Cabinet member 1 of 5 Liberal MPs to break Facebook ad ban: report

A member of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet has broken a ban on paying for Facebook ads in the past month, according to a report.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech spent $1,094 on local ads informing constituents in his Burnaby North—Seymour riding in B.C. that he is “working hard for you.”

Beech is one of five Liberal MPs to break the boycott against the social media giant and its parent company Meta, which also owns Instagram.

Meta Platforms records also show MPs Iqwinder Gaheer (Mississauga-Malton, Ont.), Wayne Long (Saint John-Rothesay), Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, Ont.) and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, Ont.) also paid for Facebook ads since the ban, but spent under $200 each.

On July 5, cabinet announced it was pulling all government advertising from Facebook and Instagram, worth $11.4 million a year, after Meta said it was ending news access on its platform following the passage of Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which forces online publishers to share some advertising revenue for linking to Canadian news.