Here’s a word of caution for policy-makers looking to help publishers retrieve some of their advertising revenue lost to web giants such as Google and Meta: Whatever you do, don’t look to Canada for inspiration.
Canada’s efforts to “defend democracy,” as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put it, have turned out to be a counterproductive fiasco. The government hoped the Online News Act would salvage a struggling legacy news industry and become a model to be copied globally. But it is the most spectacular legislative failure in Canada’s living political memory.
Gee, soon the only media in Canada will be the CBC. How terrible for Justin!
