When Le Devoir director Brian Myles appeared before the Senate committee studying Bill C-18 last month, he closed by urging the committee to pass the legislation quickly, stating “the time to act is now. We can’t wait two years between the passage of the bill and the CRTC regulations, because the delay will benefit opponents, giving them time to organize and undermine the spirit and the letter of the law.” While Myles acknowledged that claims regarding “theft” of news content by Internet platforms was overstated, he nevertheless expressed full support for the bill. One month later, the Online News Act is now law, Meta has confirmed that it will block news sharing before it takes effect, and the government is reportedly in last ditch negotiations with Google to stop it from doing the same.

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