This week, the House of Commons passed the "Online News Act", sending it to the Senate before it can become law. .In a long line of legislation meant to tighten federal control over the Canadian press — including the $600 million bailout — this bill in particular is the most dangerous yet. .It will mean for all practical purposes the way Canadians consume media will have the clock set back 30 years. No more reading your news on your phone or tablet in the morning. Get ready to pony up for a daily, old-fashioned physical newspaper subscription for your morning read, and book an hour off after dinner to sit down and watch the nightly newscast on your television. .It would mean the death of the new media in Canada as we know it. Here's why. .It began with the big news conglomerations — which calls itself News Media Canada — lobbying the federal government for another round of bailouts; this time not directly from taxpayers, but from Facebook and Google. They claim Facebook and Google are making money from advertising on their platforms which utilize content from publishers. They demanded that Ottawa step in with legislative force to require Facebook and Google to hand a large portion of cash over to the publishers. .As a publisher, I should be happy about this, but I'm not. .Heck, nobody "likes" Facebook and Google. They're the biggest of Big Tech. But they are not the bad guys here. News Media Canada and the federal government are. .Facebook and Google make some money in displaying ads on their platforms, but they're also a massive conduit for connecting publishers with readers. They provide publishers with a massive opportunity to get our content in front of eyeballs. And more eyeballs equals more advertising revenue, and more subscriptions. It is key to our business model, and that of other new digital media competitors. .My first job was as a paper boy, sometimes delivering copy on a dog sled in the winter. Readers paid the publisher for their product, and advertisers paid the publisher to get in front of readers. I was paid by paper to distribute their product. .In 2022, Facebook is the new paperboy. It delivers the publisher's product to readers, and the publisher can then attempt to convert them into subscribers and sell advertisements. .But the Online News Act would require our 2022 paperboy (Facebook), pay the publisher for the privilege of distributing their product for them..If Ottawa passed a law in the 90s requiring paperboys to pay the local paper for the privilege of distributing their product, I would have quit. .Unsurprisingly, this is just what Facebook (now Meta) has promised it will do. They say — and I believe them — if this bill passes, they will simply shut down all Canadian news sharing on their platform. And I hate to say it, but they would be right to do so. .This would mean the overnight death of the new media industry in Canada. Media that spawned online — and not from legacy newspapers or broadcasters — would lose our single most important platform for distributing our product. Our readership would drop off a cliff, and then so too would subscriptions and advertising. .All that would be left would be the big conglomerates represented by 'News Media Canada'. Of course, their online readership would disappear as well, but they have their old subsidized mediums to fall back on: physical newspapers and magazines, and CRTC-regulated television and radio. By virtue of the media cartel's oligopoly on those mediums, they would be the only players left standing, having eliminated their plucky digital competitors. Those mediums would still be unsustainable, but they would then be well positioned to go to Ottawa cap-in-hand again to ask for an even more generous direct taxpayer subsidy. .To Ottawa, the big media is too big to fail, and the digital media, according to one Liberal MP on the committee that dealt with the bill, is "Not news. They’re not gathering news. They’re publishing opinion only.”.That would be news to the eight reporters employed at the Western Standard separately from or opinion or broadcast divisions. .The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois are all captive to the News Media Canada lobby at this point, and while the Conservatives did vote against it, their opposition to it is less strident that one would expect from a party committed to fighting the "Gatekeepers.".When we re-founded the Western Standard in 2019, we pledged to do it the right way; the hard way. That is, we pledged never to accept the federal media bailout subsidies. We built this publication through hard work and determination; not by fleecing taxpayers or rent-seeking graft. We succeeded, and have built a successful publication that has challenged the very largest of Western Canada's media for market share. .We suffered by not accepting the federal bailout subsidies, but we succeeded nonetheless. .But Bill C-18 (the Online News Act) does not allow the free press to opt out the way we did with the direct taxpayer subsidies. We want no part of it. We do not want money from Facebook that we haven't earned, and we do not want to have our content blocked by Facebook because the lobbyists at News Media Canada have successfully transitioned their industry into a rent-seeking operation. .But the bill does not allow us to opt out. The bill considers publications like the Western Standard to be "scabs" because we do not wish to partake in what it calls "collective bargaining" with Facebook and Google. We wish to sign our own agreement with them waving any faux legal rights granted to us under the Online News Act, but the act would not allow us to do so. Our publication would be lumped in with the likes of the grifters at Post Media, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the CBC, CTV, Global, and others. .We want no part of it. I'd get a good chuckle from Facebook shutting these grifters off of their platform, if those of us not trying to shake them down were allowed to continue doing what we do. But we are scabs crossing the picket line of greedy corporate CEOs. Our free choice would undermine the rent-seeking intent of this bill. Both the government and the News Media Canada lobbyists know it. .I'll close with this: When I decided to start a business in 2019, I wanted to go into an industry unregulated (or minimally regulated) by the government. I wanted the freedom to build a business with a focus on creating jobs and a quality product. In the dying days of 2022, I have to take time away from doing my real job to fight against turning the once-free press into an industry as overly regulated as dairy farming. .The Online News Act has been largely ignored by the legacy media because it was created by the legacy media, for the legacy media. If it passes, these are the people you will have to rely on for your "news."
