…why the print media are not all over the CBC question-planting story, listen to Mike Duffy (interviewed by CFRA, Ottawa’s Michael Harris), about 3/4 of the way through (hint: the CBC pays them).
56 Replies to “This Week’s Great Moment In Canadian Journalism”
I’m very surprised how little mention there is about previous scandals at the CBC and the corporation’s appalling record of condoning journalistic misconduct. (Remember when Adrienne Clarkson was a journalist?) To say nothing of the corporation’s outrageous record of defamation in its investigative reporting (read “hatchet jobs”).
Duffy’s later comments about Robert Latimer are also very interesting.
I believe it was Walter Cronkite that said it:
Report the News as it Happened, Not as you Envisioned it.
Are we suprised?? Why (if you are)?? Head must be too far in the sand. Just as bad was the breast beating, regarding Mr. Latimer. Lie and go free, tell the truth and rot in jail. Shades of David Milgard.
It’s mind boggling to compare the concern the CBC bright lights had for Mulroney’s telephone contacts about some wireless auction compared to a decade of rot, corruption and malfeasance by the Liberal government during the Chretien /Martin (thieving bastards) era.
The question had absolutely nothing to do with Schreiber but a direct CBC employee intervention on a fishing expedition.
The effort to weasel into a parliamentary ethics committee hearing reinforces the notion of possible collusion with a member of the Libs (ethics????) committee.
If the conservatives have any balls at all they will choke off the funding of the CBC.
Sell the trough swilling taxpayer albatross and funnel the money to child poverty, eh?
I always thought that the jury mishandled the Robert Latimer case because the evidence before them should have allowed them to convict on first degree murder, and by only convicting him on second degree, was giving the man a big break. Listening to Duffy and Micheal Harris discuss the parole board hearing (starts at 11:40 on the audio clip) and the tidbits coming out that aren’t being reported, are chilling!
Too bad Cronkite didn’t heed his own advice.
I was surprised. Not at the position or behaviour of CBC, but at the candid manner in which Mike Duffy commented. It was refreshing
and long overdue. The tragic story is that the vast majority of Canadians do not give two hoots
about the lack of veracity of the CBC.
My prediction for the new year is that; we shall see more of the same crap from the CBC, day after day. My advice? Just go CLICK!
So will Macleans criticize the CBC? Will the CBC dare to cut off Andrew Coyne’s per appearance fees, or Chantal Hebert’s.
Will either of those two have the spine to mention the story in front of Peter Mansbridge? And will Peter have the guts to steer the discussion appropriately?
Tune in next week on “As The World Turns”
For those that don’t have the time to listen:
Michael Harris commented he was banned from the CBC by a very high profile announcer (I’m guessing Mansbridge) for criticizing him.
Duffy said “the Corp” has become much worse lately and this sort of thing didn’t used to be tolerated to the same degree as now. He said part of the reason is that the CBC is the biggest contractor of freelancers. Therefore freelancers “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and thus you don’t see write ups on this story in the MSM.
Both Duffy and Harris were surprisingly, refreshingly, anti-CBC.
Also, Radio Canada is a den of separatists, where our current GG comes from. Why have we as taxpayers been paying for separatists to be anti the ROC? The mandate of the CBC is supposed to be unifying however, it has been divisive for years. Close it.
Silence over mothercorpse misdeeds is deafening….more so than standard political damage control…tells you something.
Duffy’s OK and Mike Harris as well…they brought out the core issue with CBC controlling the news agenda through nepotistic practices with free lance journalism.
As Harris explained, this new CBC honcho from the Sun Times has some house cleaning to do…I think he will and I’m sure the Harperites will lend a hand.
House cleaning is not good enough, pink slips and the sale of all of the CBC’s assets is what is needed here.
There are deep seated factions in the CBC. Nice to hear Mike D talk about it. Yes it is perceoved as a political forum, a way to get the “correct message” out there.
Cruickshank knows what real journalism looks like, Sun Times and the Globe (under Thorsell and the previous editor it was.) We will see what happens here. If the reporter is disciplined then they need to be named, as Duffy said if only for the other reporters to have the cloud lifted.
I suspect Rodriguez will get a rough ride in the house for awhile any time he asks a question. And quite frankly the reporter at the CBC should essentially be frozen out, which means not recognizig her. Combined with her behaviour during the Hurricane she clearly has a tendency to sensationalize and make up stories while demanding perks and props.
Quite frankly, there is cause for dismissal without compensation. Are reporters unionized?
It was a big mistake to split up the CBC into an English and French corporation that are two solitudes. I have to say that the anti-conservative bias on the news is more pronounced on the private channel Télévision Quatre Saisons.
Anyway the latest C.P. Harris-Decimas survey shows that the smearing of Mulroney is working in undermining conservative support. Not to mention the hysterical coverage of the Bali conference by the MSM.
It is very discouraging to see how the conservatives are blamed for the non-action of the Liberals on the environment and the maintenance of the Chalk River nuclear plant.
Sure, the Libranos are plastering their own crap all over the Conservatives at every turn, aided and abetted by the usual subjects in the MSM.
The Liberals did nothing on the environment and AECL at Chalk river wasn’t of interest to them either.
Do we have to take to the streets to put an end to this abuse by the MSM and their friends in the Liberal party?
The biggest problem with the CBC is that pretty much everyone who works for them is in a union.
If you belong to a union you cannot by definition be a “professional.” Professionals are responsible for their actions. When you’re in a union all that matters is seniority and you are protected against your misdeeds.
No journalist who’s in a union can be taken seriously.
It would be nice to abolish this atrocity. That I’m forced to pay for this sh** is a voilation of fundamental justice.
We don’t make leftard commies pay for FOX News.
Here is where Canadians get to actually prove their imagined superiority to Americans. All Canadians should be outraged, and now that we have this rotten media/political party cabal in our teeth, not let go until we have exterminated it.
Americans would not tolerate this for a picosecond. Far too many Canadian milquetoasts could care less… “Oh well, I guess it’s the price you have to pay to have your diapers changed by Nanny State.”
