The best news is the $100 million deal Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge struck with Google. C-18 requires digital news intermediaries, such as Google, to make compensation deals with individual Canadian media companies. As well, monetarily, the $100 million is far below what the federal government had earlier estimated Google would pay, which was $172 million. If Google’s $100 million were to be allocated on a proportional basis, the crown corporations would stand to get about $33 million. Conservative says: “Speak white!”Mitigated victory as it is, the Trudeau Liberals have been doing a victory dance over the $100 million deal.
