Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault sent shockwaves through the press over the weekend when he told CTV’s Evan Solomon that the Liberal government would be requiring media outlets to obtain government licences to operate..“If you’re a distributor of content in Canada and obviously if you’re a very small media organization the requirement probably wouldn’t be the same if you’re Facebook, or Google. There would have to be some proportionality embedded into this.”.Solomon pressed Guilbeault if that meant that all media would be required to obtain a government approved licence. “We would ask that they have a licence, yes.”.News that the Trudeau government will decide which press outlets have the right to publish in Canada comes on the heels of its $600 million bailout of the print media, in addition to older subsidy programs to the telecommunications media and the CBC..Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt released a statement on Monday morning indicating that the outlet would refuse to comply with any licensing or content requirements from the government under any circumstances..UPDATE:.By noon Monday, Minister Steven Guilbeault walked back his statement on mandatory media licensing, but used ambiguous language that leaves the door open.
Federal Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault sent shockwaves through the press over the weekend when he told CTV’s Evan Solomon that the Liberal government would be requiring media outlets to obtain government licences to operate..“If you’re a distributor of content in Canada and obviously if you’re a very small media organization the requirement probably wouldn’t be the same if you’re Facebook, or Google. There would have to be some proportionality embedded into this.”.Solomon pressed Guilbeault if that meant that all media would be required to obtain a government approved licence. “We would ask that they have a licence, yes.”.News that the Trudeau government will decide which press outlets have the right to publish in Canada comes on the heels of its $600 million bailout of the print media, in addition to older subsidy programs to the telecommunications media and the CBC..Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt released a statement on Monday morning indicating that the outlet would refuse to comply with any licensing or content requirements from the government under any circumstances..UPDATE:.By noon Monday, Minister Steven Guilbeault walked back his statement on mandatory media licensing, but used ambiguous language that leaves the door open.