Mr. Harper, cut the CBC funding.
Anyone else seen the promo running on cbc newsworld for tonite’s grilling of PMSH by mansbridge on the National?The clip ends,with PMSH rising to shake the god of the mothercorp,and the pompous,lard-butted ego-maniac just sits there!The optics of this are quite telling..and even if mansbridge disagrees with PMSH,doesn’t the office of PM at least deserve some respect/dignity?what an absolute fatheaded jerk.
Again, as I have been writing to every blog… we have to write the Ombudsman of the CBC – and keep the pressure on… We should demand to know which reporter or reporters were speaking with the liberal members of that Mulroney panel… and which member or members they were talking with… His email address is: ombudsman@cbc.ca I have written him several times, telling him we expect answers, he has emailed me back saying an investigation is ongoing… but we have to keep the pressure on for answers or they will again support the liberal party and try and sweep it under the table..
Oops,meant to say,shake the hand of…I’d like to see him shaken tho.
shaken, very few canadians are thinkers.
Wow, and here I thought Hillary was the only Politician planting plants.
,
As well as the CBC, has anyone noticed how the “news” is handling the “drop in the poll numbers”. Taylor Parnaby had the Liberals at 32% and the Conservatives at “20”. He had to lie about the numbers.
It’s time we faced reality.
A conservative government is NEVER going to be able to dismantle the CBC without a leftist propaganda blitz and backlash that would label them as anti-Canadian,hidden agendists,anti-freedom of speech,bigots,etc.,etc..We would be back in the political hinterland quicker than Mulroney’s arrogance ever managed.
The problem as I see it is that at any given time,approximately 2 out of 3 Canadians poll are supporting a left of center party.Where I am repeatedly on record as being disgusted and infuriated by the CBC’s overt pro-left slant,I also see them as merely pandering to the majority,politically correct cultured.
I do not believe the CBC will be changed until our society is.
First supply some balance and open-mindedness to our learning institutions and then maybe the average Joe or Jane Sixpack will be able to recognise the anti-right agenda for himself.
Until then…it would be a suicide mission.
Teddy says “I do not believe the CBC will be changed until our society is.”
Or the other way around?
Because, as you say “First supply some balance and open-mindedness to our learning institutions”. Agree. But it’s a chicken and egg problem.
There are centrists that think the CBC and the BBC are sober reporters of the news. These same people are also not that upset with our learning institutions. Why? Because a utopian view of the world has become normal … centrist.
Therefore we aren’t going to change much while we let our tax dollars fund the CBC and learning institutions to spread the gospel according to Marx.
But I also think there are 42% (that’s all we need for a majority) of Canadians that would be happy to see the over $1 billion in subsidy to the CBC be applied to the debt. Even young people who aren’t Conservative would support that because they don’t listen to the CBC and they know the debt is their inherited problem.
So let’s run the next campaign on closing the CBC. Also let’s campaign on increased funding for universities and loans for students on worthwhile subjects .. e.g., science versus gender studies.
nomdeblog,
Thank you for sharing your opinion of my POV.We both agree that changes MUST be made within our higher learning centers.
But do you seriously believe that Harper could stand up in the HOC and announce defunding the entire CBC without a monumental backlash?
It would be a Dion wet-dream.
Nothing in the NatPost piece about how L. Ian Macdonald co-wrote Mulroney’s opening statement to the ethics committee.
Nice to see some of the right is as inconsistent and dishonest as some of the left.
Don’t lose site of the fact that Brian Mulroney admits to taking $225,000 in thousand-dollar bills from a sleazy arms dealer. That’s what will be remembered 50 years from now. All the rest is just a bunch of smoke-blowing.
BTW, the polls show people get it, even if the Mulroney apologists here do not.
Mark Bourrie: “BTW, the polls show people get it, even if the Mulroney apologists here do not.”
Get what? Please explain the connection between the committee’s hearings and this government.
*If* those poll numbers are to be taken seriously, and *if* they’re connected with the hearings (and with Bali), it’s a terrible reflection on the capacity of the average Canadian voter to form critical judgements.
I think most people are aware of the close association between L. Ian Macdonald and Brian Mulroney. The National Post notes the association on the bottom of their article and as far as I can recall has done so with every piece that he has written. It’s why when I read his stuff, I take it with a grain of salt, knowing the two are friends. Just as I do when I read Sheila Copp’s columns with respect to any number of Liberals.
What I didn’t know was that a faceless and nameless CBC reporter was on such good terms with Liberal Ethics Committee members, specifically Pablo Rodriguez. Good enough terms that the nameless and faceless reporter in question only had to make a request to get some irrelevant (to the issue at hand) question asked at the inquiry. What I still don’t know is, who is that person, what is their history, connection to politicos and therefore how do I evaluate that person for possible bias?
Truthfully, I’m pretty sure Mulroney will be remembered in 50 year’s time for the GST and Free Trade agreements. The $250,000 he took from a sleazy arms dealer will be a black footnote to that legacy.
We really don’t know what the polls show with respect to Brian Mulroney. That is unless the pollsters asked specific questions about him vis a vis the inquiry. I don’t think that is what they did.
Teddy at some point we have to stop funding stuff we don’t believe in. Listen to Duffy; he’s hardly a right wing nutter. I have no problem with private stations taking on Mulroney. Besides, I passed up going to a Mulroney soiree here in Toronto for the sleaze reasons that Mark Bourrie outlines. But the CBC issue is way beyond Mulroney. Also I’m not paying Ian MacDonald’s salary … there is an enormous difference between a private station that lives with market forces and the tax funded CBC. Mark as a Professor of communications should acknowledge the difference.
Why in a democracy would we allow our taxes to be confiscated to fund a cabal who have never, ever voted Conservative (maybe Rex Murphy does)
and will do everything they can to attack us on whatever issue they can dredge up? It’s time to stop appeasing them.
