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CRTC Says No Regulatory Action Planned Against Meta For Blocking News Links

In the months leading up to the effective date of the Online News Act, then-Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge urged the CRTC to investigate Meta’s decision to block news links on its Facebook and Instagram platforms as its method of compliance. Pointing to reports of people screenshotting news articles and the use of other workarounds the blocking of news links that came in response to the Online News Act (Bill C-18), St-Onge said “I cant wait to see what the CRTC will do when the law is fully enforced on Dec. 19.” As the law took effect and the issue grew, the CRTC did indeed send Meta a letter in October 2024 asking for information on how the company was complying with the legislation. I wrote about this request soon afterward, providing a detailed analysis of the law that sought to explain why some news sites might fall outside the scope of the legislation along with the legal grey area of screenshots.

This week, the CRTC finally responded to Meta on the issue.

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December 4, 2025 — 1 comment — News
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The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 252: Len St-Aubin on the CRTC’s Plan To Modernize Canadian Content Rules

The CRTC recently released its much anticipated decision on Canadian content rules, the first of two decisions that could reshape broadcasting and film/TV production in Canada. The Commission promoted its Cancon approach as offering new flexibility into the system but the fine print matters as some changes may be more restrictive than they appear at first glance. To help make sense of the decision, Len St-Aubin, the former Director General of Telecommunications Policy at Industry Canada, joins the Law Bytes podcast. Len provided consulting services to Netflix until 2020 and has since been an active participant in the debate on Internet policy as part of the Canadian Internet Society.

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December 1, 2025 — 0 comments — Podcasts
older-man-reaching-people-045010 https://pixabay.com/ https://picryl.com/media/older-man-reaching-people-045010 CC0 1.0

Why Freedom of Expression Must Not Become a Right to Harass or Intimidate

My latest Globe and Mail op-ed opens by noting that my grandparents arrived in Canada in 1948, seeking to build a new life after surviving the Holocaust and knowing that most of their family had been killed in the death camps. They settled in Toronto, and in their later years moved to the northern part of the city, where my grandfather would go on daily walks in his predominantly Jewish residential area. He passed away many years ago, but those walks came to mind recently as I watched video of masked protesters roaming the same streets in north Toronto, leaving many residents fearful of leaving their homes.

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November 25, 2025 — 4 comments — Columns
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The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 251: Jennifer Pybus on the Debate Over Canadian Digital Sovereignty

Digital sovereignty is hot the digital policy phrase of the moment driving discussion on Canadian digital policy involving AI, digital infrastructure, privacy, and cultural policy among others. Yet despite its widespread use, its meaning remains opaque as it often used to frame – or reframe – longstanding policy positions. The government has begun to flesh out the issue with Treasury Board recently releasing a white paper on digital sovereignty that provides a useful starting point for discussion. Jennifer Pybus, the Canada Research Chair in Data, Democracy and AI at York University joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the white paper and Canada’s digital sovereignty debate.

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November 24, 2025 — 1 comment — Podcasts
Federal Ministers Discuss Strong Borders Act, CPAC, November 19, 2025 https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/federal-ministers-discuss-strong-borders-act--november-19-2025?id=99faa583-5d19-4c6b-9096-910aed21ac1b

Reversing the Reversal?: Government Puts Privacy Invasive Lawful Access Back on the Agenda

Last month, the government seemingly reversed course on its lawful access plans to grant law enforcement powers to demand warrantless access to personal information from any provider of a service in Canada. Buried in Bill C-2, a border measures bill, the lawful access provisions were the most expansive in Canadian history covering everyone from telecom providers to physicians to hotels. The bill sparked widespread opposition amid concerns that it was inconsistent with multiple Supreme Court of Canada decisions and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet it now appears that the reversal was short lived. Yesterday, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangree, Transport Minister Steve McKinnon, Secretary of State for Combatting Crime MP Ruby Sahota and a group of Liberal MPs held a press conference to urge swift passage of lawful access.

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November 20, 2025 — 4 comments — News
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