Who Stands to Win in Poilievre’s Canada: Social Media Giants
In the past few years, the mainstream news media’s advertising-based business model has imploded. At the same time, online dis- and misinformation have exploded. Under Justin Trudeau, the Liberals sought to address both problems with legislation with the goal of regulating content online. That included Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which aimed to get tech platforms to pay Canadian media companies for sharing news links, and Bill C-11, which required streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to contribute to a Canadian content fund.
Bill C-18 has been partially successful: it led to an arrangement where Google pays into an annual $100-million fund intended to support Canadian news. But it’s also had an unintended opposite effect. In 2023, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, chose not to pay to host Canadian news and instead simply removed news links from its platforms entirely. The result was that Canadians saw less news online, and publishers received less traffic and found smaller audiences.
C-11, meanwhile, mandated that streaming companies contribute to a fund for Canadian content creators. This has also been a bust: revenue for the most recent fiscal year was just $357 million, compared to the projected $830 million. Critics contended that streamers would simply raise prices to cover the costs, and Spotify is among those that have done so, citing C-11. The bill also sparked controversy among free-speech advocates due to vague language about regulating the visibility of Canadian content and mandating streamers fulfill certain obligations to represent diversity. Pierre Poilievre has referred to both C-11 and C-18 as “Trudeau’s Censorship Laws.” Tech insiders expect a Poilievre government to quickly roll back both bills.
Reversing C-18 would, in theory, pave the way for news to return to Facebook and Instagram without financial penalty to the companies. This would be a big win for Meta and would set an international precedent deterring similar regulatory efforts from governments elsewhere. It would also be good for news consumers—but perhaps only in the short term. In spite of their flaws, C-11 and C-18 were good-faith attempts to ensure government policy supported Canadian news and content. Reversing both bills may expand the amount of content available to consumers online, but will leave unaddressed the problem they were intended to solve: the dire circumstances facing many Canadian media creators.
It is unlikely that a Poilievre government will attempt to replace these laws with anything better. Canada’s policy architecture governing big tech and social media companies will instead wax and wane, depending on the whims of the government of the day.
