The Candian media wanted money. Thus a news link tax. (Australia tried the same thing, failed too.) But FB and Google called their bluff. Turns out FB and Google don’t make money by linking to Canadian media, so they’re happy to just delist those URLs.
The Canadian conservative politicians wanted the PR for attacking the evil US liberal tech giants. So they were willing to gamble, because they don’t actually care about the media companies they claim to have been protecting.
Everything you wrote is true, but also traditional media is largely dying off these days. They’re desperate for cash from anywhere.