Bill C-18 will come into force later this year. It requires regulatory provisions that will need to be formally published and consulted through The Canada Gazette etc.

This seems to be Meta & Google flexing and doing their worst to local media before the proposed regulations are published.

Here’s a CBC breakdown from last Friday.

Reacting to Google's announcement Thursday, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez told CBC News conversations with the company are ongoing and the "clarity" it wants about the Online News Act will come as the government hammers out regulations.

Here’s the 44-1/C-18 information page for the Parliament of Canada.

Trying to charge people for links is incredibly bad.

Good thing the law isnt charging people but the richest and most powerful corporations on the planet!

News sites used to generate a lot of ad revenue. Now, Google and Facebook combine to receive 80% of all ad revenue. If you see an ad online, it's likely Google or Facebook got paid for it.

But why do they make so much ad money? Because they host links to what people want. They're making tens of billions simply by hosting links to the content of others, who aren't making money anymore because advertisers give their money to the link hosters and not the content creators. This "link tax" is a way to ensure the content creators get their fair share. Google and Facebook don't create content, they link to it. Why should they get all the money?