The CBC only has about 3% market share?? Nobody listens to it, yet it has the power of the New York Times (an appendage of the Democrats) in that it sets the agenda for the whole country’s media. It has a lot of money to play with, as does the BBC, thus you’ll get their leftist viewpoint ricocheting back to you from other outlets that don’t have the financial clout to dig up their own perspective. The CBC has a multiplier effect … much like the money supply. The New York Times is slowly dieing on the stock exchange, but the CBC won’t just die because it is not subject to market forces. Therefore we must act.
Teddy, I share your concern but we have to start acting conservative and I think saving a billion dollars fits our conservative brand and is saleable to 42%. Will the CBC go nuts? Yes, but they already are. Ditto DeYawn. If he were to win an election because we want to save a billion dollars on an outlet that nobody watches, then we’re doomed anyway.
If you want leftards to lose support for the CBC in a heartbeat, appoint Ted Byfield as Head, give him an irrevocable 30 year mandate (to be filled by his son in case of death,) expand the head’s powers to include the ability to hire and fire at will, and tell him to fill all the political posts with social conservatives.
The CBC would be dead in 15 minutes.
Funny how the same leftards claim the opposite rights for themselves…
Warwick,
Indeed…’tainting’ the CBC so it no longer appeals so strongly to the palate of the left is one possible solution to hurrying it’s demise.
Great interview. Brings hope to my heart. But…
Liberalism is a mental illness. Those afflicted with it are incapable of seeing reality. Even the CBC, which is publicly funded and by its mandate is to unify Canada and be unbiased, is regularly compared by the left to free enterprise firms.
Like I said, it’s a mental illness. The denial is immediate and total.
A pal today was saying that the only way to achieve a meaningful vote in Canada is to have only property owners voting as they at least have a vested interest in their area. Interesting. Didn’t know that this was an “earlier in Canada’s history” requirement.
I wasn’t thinking about the latest “if an election was held today” poll, which tends to be worthless. I was thinking of the ones that showed no one in Canada believes Murloney. Not that anyone ever did.
I remember a time when Canadian conservatives who werte honestly outraged at the immorality of Mulroney and his cronies started their own party. Now I see the same people on sites like this defending him.
What happened to that belief so many people had in the early 1990s that politics could be done differently?
Who would have believed a Harper government would suck up to Quebec and run interference for Brian Mulroney? Is everything about getting elected, and let’s just check our scruples at the door?
I hope that the Liberals won’t take exception to a Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry that ranged into general malfeasance of past PMO’s. I am no great fan of Mulroney, (I don’t think there are too many red tories here), and the thought of an inquiry seems unnecessary, but I’d relish some pointed questions about Shawinigate and the Beaudoin affair.
Mark,
Do you see Harper passing envelopes around? No.
I’m not supporting Mulroney so much as Harper and the current party. What I am disgusted by is the media, the liberals, the NDP and the other hypocrite liars.
It would have been better if they put that thief on a plane to Germany and Mulroney kept out of the public eye. He is best left in the distant past.
Mark Bourrie what is sucking up to Quebec?
Decentralizing?
Going back to the division of powers and accountability of the BNA act?
Deflecting Iggy’s and Duceppe’s’ call for more and more independence?
Instead Harper cleverly finessed them by simply letting the Quebecois (the people, not the geography) think of themselves as a nation .. big deal, who cares?
How did Harper run inference for Mulroney?
He told his people to not even talk to him, which annoyed the old guard. Harper was right to distance himself from the sleaze of that old regime even though the CBC is trying to pin Mulroney (a “progressive” Conservative) to Harper. Then in the next breath the CBC will complain that Harper is a Reformer and not “progressive” enough.. which is it? Is Harper part of the old PC’s or is he a Reformer? Or neither. The CBC knows all about sleaze , it is intellectually sleazy.
Who’s defending Mulroney here?
Hey Bourrie,
How about inquiries in: The Shawinigate/young banker’s nightmare for being honest or the HRDC 1B$ dissapearing act, or Paul Martin’s CSL scandal…?…Not a chance.
With this country’s Liberal stranglehold in almost every institution public and private it is a wonder Stephen Harper’s government is still in power…My anger resides towards sleepy head Canucks in general who are totally oblivious to all this…It’s going to be another Christmas season having to contend with a pact of sleeping sheeps in my family…Eck!
Nom, let’s start with the declaration that Quebec is a “nation” and move on from there. Since I’m in Montreal two or three days every week, I know the impact of this. The Quebec National Assembly and the separatists have a long list of new ways of expressing this “nationhood”, including draconian “citizenship” laws that would strip Anglophones of their right to vote.
The Tories’ plan to put an end trials in English in Quebec — hidden in one of those huge omnibus crime billsw until a Montreal Anglo rights group found out a couple of weeks ago and blew the whistle.
As for investigating and charging those involved in Liberal corruption, go for it. Liberal sleaze, Tory selaze, NDP sleaze, it’s all the same to me.
“The Quebec National Assembly and the separatists have a long list of new ways of expressing this “nationhood”, including draconian “citizenship” laws”
Mark, how is that Harper’s fault? They’ve been doing that since before Dorchester Blvd became Boulevard René Levesque.
I’m not familiar with the legislation you refer to, but bilingualism is not working. Anyone still in Quebec that doesn’t speak French is an idiot. I find the most warped “Quebecois” are the Anglophones that still think they are part of the Molson Empire. Most of us “tea cups” had the good sense to leave Quebec decades ago. Let Quebec be unilingual and the ROC English. If that’s what Harper’s hidden agenda is … good!
Oh and Mark , you still haven’t answered the question at hand .. why should I pay taxes for the government employee cabal at the CBC to attack my Party day after day when the private sector does a very good job at it and I don’t have to pay for their content?
The issue is not about a confrontational press, that’s the way it is. The issue is about confiscating my taxes to do a job already adequately done in the private sector.
@Mark Bourrie:
Many people here share your opinion of corruption in general; some of them, though, are embittered by the ‘disparity’ when it comes to investigating it.
In a way, this is quite ironic when nestled into the greater irony inherent in the liberals being the ‘natural governing party’. Such parties, regardless of what they say, are always ‘toryish’ because they don’t what to tamper with what works for them. Since the Conservatives hardly get in except when the Canadian voters are ripe and angry for a change, largely because of the crap that’s been complained about earlier in this thread, it’s the Conservatives that are the motor of change in modern Canadian politics.
