'No concessions' St-Onge says in $100M a year news deal with Google

The Canadian government has reached a deal with Google over the Online News Act that will see the tech giant pay $100 million annually to publishers, and continue to allow access to Canadian news content on its platform. This comes after Google had threatened to block news on its platform when the contentious new rules come into effect next month.

The Canadian government has reached a deal with Google over the Online News Act that will see the tech giant pay $100 million annually to publishers, and continue to allow access to Canadian news content on its platform.

Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge announced the "historic development" regarding the implementation of Bill C-18 on Wednesday, after the tech giant had threatened to block news on its platform when the contentious new rules come into effect next month.

"We have found a path forward to answer Google's questions about their process and the Act. Google wanted certainty about the amount of compensation it would have to pay to Canadian news outlets," St-Onge said, backed by Liberal MPs in the House of Commons foyer.

"Many doubted that we would be successful, but I was confident that we would find a way to address Google's concerns and make sure that Canadians would have access to news in Canada on their platform," she said, insisting there were "absolutely no concessions" made on the government's part.

The federal government says this financial support will be indexed to inflation, and rolled out to "a wide range of news businesses across the country, including independent news businesses and those from Indigenous and official-language minority communities."

Google will also be able to work with a single collective to distribute this money to "all interested eligible news businesses," based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists they employ.

So far, little has been revealed about what, if any, regulatory adjustments the federal government will be making, with Canadian Heritage indicating that it is unable to release details about the finalized regulations until they are approved by the Treasury Board prior to the Act coming into effect.