April 11, 2022
SHARE
CANADALAND
#770 Google And Facebook To The Rescue: Canadian News Gets On Big Tech’s Payroll
Canada is two years into its news media bailout. How the policy has had both good, bad and unintended consequences.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Jonathan Goldsbie
News Editor
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts

Canada is two years into a news media bailout that was lobbied hard for by the country’s newspapers. As it turns out the money that’s flowed has had uneven impacts on the industry. And last week the Online News Act was tabled that will mandate tech companies – like Google and Facebook – to pay news companies compensation for posting their content on their sites.

Will this expansion of government news aid inflame disparities? Will it help an industry in crisis? Are we destined for a media landscape where government approvals are the only way to survive?

Featured in this episode: Colette Brin, journalism professor at Université Laval; Tim Bousquet, editor-in-chief of the Halifax Examiner; Emma Gilchrist, editor-in-chief of the Narwhal

Further reading:

Support Canadaland at canadaland.com/join

Sponsors: oxio, Skipper Otto, HelloFresh

Additional Music is by Audio Network

More from this series
“There are many agents from the regime within Toronto and other cities documenting our faces and our presence.” -Bahar Almasi
March 9, 2026
"You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." -Morpheus
March 5, 2026
“Everybody needs to know about this. We need to shut this down. This is aviation. This is training. There are safety issues here.” -Jeff Weeks, Aviation Executive
March 2, 2026
“I knew that the swarm of reporters was going to descend and that everybody wanted a little piece of somebody. So I was like, well, I will allow myself to be the bone that the news hounds chew on.” -Trent Ernst, Reporter/Editor/Publisher at Tumbler RidgeLines
February 23, 2026
“ If you think the world is better with Canada in it then you have to accept that certain things have to happen for that to continue.” -Jay Baruchel
February 16, 2026
“ That is not what we were promised. That's not what our patients expected.” -Dr. Alier Marrero
February 9, 2026
We wanted to know all of your local gossip. How toxic is your subreddit? How angry are your community Facebook groups? And boy, did you deliver.
February 5, 2026
This is a tale of revenge. It’s also a David and Goliath story, about one man going up against giant corporations and winning.
February 2, 2026
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND