By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The House Heritage Committee on Friday unanimously adopted an NDP amendment to the Online News Act that will give big tech platforms immunity from negotiations with news platforms for a period of five years.
The proposed legislation, bill C-18, will force platforms like Facebook and Alphabet to negotiate payments to news organizations for linking to their articles on their websites. But the platforms have argued that having to negotiate with news organizations constantly, month after month, year after year is untenable.
So, an NDP amendment was introduced and passed unanimously Friday that would see a moratorium on negotiations for a period of five years after the platforms and news organizations have had an opportunity to negotiate a deal. That would prevent a constant need to negotiate with new news organizations that may spring up after the negotiation window.
“The current criteria for laying out exemptions is too vague and really leaves the door open for big tech to push hard for an exemption when they haven’t completed negotiations. What the NDP proposes is that section 11 would be amended to ensure that deals must be made with all eligible news organizations before the platforms are granted an exemption,” said NDP MP Peter Julian. “That would ensure, with the window of opportunity that’s provided, that eligible news organizations can identify themselves and big tech does have to make that negotiation.”
The adoption of that specific clause was a big hurdle the government surmounted successfully, since it required the government to offer a sufficient incentive to the online giants for them to play ball.
“The intention behind that [amendment] was to put in place an incentive for [platforms] to want to get an exemption, and that was very much modelled on the Australian experience,” said Thomas Owen Ripley, associate assistant deputy minister of cultural affairs at Canadian Heritage.
However, a separate but related amendment by Julian, which would have ensured that an exemption could only be granted if all news organizations had agreements with the platforms, was defeated.
The next meeting will be held on Tuesday.
Screenshot above from committee hearing
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed a Thomas Ripley quote to Chris Bittle.
