I don't know if a timeline was made public but i imagine back then that either a) you might not even get the notification when made a mod somewhere or b) filterng wasn't good so that particular one was lost and drowned in a ton of notifications.
So it becomes somewhat plausible that spez was actually unaware of this fact for a bit.
That said, my gut feeling is that he knew about it but tried to justify it publicly and to other reddit employees as some kind of "for free speech!" sort of thing. I dare not go any deeper and speculate about his private thoughts on the matter...
To answer my own question: no.
reddit is too small, and the bill was designed to apply only to two very large companies: FB and G.
Source: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/06/as-government-moves-to-cut-off-bill-c-18-debate-the-reality-is-artificial-intelligence-renders-bill-already-out-of-date/