Q&A: Melissa Lantsman wants news back on Facebook — but doesn’t think Ottawa should be ‘extorting’ platforms

Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, Ont.) doesn’t use Facebook (or any other social media, for that matter) in her personal life, but she says it’s important for the millions of Canadians that use the platform to have access to trustworthy news. After the Liberals passed the Online News Act, Meta Platforms Inc. removed links to news websites from Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users to avoid paying new fees implemented under the law. It’s now been more than three years since mainstream news outlets could link to stories on the platforms. In an exclusive interview with The Wire Report, Lantsman spoke about a petition she brought to Parliament requesting Ottawa to re-engage with Meta with the “objective of restoring access to news content.” Before we jump in, I wanted to ask if you personally use Facebook? I do use it for work purposes, but I’m probably an anomaly in that I don’t use any social media platforms personally. I use it as a broadcast-only platform, and almost never engage in commentary. Moving towards the petition, MPs can sponsor petitions before the House of Commons without endorsing their objectives, but is this an issue you care passionately about? Yes. I spoke about it in the House on the last go of the Senate amendments around C-18. It was a speech with the greatest hits, like big government overreach, particularly around the limitation of freedom, and the notion that, if Alphabet Inc.’s Google follows suit, it’s small independents who lack a big presence online that would be hit the hardest. It also hit on government incompetence because they had a meeting on C-18 every few days over the course of eight months, and they still got it wrong. I said the same thing about C-11, but I see C-18 as a tax rather than the equalizing force for all voices, which is what they claim. There’s no secret that we’re against the bill and its rhetorical labels. Call it whatever you want, the answer is protecting independent media and protecting freedom shouldn't be viewed as opposing goals, but this bill seems to pit them against each other. So, that’s why I sponsored the petition. If people are like, ‘what can we do about this?’ Well, I’ll start with a petition. Do you think this is something everyday Canadians are concerned about? No, because I don’t think everyday Canadians are necessarily aware of it until they try to share on the platform. But, as a result, you end up in your own smaller echo chamber with the inability to fact check things with media sources that ostensibly follow a code of conduct and have to provide truth. So, it ends up worse off for everybody. This has been a yearslong standoff between Ottawa and Meta. Why do you think a resolution hasn’t been found? We saw the movie on C-11, but that probably has more to do with trade pressures than it does with everyday Canadians. I think there’s a large swath of Canadians that see C-11, C-18, and any other time they try to regulate the internet, like Bill C-34 on online harms is the latest iteration, or anytime the government uses some version of the CRTC or an expanded CRTC, there is a distrust amongst Canadians. So, this petition is sort of average with about 450 signatures. It’s one of these things that is organic in its reach, but I suspect that number will go up once September rolls around. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Battle River—Crowfoot, Alta.) has called on the Liberals to make fewer concessions in trade talks with the U.S. If the government yielded to Meta on this file, would you view it as a positive development or a concession? It’s sort of dependent because we haven’t heard the government put this forward as part of these trade negotiations. The problem is we haven’t heard much about the trade negotiations, so I think that’s a leap for people to make. We have said this doesn’t even the playing field between the big guys and smaller guys. It actually puts the smaller guys at a huge disadvantage, so we want to see an equalized playing field. This was less of an issue for Google, which struck an agreement to put up $100 million… That’s sort of how Google solves problems. But why shouldn’t Meta do the same thing? They could reach an agreement to contribute a fixed amount of funding to Canadian media outlets. Wouldn’t that be easier? We don’t extort companies to provide news to ordinary Canadians. We just don’t do that. We don’t do that on any other front, and I think that’s what you’re suggesting. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. dlegree@thewirereport.ca

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Q&A: Melissa Lantsman wants news back on Facebook — but doesn’t think Ottawa should be ‘extorting’ platforms

Regulatory | By Davis Legree |August 14, 2026

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Regulatory |
By Davis Legree
|August 14, 2026