Nevertheless, Conservatives are expected to be conservative – at least in some respects. One of them is the current leader being expected to show some respect for the former leader, whatever his personal feelings happen to be. Bob Stanfield had to put up with John Diefenbaker, for example. The comments about Mulroney and Harper that I’ve read here, as distilled down to a general impression, square with “Harper distanced himself.” I don’t recall anyone who out-and-out defended the man here. Certainly, the old Reformers wouldn’t.
The specific irony, in a group of anti-corruption Conservatives emerging, is that the toryish have often been quite complaisant with corruption in government because it supposedly keeps everyone piped down. If there’s any Tory ideology in a nutshell, it would be this supposedly simple plan:
“Just throw the cranks, the loudmouths and the malcontents enough grants to shut them up and use those grants as the King’s Shilling, once they’ve been bought off, if they continue heaping trouble upon the public.”
Like all simple plans, this one has a notable blind spot, that being the self-righteous hypocrite. Even Tories are susceptible to ideology, it seems – even supposedly hard-headed tories.
Since Harper’s government drafted and moved the motion in the House of Commons declaring Quebec a “nation”, I’d say he has some responsibility for the fall-out in Quebec.
Mark he didn’t declare Quebec a nation.
Quebec is geography.
He declared the Quebecois a nation, the people, whoever they are, undefined and who cares?
Again, where is the CBC clarifying all this in the name of national unity? Why doesn’t the CBC mention the role of Iggy and Duceppe backing Harper into having to react and save us from something worse than the “Quebecois nation”? Instead the CBC attacks my party for reasons of their own survival. They know we’ll shut them down when we can. The CBC behaviour is very rational.
Also Harper did not say that by doing this it would end the Marxist/separatists movement of the last half century.
The cbc deserves to ask the questions at the hearing. They are the ones who spent thier hard-earned money to create the 5th estate show that got the ball rolling. They are the ones who took KHS’s bait and swallowed it whole. Harper,Dion and Layton all passed up the opportunity to give KHS a break and keep him in Canada,but not the CBC. Though I am curious about how much this whole shebang did cost the cbc. Unfortunately, they do not have to respond to the taxpayer as they are a private corporation,right?
Duffy said the reporter in question is a female. There have been unauthenticated reports that it was Krista Erickson, but until it’s proven, Susan Bonner and Margo McDiarmid are equally likely suspects in this scandal.
I was surprised by Duffy’s comment that print journalists who appear as guests on The Liberal Network are paid — does this mean the At Issue panelists, like Allan Gregg and Andrew Coyne are paid for their appearances? How much? And since CBC is a publicly funded bureaucracy, shouldn’t the amount they’re paid be made public? Considering the CBC’s blatant, over-the-top pro-Liberal bias, paying officially non-CBC employees for their “take” makes you wonder: who else is paid? Are the anti-Conservative “experts” who are so disproportionately called on within news reports paid as well?
I watched Newman-And-Friends yesterday afternoon and it was appalling how anti-Conservative the show was. The only real shots at the Liberals were for “propping up” the Conservatives. (Incidentally, the Conservative MP who was part of a discussion had a distracting, shape-shifting screen saver hovering over his right shoulder throughout; at one point a phone rang louder than one would expect, in asmuch as it appeared to be waay in the background of a very large room — a man picked it up just for a second, put the phone down and then immediately picked up large exercise ball (earth?)and held it aloft as he walked offscreen.)
Here’s a collection of statements, verbatim, from the first 18 minutes of Newman-And-Friends:
“three climate change deniers in the world, John Howard of Australia is gone, George Bush is going, and Stephen Harper may go before George Bush..”
“…Canadians do not trust or believe this government..”
“…another sordid affair…”
“It’s unfortunate that Canadians have to be subjected to the idea that a prime minister took envelopes stuffed with cash…the signal has to be sent to this government that this is entirely unacceptable…”
“…when they get into the power places they feel like they have to take money on the side…”
“…does disrespect to us all…”
“…people are very disillusioned with Mr. Harper…”
“…Harper broke promise…”
“…Mr. Harper’s taking the country in the wrong direction…”
“…terrible performance in Bali on the climate change crisis…”
“…going in the wrong direction…”
“…we thought we were supposed to get a clean government…”
“…Airbus scandal…”
“…Canadians getting discouraged…”
“…sad for democracy…”
“…wrong on the war, wrong on climate change…”
“…growing prosperity gap…”
“…banks and oil companies doing very well…”
“…the sabotage that the Conservative government was attempting in Bali…”
“…tried along with George Bush to sabotage action on climate change…”
“…murky answers in terms of the relationship between (Mulroney) and the current government…”
“…Conservatives lurched and stumbled…”
“…envelopes stuffed with cash going to a prime minister…”
“…the disgrace that Minister Baird subjected Canada’s good name to…”
“…a travesty…”
“…hurts Canadians…”
“…a real shame upon this government…”
“…his government continues to fail…”
“…disgrace…”
“…painful…”
“…right-wing think tank…”
“…domestic policy in tatters…”
Again, that was just in the first 18 minutes.
I’m trying to figure out how to get archived shows from, for example, the day or two following the revelations about the gooning of Francois Beaudoin, or from the time of climate-change conferences the Liberals attended when they were in power, just to compare.
Do any commenters here have any archives of The National and/or Newman going back that far? Please leave a comment if you do. Comparing coverage would be highly instructive.
Holy Bias,Batman. When the comments are listed like that it really does show thier agenda.If anyone can access the archives of cbc ,try to find the cbc newsworld for nov. 22 or 23. It was the day that Harper recognized the Quebecois as a nation with-in a nation. David Gray ,says something very close to “I wish I was allowed to say something good about Harper”.
Sorry,I forgot to put in the year. It was 2006.
Are we going to leave close allies in the lurch?
“AUSTRALIA’S long-term military commitment in Afghanistan is under threat after a decision by the Dutch Government to withdraw all of its troops by 2010.
