From the text of the bill: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-18/royal-assent
Making available of news content
(2) For the purposes of this Act, news content is made available if
(a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; or
(b) access to the news content, or any portion of it, is facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation or ranking of news content.
(b) sounds like just linking or indexing it would count as making it available, and thus require payment.
That seems to be backed up by at least a couple of the news sites: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-bill-c18-online-news-law-explained/
What is Bill C-18?
Bill C-18 is legislation that would force tech companies such as Google and Meta to negotiate compensation deals with news organizations for posting or linking to their work.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/online-streaming-news-bills-whats-next
At the Heritage committee, Liberal MPs resisted efforts from the Conservatives to take links out of the bill [...]