Step 1: Pass laws regulating what online platforms can show Canadians. Step 2: Pay the legacy media that covers you. Step 3: Fund a state broadcaster that critics call editorially aligned with your government. The result: a media environment where the government's preferred narrative dominates, independent voices are squeezed, and Canadians lose access to unfiltered information.
Bill C-11 โ The Online Streaming Act (2023)
What It Does
Bill C-11 received Royal Assent in April 2023. It extended CRTC regulatory oversight to online streaming platforms โ Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, Crave, and similar services operating in Canada. The CRTC gained the power to:
- Require platforms to promote and financially support Canadian content โ raising concerns about government-mandated algorithmic curation
- Regulate what content gets recommended and promoted to Canadian users
- Mandate contributions to Canadian content funds
Why Critics Are Concerned
- Censorship by algorithm: Internet rights group OpenMedia and academics warned the bill effectively allowed the government (through the CRTC) to influence what Canadians see in their feeds
- User content concerns: Early versions of the bill swept up user-generated content, alarming Canadian creators on YouTube and TikTok who feared their content could be regulated or deprioritized
- Government influence: Critics argued the bill gave the CRTC โ a federal regulatory body whose members are appointed by the PM โ unprecedented power to shape Canada's information landscape
- Political disfavour risk: Legal scholars warned the bill could be used to demote politically disfavored content or promote government-aligned voices without explicit censorship
Bill C-18 โ The Online News Act: Meta Blocked Canadian News
The "Link Tax"
Bill C-18, the Online News Act, received Royal Assent in June 2023. It required large online platforms (primarily Google and Meta/Facebook) to negotiate and pay "fair compensation" to Canadian news organizations simply for linking to or featuring their content.
The Catastrophic Outcome
Rather than comply with what amounted to a "link tax" on news sharing:
- Meta (Facebook/Instagram) blocked all Canadian news content from its platforms in Canada in August 2023 โ cutting millions of Canadians off from news on those platforms
- Google negotiated a settlement: agreeing to pay $100 million annually to Canadian news organizations to avoid the blocking requirement
- Google's money was largely directed to legacy media outlets (Postmedia, CBC, Torstar) โ further entrenching their dominance while independent journalists received little
- Small local news outlets that the bill claimed to protect were largely bypassed by the settlement structure
The practical outcome of Bill C-18 was that millions of Canadians lost access to local and national news through Facebook and Instagram. The government's stated goal โ helping the news industry โ was eclipsed by the real-world damage of Meta's blanket news ban, which hit smaller local publishers hardest.
Bill C-63 โ Online Harms Act: Retroactive Speech Prosecution
What It Would Have Done
Introduced by the Trudeau government in February 2024, Bill C-63 proposed to:
- Require platforms to remove broad categories of "harmful content" โ with definitions critics called vague enough to capture legitimate political speech
- Restore Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (repealed 2013) โ creating a tribunal system to adjudicate online hate speech complaints
- Allow retroactive prosecution โ individuals could be investigated for content posted years before the law's passage
- Create a new Digital Safety Commission with broad regulatory and enforcement powers
"[Bill C-63 is] deeply flawed... provisions that could chill online speech."
โ Professor Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa
Multiple constitutional experts raised concerns that C-63's hate speech provisions could violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' Section 2(b) guarantee of freedom of expression. The retroactive prosecution provisions were particularly condemned as contrary to fundamental rule-of-law principles. The bill died on the Order Paper when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025.
The $600M+ Media Bailout โ Paying the Press That Covers You
The Programs
The Trudeau government committed over $600 million in direct and indirect subsidies to Canadian news organizations over five years:
- Local Journalism Initiative: $50 million over five years to fund local reporters
- Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit: A refundable 25% tax credit worth up to $13,750 per journalist per year โ estimated at ~$350 million over five years
- Journalism Tax Credit for Subscribers: A 15% non-refundable subscriber tax credit
- Total (direct + indirect): Estimates of $595 million to $700M+ over the Trudeau era, before CBC funding
Who Got the Money
Major beneficiaries of the media subsidy programs included:
- Postmedia Network โ Canada's largest newspaper chain (National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette, 100+ others), despite being controlled by American hedge funds
- Torstar (Toronto Star and affiliates)
- Rogers Media (Maclean's, Chatelaine)
- Various regional and local outlets
A government paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the news organizations that cover that same government creates an inherent conflict of interest. Outlets receiving government subsidies have a financial incentive not to be overly critical of the government providing the money. This is not a conspiracy theory โ it is basic institutional incentive design. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called the subsidies a "media bailout" and pledged to defund them.
CBC: $1.4 Billion Per Year โ Canada's "State Broadcaster"
The Budget
The CBC received approximately $1.4 billion per year in federal parliamentary appropriations during the Trudeau era โ the largest public broadcaster subsidy in Canadian history in absolute terms. In addition, the 2019 Liberal platform restored $150 million in CBC funding that Harper had cut.
Why Critics Call It a "Liberal State Broadcaster"
- Critics on the right consistently accused CBC News of Liberal editorial bias in its coverage
- Polling showed significant public support for defunding CBC, particularly in Western Canada
- CBC's English television ratings declined significantly over the Trudeau era as audiences shifted to streaming โ yet funding increased
- Federal government advertising spending at CBC creates an additional financial relationship between the broadcaster and the government it covers
- Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives made "defund the CBC" a central campaign promise, vowing to eliminate English CBC television funding while maintaining French Radio-Canada