The decision follows a grim warning this week by new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, who told a NATO conference in Scotland that the increasingly bloody war being waged against resurgent Taliban extremists would be lost unless NATO and its allies agreed to dramatically rethink their tactics.
Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian yesterday he remained hopeful The Netherlands parliament would reconsider…
The Dutch parliament decided on Tuesday night to withdraw the troops, after announcing last month that the deployment would be extended by two years to December 2010…”
Now if Canada pulls out of combat at Kandahar in Feb. 2009, where will that for almost two years leave the Dutch and Aussies to the north in Uruzgan with their southern flank unprotected? Will any Canadian politicians (and I include the Conservatives) even raise this issue which has a moral, er, perspective ?
Mark
Ottawa
I’m very surprised how little mention there is about previous scandals at the CBC and the corporation’s appalling record of condoning journalistic misconduct. (Remember when Adrienne Clarkson was a journalist?) To say nothing of the corporation’s outrageous record of defamation in its investigative reporting (read “hatchet jobs”).
Duffy’s later comments about Robert Latimer are also very interesting.
I believe it was Walter Cronkite that said it:
Report the News as it Happened, Not as you Envisioned it.
Are we suprised?? Why (if you are)?? Head must be too far in the sand. Just as bad was the breast beating, regarding Mr. Latimer. Lie and go free, tell the truth and rot in jail. Shades of David Milgard.
It’s mind boggling to compare the concern the CBC bright lights had for Mulroney’s telephone contacts about some wireless auction compared to a decade of rot, corruption and malfeasance by the Liberal government during the Chretien /Martin (thieving bastards) era.
The question had absolutely nothing to do with Schreiber but a direct CBC employee intervention on a fishing expedition.
The effort to weasel into a parliamentary ethics committee hearing reinforces the notion of possible collusion with a member of the Libs (ethics????) committee.
If the conservatives have any balls at all they will choke off the funding of the CBC.
Sell the trough swilling taxpayer albatross and funnel the money to child poverty, eh?
I always thought that the jury mishandled the Robert Latimer case because the evidence before them should have allowed them to convict on first degree murder, and by only convicting him on second degree, was giving the man a big break. Listening to Duffy and Micheal Harris discuss the parole board hearing (starts at 11:40 on the audio clip) and the tidbits coming out that aren’t being reported, are chilling!
Too bad Cronkite didn’t heed his own advice.
I was surprised. Not at the position or behaviour of CBC, but at the candid manner in which Mike Duffy commented. It was refreshing
and long overdue. The tragic story is that the vast majority of Canadians do not give two hoots
about the lack of veracity of the CBC.
My prediction for the new year is that; we shall see more of the same crap from the CBC, day after day. My advice? Just go CLICK!
So will Macleans criticize the CBC? Will the CBC dare to cut off Andrew Coyne’s per appearance fees, or Chantal Hebert’s.
Will either of those two have the spine to mention the story in front of Peter Mansbridge? And will Peter have the guts to steer the discussion appropriately?
Tune in next week on “As The World Turns”
For those that don’t have the time to listen:
Michael Harris commented he was banned from the CBC by a very high profile announcer (I’m guessing Mansbridge) for criticizing him.
Duffy said “the Corp” has become much worse lately and this sort of thing didn’t used to be tolerated to the same degree as now. He said part of the reason is that the CBC is the biggest contractor of freelancers. Therefore freelancers “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and thus you don’t see write ups on this story in the MSM.
Both Duffy and Harris were surprisingly, refreshingly, anti-CBC.
Also, Radio Canada is a den of separatists, where our current GG comes from. Why have we as taxpayers been paying for separatists to be anti the ROC? The mandate of the CBC is supposed to be unifying however, it has been divisive for years. Close it.
Silence over mothercorpse misdeeds is deafening….more so than standard political damage control…tells you something.
Duffy’s OK and Mike Harris as well…they brought out the core issue with CBC controlling the news agenda through nepotistic practices with free lance journalism.
As Harris explained, this new CBC honcho from the Sun Times has some house cleaning to do…I think he will and I’m sure the Harperites will lend a hand.
House cleaning is not good enough, pink slips and the sale of all of the CBC’s assets is what is needed here.
There are deep seated factions in the CBC. Nice to hear Mike D talk about it. Yes it is perceoved as a political forum, a way to get the “correct message” out there.
Cruickshank knows what real journalism looks like, Sun Times and the Globe (under Thorsell and the previous editor it was.) We will see what happens here. If the reporter is disciplined then they need to be named, as Duffy said if only for the other reporters to have the cloud lifted.
I suspect Rodriguez will get a rough ride in the house for awhile any time he asks a question. And quite frankly the reporter at the CBC should essentially be frozen out, which means not recognizig her. Combined with her behaviour during the Hurricane she clearly has a tendency to sensationalize and make up stories while demanding perks and props.
Quite frankly, there is cause for dismissal without compensation. Are reporters unionized?
It was a big mistake to split up the CBC into an English and French corporation that are two solitudes. I have to say that the anti-conservative bias on the news is more pronounced on the private channel Télévision Quatre Saisons.
Anyway the latest C.P. Harris-Decimas survey shows that the smearing of Mulroney is working in undermining conservative support. Not to mention the hysterical coverage of the Bali conference by the MSM.
It is very discouraging to see how the conservatives are blamed for the non-action of the Liberals on the environment and the maintenance of the Chalk River nuclear plant.
Sure, the Libranos are plastering their own crap all over the Conservatives at every turn, aided and abetted by the usual subjects in the MSM.
The Liberals did nothing on the environment and AECL at Chalk river wasn’t of interest to them either.
Do we have to take to the streets to put an end to this abuse by the MSM and their friends in the Liberal party?
The biggest problem with the CBC is that pretty much everyone who works for them is in a union.
If you belong to a union you cannot by definition be a “professional.” Professionals are responsible for their actions. When you’re in a union all that matters is seniority and you are protected against your misdeeds.
No journalist who’s in a union can be taken seriously.
It would be nice to abolish this atrocity. That I’m forced to pay for this sh** is a voilation of fundamental justice.
