Is Canada’s Online News Act a solution to global news companies struggling with losses to digital giants like Facebook and Google, or does it miss the mark? Commenting to BNN Bloomberg, MLI Senior Fellow Peter Menzies warns that Bill C-18 has a wide range of unintended consequences and is a deeply flawed piece of legislation.
“Anything sustainable has to be founded in fact, and I don’t think the facts are established in this case [for Bill C-18].”
Menzies says that this bill is only part of the equation. In Canada right now, he argues that there are “a bunch of policies that are working in opposition to one another.”
“What is really needed is a longer term, national, 21st-century-based news media industry strategy.” A forthcoming MLI paper by Menzies will outline just such a strategy.
