OTTAWA – The US State Department is aiming in a human rights report in Canada’s online news Act that criticizes press freedom in Canada – experts on Thursday characterized as an orvelin.
The online news act, which is required to compensate for the news publishers for the use of their content, is quoted in a part of the report covering the freedom of the press.
Fen Hampson, an international affairs professor at Carlton University, said, “The US Canadian law is scheduled to crush two important pieces, the online news act and the online streaming act. His final game is clear.”
While Meta drawn news from its platforms in response to the 2023 law, news outlets are now receiving payment from $ 100 million Google Fund. Prime Minister Mark Carney indicated last week that he was open to cancel the law; A government spokesperson said that in response to a query from Canadian press, the implementation of the online news act is still going on “.
Carney had earlier killed a digital services tax, which applied to several large American tech companies after US President Donald Trump stopped trade talks with Canada with tax.
Last week, a group in the American Republican urged the Trump administration to carry forward Canada to eliminate the online streaming act. This bill forces large streaming companies such as Netflix and Amazon to make financial contribution to Canadian materials and news.
Hampson said that large technical companies oppose both the pieces of the law. He said, “What we are seeing is not what I would call honest criticism. It is a calculation campaign to protect Big Tech’s profits,” he said.
“I would say, to say it clearly, the report takes small grains of truth and takes them into a full-developed web of deception and misinformation that is probably worthy of George Orwell itself.”
Alfred Harmida, a professor at the Journalism School in British Columbia, also referred to the concept of Dublthink from Orwell’s famous political dystopian novel, “Unnasic Assi-Char”.
Harmida said that the report takes the things that “actually promoting press freedom, but are presenting them as if they are stopping the press freedom.”
The report said that the government “generally” respects freedom of expression in Canada, although it was concluded that “the press remains important fragmentation of freedom”.
This quoted media funding as part of the reason, including government funding for the online news act, journalism tax credit and a local journalism initiative that is independently administered from the government.
The State Department raised the issue with a section of the initiative, which prefer to hire various journalists, which are indigenous, black, disabled or part of the LGBTQ community. The report claimed that “discrimination against journalists who fell out of these favorite categories.”
Harmida said that the media has “been big and very white and very men” and attempts to increase diversity are trying to fix historical loss.
Harmida said that it is “really shocking” to come out of the state department of such a political report.
He described it as a “Lens on Press Freedom in Canada”.