We don’t make leftard commies pay for FOX News.
Here is where Canadians get to actually prove their imagined superiority to Americans. All Canadians should be outraged, and now that we have this rotten media/political party cabal in our teeth, not let go until we have exterminated it.
Americans would not tolerate this for a picosecond. Far too many Canadian milquetoasts could care less… “Oh well, I guess it’s the price you have to pay to have your diapers changed by Nanny State.”
Mr. Harper, cut the CBC funding.
Anyone else seen the promo running on cbc newsworld for tonite’s grilling of PMSH by mansbridge on the National?The clip ends,with PMSH rising to shake the god of the mothercorp,and the pompous,lard-butted ego-maniac just sits there!The optics of this are quite telling..and even if mansbridge disagrees with PMSH,doesn’t the office of PM at least deserve some respect/dignity?what an absolute fatheaded jerk.
Again, as I have been writing to every blog… we have to write the Ombudsman of the CBC – and keep the pressure on… We should demand to know which reporter or reporters were speaking with the liberal members of that Mulroney panel… and which member or members they were talking with… His email address is: ombudsman@cbc.ca I have written him several times, telling him we expect answers, he has emailed me back saying an investigation is ongoing… but we have to keep the pressure on for answers or they will again support the liberal party and try and sweep it under the table..
Oops,meant to say,shake the hand of…I’d like to see him shaken tho.
shaken, very few canadians are thinkers.
Wow, and here I thought Hillary was the only Politician planting plants.
,
As well as the CBC, has anyone noticed how the “news” is handling the “drop in the poll numbers”. Taylor Parnaby had the Liberals at 32% and the Conservatives at “20”. He had to lie about the numbers.
It’s time we faced reality.
A conservative government is NEVER going to be able to dismantle the CBC without a leftist propaganda blitz and backlash that would label them as anti-Canadian,hidden agendists,anti-freedom of speech,bigots,etc.,etc..We would be back in the political hinterland quicker than Mulroney’s arrogance ever managed.
The problem as I see it is that at any given time,approximately 2 out of 3 Canadians poll are supporting a left of center party.Where I am repeatedly on record as being disgusted and infuriated by the CBC’s overt pro-left slant,I also see them as merely pandering to the majority,politically correct cultured.
I do not believe the CBC will be changed until our society is.
First supply some balance and open-mindedness to our learning institutions and then maybe the average Joe or Jane Sixpack will be able to recognise the anti-right agenda for himself.
Until then…it would be a suicide mission.
Teddy says “I do not believe the CBC will be changed until our society is.”
Or the other way around?
Because, as you say “First supply some balance and open-mindedness to our learning institutions”. Agree. But it’s a chicken and egg problem.
There are centrists that think the CBC and the BBC are sober reporters of the news. These same people are also not that upset with our learning institutions. Why? Because a utopian view of the world has become normal … centrist.
Therefore we aren’t going to change much while we let our tax dollars fund the CBC and learning institutions to spread the gospel according to Marx.
But I also think there are 42% (that’s all we need for a majority) of Canadians that would be happy to see the over $1 billion in subsidy to the CBC be applied to the debt. Even young people who aren’t Conservative would support that because they don’t listen to the CBC and they know the debt is their inherited problem.
So let’s run the next campaign on closing the CBC. Also let’s campaign on increased funding for universities and loans for students on worthwhile subjects .. e.g., science versus gender studies.
Congress just put up a list of over 400 scientists who spoke out about the fallacies of agw this year, including 52 former ipcc scientists:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb
Just thought john cross would like to know.
nomdeblog,
Thank you for sharing your opinion of my POV.We both agree that changes MUST be made within our higher learning centers.
But do you seriously believe that Harper could stand up in the HOC and announce defunding the entire CBC without a monumental backlash?
It would be a Dion wet-dream.
Nothing in the NatPost piece about how L. Ian Macdonald co-wrote Mulroney’s opening statement to the ethics committee.
Nice to see some of the right is as inconsistent and dishonest as some of the left.
Don’t lose site of the fact that Brian Mulroney admits to taking $225,000 in thousand-dollar bills from a sleazy arms dealer. That’s what will be remembered 50 years from now. All the rest is just a bunch of smoke-blowing.
BTW, the polls show people get it, even if the Mulroney apologists here do not.
Mark Bourrie: “BTW, the polls show people get it, even if the Mulroney apologists here do not.”
Get what? Please explain the connection between the committee’s hearings and this government.
*If* those poll numbers are to be taken seriously, and *if* they’re connected with the hearings (and with Bali), it’s a terrible reflection on the capacity of the average Canadian voter to form critical judgements.
I think most people are aware of the close association between L. Ian Macdonald and Brian Mulroney. The National Post notes the association on the bottom of their article and as far as I can recall has done so with every piece that he has written. It’s why when I read his stuff, I take it with a grain of salt, knowing the two are friends. Just as I do when I read Sheila Copp’s columns with respect to any number of Liberals.
What I didn’t know was that a faceless and nameless CBC reporter was on such good terms with Liberal Ethics Committee members, specifically Pablo Rodriguez. Good enough terms that the nameless and faceless reporter in question only had to make a request to get some irrelevant (to the issue at hand) question asked at the inquiry. What I still don’t know is, who is that person, what is their history, connection to politicos and therefore how do I evaluate that person for possible bias?
Truthfully, I’m pretty sure Mulroney will be remembered in 50 year’s time for the GST and Free Trade agreements. The $250,000 he took from a sleazy arms dealer will be a black footnote to that legacy.
We really don’t know what the polls show with respect to Brian Mulroney. That is unless the pollsters asked specific questions about him vis a vis the inquiry. I don’t think that is what they did.
Teddy at some point we have to stop funding stuff we don’t believe in. Listen to Duffy; he’s hardly a right wing nutter. I have no problem with private stations taking on Mulroney. Besides, I passed up going to a Mulroney soiree here in Toronto for the sleaze reasons that Mark Bourrie outlines. But the CBC issue is way beyond Mulroney. Also I’m not paying Ian MacDonald’s salary … there is an enormous difference between a private station that lives with market forces and the tax funded CBC. Mark as a Professor of communications should acknowledge the difference.
