Mr. Rodriguez, please act NOW to save Canadian news!

The need for truthful, credible, timely information has never been so important. Over the course of the pandemic, accurate news of the spread of COVID, vaccine information and the failures and successes of our government saved lives. And over the past few weeks, with Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, a truthful accounting of the violence is key not only to finding a path to peace, but also to ensuring we do not get caught up in a global surge of misinformation and disinformation spread by Moscow’s strongman and his allies.

But Canadian news media is under threat. Over the past ten years, 20,000 Canadian journalists have lost their jobs thanks to companies like Google and Facebook who have been raking in record profits, in part, by stealing news content. Their business model is simple: publish other people’s content without paying for it, and sell ads next to that stolen content.

This predatory business model has led to the destruction of Canadian journalism, the loss of thousands of jobs, and a weakening of our democracy. FRIENDS has been pushing for legislation for years on this issue. The concept is simple: if you make money from selling ads next to someone’s content, you should pay them for it. That’s just common sense, and countries like Australia and France have already adopted legislation to this effect.

Thanks to the extraordinary work of our movement, we managed to extract a promise from Justin Trudeau’s liberals in the last federal election: a clear commitment to table a Pay for News bill in the first 100 days of the new mandate. It now looks like they’re dragging their feet.

We need to ramp up the pressure now and make sure that the Minister in charge of the file, Pablo Rodriguez, knows that Canadians are watching, and are asking him, in one voice:

Mr. Rodriguez, please act NOW to save Canadian news!

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Write to Minister of Heritage Pablo Rodriguez

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A truly public
CBC/Radio-Canada

We can make sure CBC/Radio-Canada is truly public, with fewer ads, more news, and more independence.

CBC/Radio-Canada is the beating heart of our country. CBC/Radio-Canada brings local, regional and national news to every corner of the country, and it’s fictional programming, like Schitt’s Creek, Anne with An E and Kim’s Convenience, are racking up accolades and awards worldwide.

But the CBC is in a precarious position, and it’s losing its public focus. Ads are everywhere, especially online. News spending is down. Local coverage is waning. Transparency is at an all-time low. And as the cost of producing quality drama skyrockets, CBC’s flatlining budget makes it harder and harder to tell our own stories with each passing day.

Canada needs public service media that is truly public. Here’s how we do it:

Remove all ads from CBC English services, and from digital services in all languages.
Increasing funding so that the CBC can fulfill its public purpose.
End political appointments for the President and the Board of Directors.

We want to restore CBC/Radio-Canada, and return its focus to public service.

Telling our
own stories

We can level the playing field so more money flows back into Canada to invest in our great Canadian stories.

Canada’s biggest broadcasters aren’t Canadian. More and more, Canadians are tuning into Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and other foreign streaming services to unwind. These companies make over $1 billion per year in Canada, but have no legal obligation to finance original Canadian content, contrary to traditional broadcasters. They do invest here (when they feel like it), but dressing up Toronto to look like New York does nothing to advance Canadian culture and society.

Canada needs to force foreign streaming services to invest their fair share in original Canadian storytelling. Here’s how we do it.

Compel companies like Netflix to invest an equal share of their revenues in the production of original Canadian content, just as Canadian broadcasters do.

We want to secure the future of Canadian storytelling for the next generation.

Strong and
credible journalism

We need credible Canadian journalism. Democracy depends on it. We can protect it.

Canadian news is disappearing at an alarming rate. In the past ten years, half our daily papers have closed. Half of the journalistic workforce has been laid off. More than 3000 media workers have been laid off since the start of the pandemic. But it isn’t about the jobs, it’s about the stories that won’t be told, the power left unchecked, and the communities unconnected right across Canada.

Decency and democracy can’t exist without truthful, trustworthy journalism. The Trump era showed us what can happen to society when truth disappears, and we’d be wise to avoid making the same mistake in Canada.

Canada needs strong, credible, Canadian journalism to sustain our democracy, connect us to each other, and help Canadian society to progress and develop along its own path. Here’s how we do it:

End the nearly $2 billion in tax subsidies that reward Canadian business for buying ads from Google and Facebook at the expense of credible, legitimate, Canadian media.
Follow Australia and France to force Google and Facebook to compensate Canadian news organizations for their content, including the CBC.

We want to protect Canada’s decent, democratic society by reversing the disappearance of credible journalism across the country.

Canadian values in
Canadian media

Hate, death threats, and violence have no place in traditional or social media.

Canadian media obey the law. If they publish something untrue, they can get sued. They don’t publish incitements to violence, child sexual abuse material, or other illegal content not only because it’s unethical, but also because it’s illegal. If they did, they’d end up in jail. Canada’s desire to be a fair, decent, and democratic society depends on enforcement of these rules.

Social media has thrown centuries of Canadian law and tradition out the window. Facebook and YouTube regularly broadcast material that would land any Canadian company in court: hate, incitements to violence, death threats, terrorist recruiting material, child sexual abuse material, revenge porn – you name it. These companies insist that their self-serving “community standards,” which comply with American law, take precedence over Canadian law and the will of the Canadian people.

Canada needs to enforce its own laws, and its own values, online. Here’s how we do it:

Enforce existing laws. Governments already have a lot of power to crack down on platforms that facilitate illegal activity, but they refuse to use it. That has to change. If it’s illegal offline, it’s illegal online.
Make platforms’ Canadian executives personally liable for their company’s conduct, with penalties including possible jail time.
Change the law so that Canadian courts can block the flow of funds to repeat offenders. If you break the law, we should break your business.

We want Canadian laws and Canadian values to govern all media equally, ending Big Tech’s impunity for breaking our laws.

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