Lobbying registration dated 2026-01-15
Registrant: PAUL DEEGAN
Client: News Media Canada
Targeted institutions:
Canada Post Corporation (CPC)
Canadian Heritage (PCH)
Justice Canada (JC)
Finance Canada (FIN)
Treasury Board Of Canada Secretariat (TBS)
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)
Prime Minister's Office (PMO)
House of Commons
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)
Competition Bureau Canada (COBU)
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
Global Affairs Canada (GAC)
Privy Council Office (PCO)
Senate of Canada
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Acts: Copyright Act
Online News Act
Income Tax Act
Government funding received:
Institution: Canadian Heritage (PCH)
Amount: 11376447.00
Lobbying activity details:
Align the Government of Canada advertising policy with the Government of Canada's "Buy Canadian Policy" by directing the Agency of Record to ensure a minimum of 25% of the Government of Canada domestic advertising budget to Canadian private sector news businesses.
Keep advertising in dollars in Canada by closing the loophole in Section 19 of the Income Tax Act that allows for the deductibility of foreign internet advertising.
Abuse of dominance and anti?competitive business practices related to online search, search advertising and display advertising services in Canada.
Ensure that news businesses are compensated fairly under the Online News Act. Ensure funding from Google under the Online News Act is distributed in accordance with the Online News Act and Regulations. Only eligible news businesses (as defined by Section 27 of the Act) should receive funding. Per the Online News Act Application and Exemption Regulations: SOR/2023-276, the distribution must be based “only the number of full-time equivalent employees who, in the previous calendar year, were employed by each news business for the purpose of producing, for news outlets operated by that business, original news content that is intended to be made available online.” Ensure social media social media services covered by the Online News Act do not allow publisher content to be reproduced (screen shots, copied text, etc.) without providing compensation to news businesses.
Eliminating commercial advertising, including branded content, associated with CBC/Radio-Canada’s news and public affairs properties.
Ensure that the Copyright Act is not modified through an exception permitting Text and Data Mining (TDM) allowing AI companies to use Canadian news publishers' protected works to train generative AI systems without consent, credit, or compensation.
Maintaining the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit at 35%.
Ensure search engines cannot abuse their dominant position by de-indexing Canadian news sites if publishers block their AI bots from crawling our protected content without consent, credit, and compensation. This practice discourages other AI companies from entering into fair content licensing agreement with news publishers.
Ensure Canada Post continues to perform its vital role deliver community newspapers to Canadians. Have Canada Post return to the long-standing policy of exempting community newspapers with commercial inserts (e.g., flyers from local hardware and grocery franchisees) from the Consumers’ Choice program. Community newspapers with commercial inserts are not ‘junk mail’.
Extending the Local Journalism Initiative.
For transparency and to facilitate verification of eligible news publishers under the Online News Act, make the list of Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations public.