08/23/2026
What Americans are doing about our digital laws:
Washington didn’t just want tariff concessions. It wanted Quebec to change its French-language laws.
But be clear: this was not about eliminating French.
One of the measures Washington had already targeted was Quebec’s Bill 109, aimed at making original French-language cultural content easier to find and access on digital platforms.
In March, the U.S. Trade Representative formally added “Discoverability of French-Language Cultural Content (Bill 109)” to its list of Canadian trade barriers.
And Bill 109 wasn’t alone.
Washington has also been objecting to Canada’s Online News Act, formerly Bill C-18, which requires large digital platforms to bargain with Canadian news organizations. The 2026 USTR trade-barrier report specifically lists the law and says the United States continues to monitor it. Meta’s response to C-18 was to remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, while Google reached a deal that provides $100 million annually to Canadian news organizations. (United States Trade Representative)
I have argued C-18 should be repealed because it has failed Canadians by leaving news unavailable on major social platforms. But Canada should repeal a bad Canadian law because we decide it is bad policy, not because Washington demands it in return for tariff relief.
That distinction matters.
Carney says the failed negotiations included American demands touching Canadian culture and the French language, alongside other major disputes over trade and economic sovereignty.
We cannot say Bill 109 alone killed the deal.
But we can say this: Quebec’s French-language digital-content rules were already on Washington’s target list before the negotiations blew up.
This wasn’t a fight over whether Quebec can speak French.
It was a fight over how far an American government can reach into Canadian and Quebec cultural policy as the price of a trade deal.