Why in a democracy would we allow our taxes to be confiscated to fund a cabal who have never, ever voted Conservative (maybe Rex Murphy does)
and will do everything they can to attack us on whatever issue they can dredge up? It’s time to stop appeasing them.
The CBC only has about 3% market share?? Nobody listens to it, yet it has the power of the New York Times (an appendage of the Democrats) in that it sets the agenda for the whole country’s media. It has a lot of money to play with, as does the BBC, thus you’ll get their leftist viewpoint ricocheting back to you from other outlets that don’t have the financial clout to dig up their own perspective. The CBC has a multiplier effect … much like the money supply. The New York Times is slowly dieing on the stock exchange, but the CBC won’t just die because it is not subject to market forces. Therefore we must act.
Teddy, I share your concern but we have to start acting conservative and I think saving a billion dollars fits our conservative brand and is saleable to 42%. Will the CBC go nuts? Yes, but they already are. Ditto DeYawn. If he were to win an election because we want to save a billion dollars on an outlet that nobody watches, then we’re doomed anyway.
If you want leftards to lose support for the CBC in a heartbeat, appoint Ted Byfield as Head, give him an irrevocable 30 year mandate (to be filled by his son in case of death,) expand the head’s powers to include the ability to hire and fire at will, and tell him to fill all the political posts with social conservatives.
The CBC would be dead in 15 minutes.
Funny how the same leftards claim the opposite rights for themselves…
Warwick,
Indeed…’tainting’ the CBC so it no longer appeals so strongly to the palate of the left is one possible solution to hurrying it’s demise.
Great interview. Brings hope to my heart. But…
Liberalism is a mental illness. Those afflicted with it are incapable of seeing reality. Even the CBC, which is publicly funded and by its mandate is to unify Canada and be unbiased, is regularly compared by the left to free enterprise firms.
Like I said, it’s a mental illness. The denial is immediate and total.
A pal today was saying that the only way to achieve a meaningful vote in Canada is to have only property owners voting as they at least have a vested interest in their area. Interesting. Didn’t know that this was an “earlier in Canada’s history” requirement.
I wasn’t thinking about the latest “if an election was held today” poll, which tends to be worthless. I was thinking of the ones that showed no one in Canada believes Murloney. Not that anyone ever did.
I remember a time when Canadian conservatives who werte honestly outraged at the immorality of Mulroney and his cronies started their own party. Now I see the same people on sites like this defending him.
What happened to that belief so many people had in the early 1990s that politics could be done differently?
Who would have believed a Harper government would suck up to Quebec and run interference for Brian Mulroney? Is everything about getting elected, and let’s just check our scruples at the door?
I hope that the Liberals won’t take exception to a Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry that ranged into general malfeasance of past PMO’s. I am no great fan of Mulroney, (I don’t think there are too many red tories here), and the thought of an inquiry seems unnecessary, but I’d relish some pointed questions about Shawinigate and the Beaudoin affair.
Mark,
Do you see Harper passing envelopes around? No.
I’m not supporting Mulroney so much as Harper and the current party. What I am disgusted by is the media, the liberals, the NDP and the other hypocrite liars.
It would have been better if they put that thief on a plane to Germany and Mulroney kept out of the public eye. He is best left in the distant past.
Mark Bourrie what is sucking up to Quebec?
Decentralizing?
Going back to the division of powers and accountability of the BNA act?
Deflecting Iggy’s and Duceppe’s’ call for more and more independence?
Instead Harper cleverly finessed them by simply letting the Quebecois (the people, not the geography) think of themselves as a nation .. big deal, who cares?
How did Harper run inference for Mulroney?
He told his people to not even talk to him, which annoyed the old guard. Harper was right to distance himself from the sleaze of that old regime even though the CBC is trying to pin Mulroney (a “progressive” Conservative) to Harper. Then in the next breath the CBC will complain that Harper is a Reformer and not “progressive” enough.. which is it? Is Harper part of the old PC’s or is he a Reformer? Or neither. The CBC knows all about sleaze , it is intellectually sleazy.
Who’s defending Mulroney here?
Hey Bourrie,
How about inquiries in: The Shawinigate/young banker’s nightmare for being honest or the HRDC 1B$ dissapearing act, or Paul Martin’s CSL scandal…?…Not a chance.
With this country’s Liberal stranglehold in almost every institution public and private it is a wonder Stephen Harper’s government is still in power…My anger resides towards sleepy head Canucks in general who are totally oblivious to all this…It’s going to be another Christmas season having to contend with a pact of sleeping sheeps in my family…Eck!
Nom, let’s start with the declaration that Quebec is a “nation” and move on from there. Since I’m in Montreal two or three days every week, I know the impact of this. The Quebec National Assembly and the separatists have a long list of new ways of expressing this “nationhood”, including draconian “citizenship” laws that would strip Anglophones of their right to vote.
The Tories’ plan to put an end trials in English in Quebec — hidden in one of those huge omnibus crime billsw until a Montreal Anglo rights group found out a couple of weeks ago and blew the whistle.
As for investigating and charging those involved in Liberal corruption, go for it. Liberal sleaze, Tory selaze, NDP sleaze, it’s all the same to me.
“The Quebec National Assembly and the separatists have a long list of new ways of expressing this “nationhood”, including draconian “citizenship” laws”
Mark, how is that Harper’s fault? They’ve been doing that since before Dorchester Blvd became Boulevard René Levesque.
I’m not familiar with the legislation you refer to, but bilingualism is not working. Anyone still in Quebec that doesn’t speak French is an idiot. I find the most warped “Quebecois” are the Anglophones that still think they are part of the Molson Empire. Most of us “tea cups” had the good sense to leave Quebec decades ago. Let Quebec be unilingual and the ROC English. If that’s what Harper’s hidden agenda is … good!
Oh and Mark , you still haven’t answered the question at hand .. why should I pay taxes for the government employee cabal at the CBC to attack my Party day after day when the private sector does a very good job at it and I don’t have to pay for their content?
