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Jason Kint: Canada has proven that news bargaining works 

Don't dismantle the Online News Act. Rather, refine it and strengthen it against retaliation

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The Online News Act (C-18) is working. It’s delivering real resources into newsrooms. And that’s precisely why it is under attack. By Meta. By its proxies and lobbyists. By its friends in government.

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The act now delivers roughly $100 million annually from Google to support journalism. This isn’t theoretical.  All of the arguments on why news bargaining would  fail are out the window now that it’s working. The cash is flowing directly into newsrooms across the nation.

Jason Kint: Canada has proven that news bargaining works  Back to video

An independent publisher in Alberta calls the roughly $28K per year her newsroom receives a “game changer.” A mid-sized outlet in Quebec receives hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Both also lead associations representing hundreds of publishers in their respective provinces. All confirm the same: this support matters. It is stabilizing local journalism at a moment when democracy cannot afford further erosion.

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The rationale behind Canada’s Online News Act — and its inspiring big sister law, Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code — was straightforward. Policy-makers recognized a structural imbalance in bargaining power between dominant digital gatekeepers, primarily Google and Facebook, and  news publishers. Antitrust enforcement was moving too slowly to address the harm in real time. Journalism, however, could not wait for multi-year litigation to conclude. These laws were designed as targeted, interim interventions to push platforms to negotiate and get money flowing while broader competition cases played out.

What makes these laws smart is their simplicity and flexibility. They do not attempt to set a fixed price on journalism, attention or (heaven forbid) clicks. They are not overly prescriptive about the value of content. Instead, they require platforms to negotiate in good faith, ensuring broad support for newsroom employment.

Equally important, these frameworks keep the government out of the business of picking winners and losers in the press. That safeguard is not theoretical. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom curtailed funding for a similar measure after it passed into law. At the federal level, under a leader such as President Donald Trump — who has repeatedly attacked news organizations and sought to use governmental power against perceived critics — the danger would be obvious. Allowing the executive branch to influence which publishers receive support would be a profound threat to press independence. The Canadian and Australian models wisely avoided that trap.

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The one aspect of these new bargaining laws that did not unfold as intended was Meta’s response in Australia and Canada. Rather than negotiating under a democratically enacted framework, Meta chose to block news entirely and leverage its platform to blame the government. That decision eliminated referral traffic for publishers who had relied on Facebook distribution. But despite Meta’s narrative, it was never evidence that the law had failed. It was evidence that a platform, often labelled as hostile to journalism and hostile to democracy, chose retaliation over participation under the rules developed through a deliberated parliamentary process. Are we surprised?

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And Meta now argues the law should be dismantled because it  supposedly inhibits its AI licensing deals. That claim also collapses under scrutiny. In the U.S. — where there is no such Online News Act, nothing close to it — there has been no surge in voluntary licensing deals for journalism out of Menlo Park. The absence of regulation has not unlocked a growth market of deal-making. The deals simply are not happening.

Instead, both Meta and Google have entangled content licensing within the tentacles of their sprawling platform businesses, blurring any clear precedent for paying directly for journalism. Why? Because direct licensing creates precedent. And precedent matters, particularly as these companies fight consequential copyright litigation over AI training.

But the facts remain stubborn for Meta. The Online News Act is delivering real dollars to real newsrooms. It was designed as a measured mitigation to a proven imbalance in market power. It pushes dominant platforms to the negotiating table without dictating deal terms. It protects against government interference in distribution decisions. And it serves as a bridge while antitrust enforcement addresses the deeper structural problems.

Journalism is essential infrastructure for democracy. When market distortions threaten it, policy-makers have a responsibility to act. Australia acted. Canada acted. And the results show that carefully constructed news bargaining frameworks can work.

The answer is not to dismantle what is working. It is to refine it, strengthen it against retaliation, and ensure that dominant platforms cannot use their gatekeeping power to avoid accountability — whether in news distribution, competition law, or AI.

Democracy cannot wait for perfect solutions. It depends on practical ones. And Canada should be applauded for this one.

Jason Kint is CEO of Digital Content Next, which represents many of the world’s top digital content brands.

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