming services that operate in Canada, offer broadcasting content, and earn $10 million or more in annual revenues will need to complete a registration form by November 28, 2023.”

The decision comes amid a crackdown on independent media by the Trudeau administration which is currently crafting rules that would require media to pay a fee for broadcasting in Canada and to publish certain content. 

“[T]hese requirements,” says the CRTC, “could include specific commitments to the promotion, discoverability or prominence of Canadian or Indigenous content, the carriage of services in French, Indigenous, or other languages, maintaining a certain percentage of Canadian and Indigenous content in an on-demand catalogue, commitments to achieving public policy objectives, or other commitments proposed by an undertaking and deemed acceptable by the Commission.”

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already begun to edge out non-mainstream media, most of whom are not sponsored by the government and tend to be more critical of his government. 

In June Canada's Parliament passed the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, which requires tech platforms to pay news corporations for sharing their content.

Meta, for example, would need to pay Canada’s CBC News for news links shared on Facebook and Instagram, or for any other repurposing of CBC content that brings Meta advertising revenue. Tech platforms will end up paying for 35% of news expenditures for hundreds of media outlets, estimated at a total of $329 million annually, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The Trudeau administration has hawked the bill as “fair” for compensating journalists and local news companies, saying “all we’re asking the tech giants to do is compensate journalists when they use their work.” But Google and Meta have decried the legislation and threatened to cut off access to their services for Canadians. Google complains that the law would force it to enter into agreements with publishers who do not produce original news content.

Meta, at least, appears to be following through on its promise. Following C-18’s passage on Thursday, the social media giant said it will block news content for Canadians.

“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” Meta said in a statement.

News outlets like CBC News and the Toronto Star, both heavily funded by the government and sympathetic to the Trudeau administration, are expected to continue operating. But for independent news groups critical of Trudeau, the future looks less certain.

According to the new law, only news companies approved by the Trudeau administration to be Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations (QCJO) would qualify to strike deals with tech giants and benefit from the technocracy’s largesse. News companies are selected to be QCJOs by a handpicked board of five people: Colette Brin, former CBC journalist; Kim Kierans, former CBC journalist; Margo Goodhand, former editor of the Winnipeg Free Press; Pierre-Paul Noreau, former publisher of Le Droit, and Karim Karim, a journalism professor at Carleton College. 

Some independent news organizations who are critical of Trudeau’s regime, like Rebel News, have not been approved by the board.

In addition, some of the larger media companies are also the beneficiaries of hefty handouts from the Trudeau administration, which has doled out $595 million to media corporations like CBC, Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Corus, Postmedia, Torstar, Videotron, and the Globe and Mail. These handouts, which expire March 31, 2024, are in addition to the $1 billion subsidy the CBC has received from the Trudeau administration.

Employees at these news corporations who spend at least 75% of their time contributing to the production of “original news content” receive about $13,750 from the government, or about 25% of their annual salaries.

These publications are largely partial to the Trudeau regime, which independent media organizations say is a predictable outcome.

“This is like a referee betting on one team but swearing they can call the game cleanly,” says Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) Alberta Director Kris Sims.