Meta has Canadian offices and does business in Canada. Even if they were doing business purely across the border, it doesn't mean that you aren't subject to Canadian law. It is perfectly possible to go after foreign entities, especially if you are the government going after large multinationals.

In any case, the rule isn't that social media companies would be taxed. It is that they have to pay new sources for copyrighted content that they display on Meta sites. In other words, if Meta displayed a CBC article, they would have to pay the CBC for the content. Meta decided that they didn't want to pay for other people's work.

> If journalism is a public good whose supply is below an optimal level, why wouldn't the government just fund it regardless? Although I personally prefer as little state influence over media as possible.

Just like the US, and many other western countries, Canada has taxpayer funded news, the CBC, which is independently run. With smaller markets, journalism doesn't necessarily pay as an industry, but it is seen as a public good. The US is a big enough market that multiple high quality news companies can profitably cover it nationally, and locally. This just isn't true in Canada. We have an area bigger than the US, with a population the size of California, with a GDP about 2/3 that of California. It's really hard to make money covering such a large territory when the money is tighter, and the costs are higher.

This was never about a lack of journalism, this was about paying for journalism.