The latest in a long string of Liberal legislation to regulate the Canadian media industry sits before Parliament right now. Bill C-18, the "Online News Act" already passed the House of Commons, and awaits approval by the Senate. .It's a wild piece of legislation that — on its face — promises to save the Canadian news industry by giving large Canadian publishers "their fair share" of revenue plundered by Facebook and Google. .Led by big corporate media like TorStar and PostMedia, those lobbying for the bill make the asinine claim that since they used to make lots money from advertising, and the tech giants now make lots of money from advertising, that said tech giants owe them lots of money. .It's like saying that Thomas Edison owes money to candlestick makers. .It's a bill so twisted and self-serving that only the Canadian political-media complex could think it up. .Facebook — not a company I'm normally in the business of defending — has promised to just shut off the news from its platform in Canada if the bill passes. Independent, non-government supported media like the Western Standard would be collateral damage in the grifting operation of Canada's big legacy media. .So I was compelled to fly to Ottawa to testify before the Senate Tuesday, and plead with them to if not kill the bill, at least to amend it. My ask was simple: instead of forcing every news provider in Canada under the coverage of the bill, make it apply only to those who wish to have it applied to them. .It's a simple principle of the old common law; the government cannot force two unwilling parties to do business with one another. .But even if the bill is amended, it's a godawful mess. .Other witnesses at the committee came with a grab-bag of demands. .Representatives from the The National Council of Canadian Muslims made harebrained arguments for withholding the new Facebook cash from media they found to be offensive to Muslims. They were repeatedly unable to answer questions from Senators as to who, pray tell, should be charged with the responsibility of enforcing the proposed blasphemy law. .Other witnesses were there to rattle their cups and plead, "Please sir, I want some more." .You see, big media corporations are being promised lots of Facebook cash, so they want some too. .The Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association made the curious argument that they want free cash, but since nobody really reads them online, they won't make much from the Facebook-Google gold rush. From what I could tell, they want the government to force those tech giants to give them extra free money, even if nobody from the local Ponoka paper posts a single link online. .The Coalition of Canadian Magazines was there to warn that not enough of their glossy covers would be eligible for the free cash, since some of them weren't really "news." You see, some magazines write about other stuff too, and should also be patronized by the coming social media payday. .I sat beside them holding back my shit-eating grin as best I could. As they made their case, I was recalling a certain — less than wholesome – magazine I obtained as a teenager that, while mostly not news, did contain the odd bit of biting social and political commentary. .I couldn't help but wonder if in the rush to please publishers, the feds might inadvertently start shovelling cash to another industry that competes with both politicians and the media for moral standing. .One way or another, everyone has their bloody hands in the bloody cookie jar. Taxpayers already shell out $1.2 billion for the CBC, and another $600 million to subsidize the "private" media. .Bill C-11 will attempt to cartelize content creators under the lazy CanCon regime, and Bill C-18 attempts to add a new estuary of subsidies to failing news corporations. .When the Western Standard returned to publication in 2019, the press in Canada was for the most part, free and unregulated. .By the time this year is over, the media will be about as tightly controlled by government as are dairy farms.
