(LifeSiteNews) — Big Tech giant Google has declared Canadians will be blocked from accessing news in accordance with the Online News Act passed by the Trudeau government.
On June 29, Google joined Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in promising to block news content for Canadian users as the newly passed Online News Act forces tech companies to pay publishers for content.
“We have now informed the government that when the law takes effect, we unfortunately will have to remove links to Canadian news from our Search, News and Discover products in Canada,” Google executive Kent Walker wrote in a blog post.
The act, condemned by both Meta and Google, is presented as an attempt to keep journalism alive in Canada by providing outlets with “fair compensation” if their content is published on social media platforms.
However, Bill C-18 gives the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) the power to determine which news content Canadians are permitted to view.
According to the bill, to be considered “eligible” for sharing, a news outlet must be “a qualified Canadian journalism organization” and produce “news content of public interest that is primarily focused on matters of general interest and reports of current events.”
The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) failed spectacularly at resisting the initial COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates that were imposed by the government on freedom-loving Canadians.
Most CPC MPs subserviently complied with Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party in creating a police-state where our Charter Rights were regularly violated, but now Pierre Poilievre would have us believe they have turned a corner and nothing like it will ever happen again.
How can they rebuild our trust? Well, they can start by owning up to their terrible mistakes.
SIGN: The CPC must apologize for abandoning Canadians to Trudeau’s COVID regime.
You will remember how freedom-loving Canadians were abandoned by the CPC, with Erin O’Toole calling for vaccine passports and most CPC MPs pearl-clutching about “vaccine hesitancy”.
That was until the party realized how popular the Truckers’ Convoy had become and got behind the movement.
It’s quite possible the CPC would still be mute on vaccine mandates and lockdowns were it not for the heroic Freedom Convoy that converged on Ottawa.
Let’s not forget the businesses, churches, schools and universities that were shuttered for months on end because of the COVID hysteria generated by politicians in Ottawa, and the CPC did nothing.
They did nothing when people started losing their livelihoods (with some Canadians even losing their lives to suicide) because of the government’s deranged policy of locking people down.
The CPC must show they have learned a lesson from the COVID tyranny Canadians needlessly suffered and that they contributed to.
SIGN: Demand the CPC apologize for abandoning Canadians to Trudeau’s COVID tyranny.
In yet another reminder of how disconnected from reality the CPC were, MPs like Leslyn Lewis, Marilyn Gladu and Rosemarie Falk were omitted from their “Shadow Cabinet” in November 2021 because they dared to question the COVID shots.
Canadians must still contend with vaccine mandates in some settings and the intrusive ArriveCAN system in order to re-enter the country, while we are among the last three countries in the world to continue discriminating against unvaccinated visitors who remain barred from entering.
As Pierre Poilievre takes the reigns of the CPC, conservative voters must demand an apology from the party that abandoned them during the COVID-hysteria of the past two years.
SIGN: The CPC can rebuild trust by apologizing for capitulating to Trudeau’s COVID tyranny.
It is up to the Canadian government to decide which news outlets are to be considered “eligible.”
Prominent politicians and Canadians alike have condemned the act as a form of government censorship which could end free speech in Canada.
Alberta MP Rachael Thomas warned the proposed bill would prevent the government from being held accountable to Canadians.
While the act was initially feared to allow the Canadian government to censor what Canadians view online, it may backfire on the federal government if large tech companies refuse to pay to publish Canadian content.
Upon the bill’s approval, Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced it would begin to censor content for Canadians in anticipation of the bill taking effect.
“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” Meta stated.
Prior to the bill being passed, Facebook ran a test which blocked news content for about 5 percent of Canadians.