A Google source told Cartt the Heritage minister was unavailable to discuss the bill as it made its way to finish line
By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — Google will remove links to Canadian news from its search, news and discover products in Canada, the company announced on Thursday, a week after Meta Platforms Inc. made a similar announcement about ending news availability on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all Canadian users in response to their joint opposition to Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which became law also last Thursday.
“C-18 will also make it untenable for us to…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — As Bill C-18 received royal asset Thursday after a 56-22 Senate vote this afternoon, Meta – one of the two web giants directly affected by the Online News Act – said that its social-media platforms Facebook and Instagram would no longer provide news to its Canadian users.
“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,” said Meta in a statement.
“Earlier this month, we announced…
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By Douglas Barrett, adjunct professor in the arts, media and entertainment MBA program at the Schulich School of Business at York University.
No one watches the credits on television programs. They go by super fast and are often cut off. But they tell very interesting stories, including identifying all the financial participants in the production.
For example, for the Global show Family Law produced by Calgary’s Seven24 Films and Vancouver’s Lark Productions, and shot in Vancouver, they were:
Corus Entertainment
Entertainment One
Canada Media Fund
Creative BC
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit
Bell Fund
For Transplant, a CTV show produced by Sphere Media Plus and shot…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Should Bill C-18 not pass Parliament, “there is no guarantee that the deals and the agreements that have been currently negotiated in the Canadian context would continue, because there is no obligation on platforms to continue to bargain in that way,” Thomas Owen Ripley, associate assistant deputy minister for cultural affairs at the Department of Canadian Heritage, said at a Tuesday hearing of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications studying the Online News Act.
“Over time, it would be perfectly open for platforms to stop entering into those agreements with Canadian news businesses.”
C-18, which…
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By Christopher Guly
Gatineau, Que. – Neither Canadian Heritage nor the Broadcasting Act should play a role in overseeing telecommunications or the internet, Alberta Conservative member of Parliament Rachael Thomas told an audience at the Canadian Association of Wireless Internet Service Providers conference in Gatineau, Que. on Wednesday.
“When we choose to use the Broadcasting Act, which is meant for TV and radio, and we’re bringing the internet underneath that, that’s an incredibly antiquated move,” Thomas, the official opposition shadow minister for Canadian Heritage, told Cartt in an interview following her appearance at an afternoon panel. The panel discussed Bill C-11,…
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By Christopher Guly
The federal government has formally responded to amendments the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications made to bill C-11 that passed the upper house on Feb. 2 and which has been under consideration in the House of Commons.
In a notice sent to the Senate on Tuesday, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who sponsored the bill when it was introduced in the House on Feb. 2, 2022, highlighted several changes the government would like the Senate to make before the Online Streaming Act is granted royal assent.
The Senate defined “community element” as “includ the participation of…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his displeasure Friday with actions by Google to take its opposition to bill C-18, the Online News Act, to users of its search engine.
This week, The Canadian Press broke the story that Google would limit access to news content – including from Canadian broadcasters and newspapers – for under four percent of its Canadian users over about a five-week period.
“It really surprises me that Google has decided that would rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do,” Trudeau said…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage has released Friday the job posting for the Quebec representative on the CRTC.
The job ad says the department will review applications starting March 20 for the position that was recently vacated by Alicia Barin, who became the full-time vice-chair of broadcasting in December.
With the Barin announcement came the appointment of commission head Vicky Eatrides and vice-chair of telecommunications, Adam Scott. Then, late last month, Heritage appointed Bram Abramson for commissioner of Ontario.
The Quebec commissioner position is the final piece to complete the nine-person commission, which received a new policy direction from Innovation…
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OTTAWA — The Canada Media Fund is later this month launching its national survey to get perspectives from the audiovisual sector on how the current definition of Canadian content should evolve in light of bill C-11, the legislation that will empower the CRTC to force foreign streamers to contribute to domestic content.
The 10-minute survey, which will be open on February 27, was designed in collaboration with firms La Societe des demains and Humain Humain and was “informed by input from the CMF’s annual industry consultations and preliminary in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives,” the…
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OTTAWA – Canadian Heritage announced late last month the appointment of two members to the National Film Board.
Ana Serrano of Toronto and Victoria Wing Chi Chan of Merritt, British Columbia, have been appointed for a term of three years, the latter on a part-time basis.
Serrano is the president and vice chancellor of OCAD University, an art and design, practice and research institution. She is also a managing director at the Canadian Film Centre. A Cartt search of Chan did not yield much information.
The board was created in 1939 as an agency of Heritage to create, produce and distribute audiovisual…
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