MONTREAL – The contrast between Quebec and the rest of Canada on the brink of the showdown between Ottawa and the web giants is striking on both the political and business fronts.

This week, the federal and Quebec governments announced the removal of their ads from the platforms of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to protest their decision to block links to Canadian news. Meta wants to force the Trudeau government to act because it opposes Bill C-18, which wants to force web giants to pay royalties to news media.

Ottawa and Quebec’s decision was followed by several Quebec municipalities, and several Quebec media outlets also decided to do the same.

Federal and state parties diverge

On the political party side, however, the situation is very different. In Quebec, all parties have stopped advertising on meta-platforms. Prime Minister François Legault’s office confirmed to the Canadian press on Friday that the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and all CAQ MPs have stopped advertising on Facebook.

The Quebec Liberal Party and Québec Solidaire did not currently have any advertising campaigns on this platform and will not be launching any until further notice. For its part, the Parti Québécois had already decided at the end of June to withdraw its advertisements from Facebook.

At the federal level it is exactly the opposite. The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) has not followed the policies of the government it leads. Both the PLC and the New Democratic Party (NDP) have confirmed in emails to The Canadian Press that they will continue to advertise on this platform. As for the Conservative Party, the question doesn’t even arise as Conservatives oppose Bill C-18.

Only one federal party has withdrawn from Facebook and it is the only party active only in Quebec: the Bloc Québécois also announced last week that it would abandon the blue F platform.

The real lever

According to UQAM Professor Jean-Hugues Roy’s analysis, Meta generated between $3.7 billion and $4 billion in advertising revenue in Canada in 2022.

This means that the withdrawals announced so far alone aren’t much leverage considering, for example, Ottawa says it spends about $10 million a year on Facebook and Instagram.

Most of the money raised by Meta in Canada comes primarily from private advertisers, and the Quebec business community has begun to pull out, at least in part, while elsewhere in Canada there appears to be no movement in this direction.

Mobilizing agencies and advertisers

In addition to the withdrawal of Quebec state-owned companies such as Loto-Québec or the SAQ, the President of the Montreal Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Michel Leblanc, called on Thursday for a complete boycott of the meta-platforms for all companies. For its part, the Association of Creative Communication Agencies (A2C, formerly the Association of Quebec Advertising Agencies) is relaunching its Local Media Movement that it launched three years ago, this time urging companies to advertise publicly.

This movement invites companies to allocate at least 25% of their advertising budget to local media. “What we’re trying to say is, recognize that there are other options,” says Dominique Villeneuve, President and CEO of A2C, adding that if they want to do more, all the better.

“We didn’t want the goal to be too big to achieve, but we wanted everyone to have the opportunity to make changes to their media plans and their investments. What has changed is that we have created a public engagement.

“We are in talks with several advertisers and many agencies have already followed and have already signed. “We are very excited about the recent response,” she continues, adding that the names of the signing companies are due to be announced next week.

Status quo on the Canadian side

However, A2C’s Canadian counterpart, the Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA), has embraced the status quo and is not asking its members to take any action. In a statement sent to The Canadian Press, the association said it was “disappointed to learn that giants of global platforms are preparing to block news to Canadians.”

Its president, Ron Lund, says that “blocking links to Canadian news is not fair to consumers or advertisers of online content.” to seek a solution for the good of all”.

The only movement observed outside of Quebec is the fact that the major Canadian media are therefore involved in the conflict. Initially, the Toronto Star went it alone, but CBC, Postmedia and Bell Media joined the movement.

The giants are not that efficient

Nevertheless, Dominique Villeneuve emphasizes: “Depending on the measures taken, local media can be more effective and efficient.” It always depends on how you analyze performance. It is certain that it is to their advantage if we take the performance measurements offered by the web giants that manage and offer them. However, if we carry out the analysis with other measuring instruments, we can get different results.

A case study by the advertising agency Touché! from 2019 shows that the agency’s advertising campaign for Via Rail at the time had resulted in a 6% increase in ridership and a 5.5% increase in the railway company’s overall revenue. What is special about this campaign? As much as 80% of advertising investment for the Ontario and Quebec markets went to the digital platforms of local broadcasters and content creators, a significant increase of 25 percentage points, over a period and media budget comparable to 2018.