KAWARTHA LAKES-The Federal government and Google have reached an agreement which will allow Canadians to continue to access news on the platform.
Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Canadian Heritage, today issued the following statement:
“Following weeks of productive discussions, I am happy to announce that we have found a path forward with Google for the implementation of the Online News Act. This will benefit the news sector and allow Google to continue to play an important role in giving Canadians access to reliable news content.”
As part of the agreement, Google will contribute $100 million in financial support annually, indexed to inflation, for a wide range of news businesses across the country. The government initially demanded more than $170 million from Google. It is unclear which outlets will qualify. Officials say Google will have the option to work with a single collective to distribute its contribution to all interested eligible news businesses based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists engaged by those businesses.
CBC/Radio-Canada stands to gain the most from the agreement and says it is very pleased that the federal government has been able to reach an agreement with Google to support journalism in Canada.
“By ensuring that news organizations can negotiate fair compensation for the content they create, this agreement marks a very important step towards building a healthy news ecosystem for Canadians. It is also encouraging for countries and news companies all over the world who are facing these same challenges. We look forward to the next steps in these discussions.” said CBC in a press release.
Canadians lost access to news on Facebook after parent company Meta pulled news links from its platform in response to the Online News Act.
The Online News Act will become law in a few weeks.
