Go Ad Free

On Wednesday's live stream, Sheila Gunn Reid and Lise Merle reacted to Mark Carney suggesting the controversial Online News Act could be rescinded.

The Online News Act was passed in 2023 and forces tech giants like Meta and Google to pay Canadian news organizations for sharing their content. The Act caused Meta to ban news articles from Canadian users.

Carney suggested on Tuesday that his government is interested in making sure local news content is disseminated "as widely and quickly as possible" after fielding a question about possibly rescinding the Act.

Sheila condemned the Liberals' "shakedown" through the Act and its impact on Canadians simply wanting to read news content online.

"For those of you who are like, 'oh Rebel News, I used to see you guys on Facebook all the time' or 'oh I used to watch your reels all the time on Instagram, I haven't seen you in a long time.' That's because of the Online News Act," she said.

"Meta refuses to pay the shakedown money to the failing news companies through the Online News Act. So they just block Canadian news, and I don't blame them. I wouldn't pay the shakedown either," Sheila added.

While speaking to reporters Tuesday, Carney also re-affirmed his commitment to increasing funding for CBC/Radio-Canada despite dwindling viewership and an annual billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy.