Nanaimo city council voted down a motion by Coun. Paul Manly for the city to stop advertising on Meta social media platforms Facebook and Instagram yesterday.

This comes as Meta has started to block content from Canadian news organizations after the federal government passed Bill C-18, the Online News Act that requires Meta and Google to pay for links to Canadian news stories.

“It is patently insane that Meta should take this approach,” said Alex Freedman, executive director of the Community Radio Fund of Canada. “They've been running these ads saying in order to comply with Canadian government regulations we have to do this and it's a complete fabrication.”

The issue was raised by Manly after Sean McCue, publisher of the Nanaimo News Bulletin, sent a letter to council asking the city to stop advertising on Meta and spend that money supporting local news organizations instead.

According to legislative services director, Sheila Gurrie the city spent $2,768 boosting posts on Facebook and Instagram in 2022, while it bought $113,309 in advertising with Black Press Media and another $35,739 with Island Radio.

The City of Nanaimo is currently advertising the Concerts in the Park series on Facebook and Instagram according to the Meta Ad Library.

Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog supported the motion citing the amount of money the city spends on Facebook and Instagram.

“It would be a no-cost gesture for us to stop advertising with them because we're not spending any money now,” he said.

Freedman said while the amount of money the city spends on Meta may be small what local governments do matters.

“It's not the amount. It's the message,” he said. “It's the fact that we are saying publicly and broadly, that yes, we support local journalism. If every municipality across Canada pulled that $2,000 out of Google and Facebook, that makes a difference.”

Coun. Hilary Eastmure, a former local news reporter, opposed the motion.

“The issue here is that people are going on to Facebook and Instagram and they're not going to be seeing those traditional media sources that they used to see.” she said. “I think that's an important gap that the city needs to continue to provide information through these platforms to residents, because that is one major way that people get information.”

Coun. Sheryl Armstrong also had concerns about the city’s ability to communicate with residents if it didn’t advertise on Facebook.

“We saw when we did our community surveys that a lot of people get their information on what's going on in the city through Facebook,” she said.

The motion was defeated with Manly and Krog voting for it and the other five councillors present opposed.

Coun. Ian Thorpe, who is a contract employee of Black Press, recused himself from the discussion and Coun. Erin Hemmens was absent.

Listen to CHLY's report below: