Michelle Bourassa, the daughter of former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, says Facebook’s block on news has torpedoed her site on help for the dying, by preventing her from sharing important, up-to-date developments on palliative care.
Ms. Bourassa set up the Facebook page #MortenSilence after her mother Andrée Simard, widow of the former premier, experienced suffering and deep distress in the last days of her life in November, saying the hospital failed to give her mother proper pain relief.
She said her mother only received proper sedation on her fourth day in Montreal’s St. Mary’s Hospital after the doctor on duty was told that she was the widow of the former Quebec premier.
Ms. Bourassa said her Facebook page was the epicentre of “a movement for people who don’t get proper palliative care.”
The page, which has more than 1,000 followers in Quebec, shares information about help for the dying – much of it through news articles – for people in the last stages of life and their families.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Ms. Bourassa said the blocking of news had wrecked months of work providing help for people who were not getting proper palliative care, much of it through links to news articles, radio programs and interviews.
“We have lost almost everything we have done,” she said.
She said her aim is to ensure that people at the end of their lives don’t accept bad treatment and have the latest information to inform them of best practices and their rights.
Ms. Bourassa, a landscape designer, is the daughter of Mr. Bourassa, premier of Quebec from 1970 to 1976 and from 1985 to 1994, who oversaw the implementation of Quebec’s public health care system.
In January, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé apologized about Ms. Bourassa’s mother’s care. The minister responsible for end-of-life care, Sonia Bélanger, said the health board must “review practices at St. Mary’s Hospital so that a situation like this one never happens again.”
The regional health board that oversees St. Mary’s Hospital said it would conduct an internal investigation into the end-of-life care Ms. Simard received.
Meta has blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram in response to the Online News Act, which would make Meta and Google compensate news organizations for posting or linking to their work.
The social-media giant says the legislation is flawed and would impose unlimited liabilities on the company, saying regulations now being drawn up would not be enough to fix the law.
The blocks have included some publications that do not produce news, including The Typescript, an American online literary journal that is run by Canadian Matthew Friedman.
Mr. Friedman complained to Meta that it had been blocked even though it is “neither a Canadian nor a news publication” and the block was lifted.
He said he thought his publication had been singled out because he is an expat Canadian living in the United States, as are his two associate editors.
Mr. Friedman said he viewed the blocking by Meta “as a form of corporate gunboat diplomacy” to send a signal to other countries contemplating similar laws.
“This suggests that the purpose of the blockade is punitive and not a question of compliance,” he said as Meta is blocking Canadians’ access to foreign news sites that would not fall under the jurisdiction of the Online News Act.
“They want to make an example of Canada. They want to put out this fire before it runs out of control,” he said. “This is corporate colonialism.”
Meta said that outlets not focused on news can ask for a review of the decision to block them.
“If a page or account is not sharing news content that is primarily focused on matters of general interest and current events, they are able to request a review. We are identifying news outlets based on legislative definitions and guidance from the Online News Act,” Meta said in a statement.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week accused Facebook of putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety by blocking Canadians’ access to news as wildfires rage.
Speaking at a news conference on Monday in Cornwall, PEI, Mr. Trudeau said access to local news is “unbelievably essential” to keep people informed about such things as evacuation orders.
Catherine Tait, president and chief executive officer of CBC and Radio-Canada, this week wrote to Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, asking him to take a “humanitarian” decision and unblock CBC sites serving communities affected by wildfires.
She said “the need for reliable, trusted, and up-to-date information can literally be the difference between life and death.”
“Given the emergency conditions, we are calling on you to exempt people in these communities from Meta’s current blockage of news accounts in Canada so that they are able to share critical news on those accounts, including evacuation order information,” she said.
Tu Thanh Ha