Counter-speech against Meta: Why is Quebec the black sheep?

Posted On: July 10, 2023

The boycott movement against Facebook and Instagram, initiated by Quebec, cities, state-owned companies and the media in Quebec, has remained largely confined within our borders.

• Also read: News Blocking: Quebecor, Cogeco and La Presse will stop advertising on Meta

Aside from the Toronto Star and National Post, who got in the dance on Thursday, Canadian politicians, media and business leaders didn’t follow suit and stopped buying ads on Meta’s platforms.

For Laval University political scientist Éric Montigny, there is no doubt that “social cohesion” is more important and has something to do with Quebec.

“Smaller nations have greater social cohesion when there’s an issue that requires them to stick together” to “better defend their identity,” he explains.

“The media are a mirror of a society: if you attack the media of a society, you also attack the society.”

Mr. Montigny points out that English Canada does not have “the same relationship to information” since the American media is practically dominant there.

Philippe Gendreau, a high school media ethics teacher who just published GAFAM: The Five Headed Monster, believes this dependence on American news means that “English Canadians may not be as sensitive to the issues of ‘independence and cultural preservation’ are we’.

“You have CNN and Fox News and a variety of other American media that speak their language, while we’re used to consuming more local news,” he said.

“I have the impression that in Quebec we have a resistance reflex. It’s as if society could quickly unite on cultural issues,” he says.

This points to the Digital News Report produced by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which showed last year that French speakers systematically trust the media more than their English-speaking counterparts in Canada.

News Media Canada CEO Paul Deegan “welcomed” Quebec leadership and in particular Quebecor boss Pierre Karl Péladeau, who became the first boss of a major company to announce the end of advertising on Meta’s platforms.

“Our message to prime ministers across Canada, to major city mayors and to big business is to follow the lead of great leaders in Quebec government and business who have taken a strong position,” said Deegan.