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The government surrenders to reality with rewritten Online News Act—and pleases no one: Peter Menzies

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1 year ago

8 minute read

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Peter Menzies

The shakedown of Meta and Google didn’t go as planned—but now they’re eyeing other lucrative targets.

There were some long faces in the news industry last week when Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge rolled out the final terms of her surrender to reality.

Media executives who once campaigned for the Online News Act with sugar-plum visions of Big Tech cash dancing in their heads were left to deal with some pretty serious lumps of coal. After years of effort to procure what they once fancied would be hundreds of millions of dollars annually from web giants, all St-Onge could bring down the chimney was a bump up in Google’s spend to $100 million.

How much the mother of all search engines was already paying to publishers is unknown, but in-the-know estimates tend to range from $30-$50 million. Splitting the difference at $40 million would mean the industry—newspapers, broadcasters, and online platforms—wound up with $60 million in fresh cash, give or take.

That’s less than the Lotto Max jackpot Rhonda Malesku of Kamloops and Ruth Bowes of Edmonton shared last summer. A lot of money for Rhonda and Ruth for sure, but for an entire industry it’s a drop in a leaky bucket.

Then there’s the fact the Act resulted in Meta blocking all news links in Canada on Facebook and Instagram. Again, the exact cost is unknown but the social media company had been spending $18 million on journalism supports plus—and here is the killer—Meta estimated it had been sending $230 million a year worth of referrals to news websites.

Even if Meta is only half right, that still leaves the news industry many tens of millions of dollars worse off. If Meta’s estimate is accurate—and no one has really debunked it—the scenario is a lot uglier.

This is what happens when you make things up.

The Act was rooted in the make-believe premise that “web giants” were profiting from “stealing” news. Legislation was designed on that basis to force Big Tech to “negotiate” commercial deals and share those profits with all news organizations.

In the end, as Michael Geist has detailed, that charade of “compensation” was dropped as the government, desperately afraid Google would follow Meta’s lead, posted regulations that essentially rewrote the Act to suit the search engine and, as an aside, puzzle lawyers. All that the media were able to salvage from the hustle was a fund they wound up fighting over like street urchins in a soup kitchen.

Here, St-Onge actually did something sensible. Her original plan was to have the fund distributed solely on a per journo basis. In other words, if there are 10,000 journalists, $100 million would turn into $10,000 per journo, never mind whether they are paid $35,000 or $150,000. The problem with that is that one in three Canadian reporters works for CBC, which is not in mortal peril. The next highest is Bell Media, whose parent company made $10 billion last year. Meanwhile, the Toronto Star is hemorrhaging at a rate of $1 million a week, small centres are becoming news deserts, and Postmedia’s stable of zombie newspapers continues to, well, zombie on.

Broadcasters would have consumed 75 percent of the loot and the vast majority of the cash would wind up with companies for whom news is not a primary aspect of their operations.

St-Onge changed that to cap private broadcasters’ windfall at 30 percent, with CBC limited to 7 percent.

That means 63 percent of the money will go to operators in the greatest peril which, for a fund resulting from a need to address industrial poverty, is at least rational.

Still, there was grumbling.

“Well, this is disappointing—sure wasn’t expecting a cap on broadcasters’ access to compensation,” Tandy Yull, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, posted on LinkedIn.

“Hey, Universe! More needs to be done to support Canadians’ most important providers of news, local radio, and television stations, who are facing significant—even existential—declines in advertising revenue,” she added.

Yull went on to stake broadcasters’ claim to government assistance currently reserved for newspapers and online-only media: the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and the Local Journalism Initiative.

And of course “our democracy demands that we explore these and other options—soon.”

She may not have long to wait.

Broadcasters opened up a fresh lobbying for loot campaign just last month when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) held a hearing to launch the implementation of the Online Streaming Act.

Supposedly about funding Canadian entertainment programming, the concept of a news fund was introduced early and repeated often.

Commissioners appeared happy to embrace well-worn lines about a news “crisis” that needs  “urgent” attention to prevent—cue the tympany—the death of democracy. And they did so without needing to be persuaded there was any rational reason for creating a fund which, logically, makes no more sense than taxing cinemas to pay for newspapers. Nor were any concerns raised about impacts on entrepreneurship and online innovators.

“Local news is in crisis and requires immediate intervention,” Susan Wheeler of Rogers, which made $7.12 billion last year, told the panel.

“A fundamental outcome of the modernized contribution regime must include new mechanisms to provide long‑term financial support for high‑quality Canadian‑produced broadcast news from credible outlets,” she said, calling for 30 percent of money raised from foreign online streaming companies to be directed to a news fund “accessible by all private TV and radio stations producing news.”

The humiliating squabbling over the remnant scraps of the Online News Act clearly wasn’t the end of the Great Canadian Quest for other people’s money.

So maybe the shakedown of Meta and Google didn’t quite work out. But Spotify, Disney+, and Netflix? They have money. Let’s mug them instead.

It’s not like anything bad could happen. Right?

Peter Menzies is a Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former newspaper executive, and past vice chair of the CRTC.

