Following Google Canada’s response to draft regulations for Bill C-18 last week, News Media Canada is urging the federal government to consider–and ultimately accommodate–the tech giant’s concerns about the Online News Act.

“Google plays an essential role in helping Canadians find trusted news sources, and we are confident there is a path forward for the company and publishers to continue what has been a mutually beneficial relationship for many years to come,” Paul Deegan, president and CEO of News Media Canada, said in a statement to the Globe & Mail on Thursday.

News Media Canada represents digital and print publishers across Canada, including the Globe & Mail, Postmedia, La Presse, and the Toronto Star. To date, the advocacy organization has supported Bill C-18 in so far that it secures fair compensation for Canadian publishers from platforms that make use of their news content, but Google Canada’s latest submission is “a welcome, clear, constructive, good faith articulation of legitimate concerns,” Deegan says in the statement. “We are in agreement with many of the issues they have raised.”

Google’s submission regarding the regulations stipulates that Bill C-18 is based on “a fundamentally flawed premise” that platforms like Google and Meta are unfairly profiting from the sharing of news, and asserts that there are underlying issues that have been ignored. 

“Unfortunately, the proposed regulations fail to sufficiently address the critical structural problems with C-18 that regrettably were not dealt with during the legislative process,” Google spokesperson Shay Purdy tells MiC. 

“We continue to have serious concerns that the core issues ultimately may not be solvable through regulation and that legislative changes may be necessary. We have been and will remain engaged and transparent with the government about our concerns and will await the publication of final regulations,” Purdy adds.

The 30-day consultation period for Bill C-18–in which stakeholders were able to provide feedback on the draft regulations–closed last week. 

Google’s submission illuminates a significant gap between the legislation that is currently drafted and the issues it has raised concerns about, making it unclear if the company’s arguments will persuade the government to re-examine the bill ahead of its enactment on December 19, 2023. 

In August, Meta began blocking links to both Canadian and international news pages on Facebook and Instagram, with users unable to share links or news content themselves.

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