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Rand Paul Releases Report Detailing $1,000,000,000,000 In Gov’t Waste. Here Are The Worst Offenders

Published on December 24, 2024

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Ireland Owens

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul released a report on Monday outlining more than $1 trillion in government waste from the past year.

The 2024 “Festivus” report highlighted various instances of wasteful government spending from the federal government, including a pickleball complex in Las Vegas and a cabaret show on ice. This year marks Paul’s 10th annual report.

“This year, I am highlighting a whopping $1,008,313,329,626.12,” Paul wrote in the report. “That’s over $1 trillion in government waste, including things like ice-skating drag queens, a $12 Million Las Vegas pickleball complex, $4,840,082 on Ukrainian influencers, and more! No matter how much money the government has wasted, politicians keep demanding even more.”

The Department of the Interior (DOI) spent $12 million on a Las Vegas Pickleball Complex, according to the report. The DOI also spent $720,479 on wetland conservation projects for ducks in Mexico.

“I have a lot of problems with federal spending, and now it’s time to hear all about them,” Paul wrote in the report.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded the Bearded Ladies Cabaret a $10,000 grant to support a cabaret show on ice skates focused on climate change, according to the report. The NEA also spent $365,000 to promote circuses in city parks, the report states.

The State Department spent $500,000 to expand the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia’s #USInvestsInEthiopians social media campaign to a larger national public relations campaign, according to the report. The State Department also sent $253,653 to Bosnia to fight “misinformation,” spent $2.1 million for Paraguayan Border Security, and spent $3 million for ‘Girl-Centered Climate Action’ in Brazil, according to the report.

The Department of Health and Human Services spent $419,470 to determine if lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats, the report states.

The National Science Foundation spent $288,563 to ensure bird watching groups have safe spaces, also known as “Affinity Groups,” according to the report.

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that he had picked Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to co-chair a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aimed at cutting down on wasteful government spending.

“As always, taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey, but I’ve been fighting government waste like DOGE before DOGE was cool, Paul wrote in the report. “And I will continue my fight against government waste this holiday season.”

Many Americans have faced steep costs amid high inflation throughout President Joe Biden’s term, with inflation hitting a peak of 9.1% in June 2022. While inflation rates have eased some since June 2022, prices still remain high, with the consumer price index (CPI), a measure of the price of everyday goods, experiencing a year-over-year increase of 2.7% in November, according to a Dec. 11 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Some experts have attributed massive government spending under the Biden-Harris administration to fueling inflation rates. The national debt was at $36.16 trillion as of Tuesday, according to U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data.

A spokesperson for Rand Paul did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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armed forces

Canadian military deployed ‘gender advisors’ to Ukraine, Haiti  at taxpayers’ expense

Published on December 24, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Canadian Armed Forces has been pushing a radical LGBT agenda under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with the latest example being ‘Task Force Gender Advisors’ deployed in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

Canada’s military has been actively pushing a woke pro-LGBT agenda on the world stage, with the latest example being its deployment of “task force gender advisors” internationally in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

The “gender advisors” initiative is noted in the 2024 Departmental Report of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This has resulted in it drawing a sharp rebuke from veterans who wonder why the military is spending money on pushing the LGBT agenda abroad.

The CAF report notes how in Poland, for instance, the “Task Force Gender Advisor was involved in all aspects of this training mission and supported the local Defence Attaché in connecting with local and Ukraine-based non-governmental organizations and interested parties.”

The report noted how the “gender advisor” as well as “gender focal points” were sent to military missions in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia throughout 2023.

In war-torn Haiti, “intersectional factors (were) being applied towards stabilization and humanitarian efforts,” via an “Operations HORIZON and PROJECTION” initiative.

This initiative is part of the third “National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security for 2023-2029.” This is a program that looks to advance pro-LGBT ideology, such as concepts of different “genders,” in all military operations.

Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the CAF, as well as all government departments, have pushed an ever-increasing woke agenda, as well as a host of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in place.

The military’s action plan notes how there are no less than three full-time “gender advisors” who are in the CAF at all levels.

The president of Veterans for Freedom, Andrew MacGillivray, blasted the woke DEI policies, saying the program has morphed into a “useless overbearing policy that has infiltrated every aspect of the Canadian Armed Forces.”

He noted that war-torn nations most likely don’t care “about gender nonsense being pushed by Canada when they are struggling to keep people alive.”

Since Trudeau became PM, the CAF has become increasingly woke and has been forcing LGBT ideology on many of its personnel. It has also seen recruitment plummet to all-time lows.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this year, Canada’s first “transgender” military chaplain was suspended for alleged sexual harassment, after he reportedly sought to grope a male soldier at the Royal Military College while drunk.

Canada’s military has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on pro-DEI polls, along with guest speakers, presentations, and workshops, as well as LGBT flags. The workshops covered topics including “the gendered nature of security,” while one talk discussed “integrating gender and diversity perspectives.”

In 2021, the defence department revealed that it has two separate committees and eight programs that worked to appoint homosexual advisors to “innovate” religious instruction and gender-neutral uniforms.

In June of 2023, the Canadian military was criticized for “raising the pride flag” in honor of the so-called “2SLGBTQI+ communities.”

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