The issue is not about a confrontational press, that’s the way it is. The issue is about confiscating my taxes to do a job already adequately done in the private sector.
@Mark Bourrie:
Many people here share your opinion of corruption in general; some of them, though, are embittered by the ‘disparity’ when it comes to investigating it.
In a way, this is quite ironic when nestled into the greater irony inherent in the liberals being the ‘natural governing party’. Such parties, regardless of what they say, are always ‘toryish’ because they don’t what to tamper with what works for them. Since the Conservatives hardly get in except when the Canadian voters are ripe and angry for a change, largely because of the crap that’s been complained about earlier in this thread, it’s the Conservatives that are the motor of change in modern Canadian politics.
Nevertheless, Conservatives are expected to be conservative – at least in some respects. One of them is the current leader being expected to show some respect for the former leader, whatever his personal feelings happen to be. Bob Stanfield had to put up with John Diefenbaker, for example. The comments about Mulroney and Harper that I’ve read here, as distilled down to a general impression, square with “Harper distanced himself.” I don’t recall anyone who out-and-out defended the man here. Certainly, the old Reformers wouldn’t.
The specific irony, in a group of anti-corruption Conservatives emerging, is that the toryish have often been quite complaisant with corruption in government because it supposedly keeps everyone piped down. If there’s any Tory ideology in a nutshell, it would be this supposedly simple plan:
“Just throw the cranks, the loudmouths and the malcontents enough grants to shut them up and use those grants as the King’s Shilling, once they’ve been bought off, if they continue heaping trouble upon the public.”
Like all simple plans, this one has a notable blind spot, that being the self-righteous hypocrite. Even Tories are susceptible to ideology, it seems – even supposedly hard-headed tories.
Since Harper’s government drafted and moved the motion in the House of Commons declaring Quebec a “nation”, I’d say he has some responsibility for the fall-out in Quebec.
Mark he didn’t declare Quebec a nation.
Quebec is geography.
He declared the Quebecois a nation, the people, whoever they are, undefined and who cares?
Again, where is the CBC clarifying all this in the name of national unity? Why doesn’t the CBC mention the role of Iggy and Duceppe backing Harper into having to react and save us from something worse than the “Quebecois nation”? Instead the CBC attacks my party for reasons of their own survival. They know we’ll shut them down when we can. The CBC behaviour is very rational.
Also Harper did not say that by doing this it would end the Marxist/separatists movement of the last half century.
The cbc deserves to ask the questions at the hearing. They are the ones who spent thier hard-earned money to create the 5th estate show that got the ball rolling. They are the ones who took KHS’s bait and swallowed it whole. Harper,Dion and Layton all passed up the opportunity to give KHS a break and keep him in Canada,but not the CBC. Though I am curious about how much this whole shebang did cost the cbc. Unfortunately, they do not have to respond to the taxpayer as they are a private corporation,right?
Duffy said the reporter in question is a female. There have been unauthenticated reports that it was Krista Erickson, but until it’s proven, Susan Bonner and Margo McDiarmid are equally likely suspects in this scandal.
I was surprised by Duffy’s comment that print journalists who appear as guests on The Liberal Network are paid — does this mean the At Issue panelists, like Allan Gregg and Andrew Coyne are paid for their appearances? How much? And since CBC is a publicly funded bureaucracy, shouldn’t the amount they’re paid be made public? Considering the CBC’s blatant, over-the-top pro-Liberal bias, paying officially non-CBC employees for their “take” makes you wonder: who else is paid? Are the anti-Conservative “experts” who are so disproportionately called on within news reports paid as well?
I watched Newman-And-Friends yesterday afternoon and it was appalling how anti-Conservative the show was. The only real shots at the Liberals were for “propping up” the Conservatives. (Incidentally, the Conservative MP who was part of a discussion had a distracting, shape-shifting screen saver hovering over his right shoulder throughout; at one point a phone rang louder than one would expect, in asmuch as it appeared to be waay in the background of a very large room — a man picked it up just for a second, put the phone down and then immediately picked up large exercise ball (earth?)and held it aloft as he walked offscreen.)
Here’s a collection of statements, verbatim, from the first 18 minutes of Newman-And-Friends:
“three climate change deniers in the world, John Howard of Australia is gone, George Bush is going, and Stephen Harper may go before George Bush..”
“…Canadians do not trust or believe this government..”
“…another sordid affair…”
“It’s unfortunate that Canadians have to be subjected to the idea that a prime minister took envelopes stuffed with cash…the signal has to be sent to this government that this is entirely unacceptable…”
“…when they get into the power places they feel like they have to take money on the side…”
“…does disrespect to us all…”
“…people are very disillusioned with Mr. Harper…”
“…Harper broke promise…”
“…Mr. Harper’s taking the country in the wrong direction…”
“…terrible performance in Bali on the climate change crisis…”
“…going in the wrong direction…”
“…we thought we were supposed to get a clean government…”
“…Airbus scandal…”
“…Canadians getting discouraged…”
“…sad for democracy…”
“…wrong on the war, wrong on climate change…”
“…growing prosperity gap…”
“…banks and oil companies doing very well…”
“…the sabotage that the Conservative government was attempting in Bali…”
“…tried along with George Bush to sabotage action on climate change…”
“…murky answers in terms of the relationship between (Mulroney) and the current government…”
“…Conservatives lurched and stumbled…”
“…envelopes stuffed with cash going to a prime minister…”
“…the disgrace that Minister Baird subjected Canada’s good name to…”
“…a travesty…”
“…hurts Canadians…”
“…a real shame upon this government…”
“…his government continues to fail…”
“…disgrace…”
“…painful…”
“…right-wing think tank…”
“…domestic policy in tatters…”
Again, that was just in the first 18 minutes.
I’m trying to figure out how to get archived shows from, for example, the day or two following the revelations about the gooning of Francois Beaudoin, or from the time of climate-change conferences the Liberals attended when they were in power, just to compare.
Do any commenters here have any archives of The National and/or Newman going back that far? Please leave a comment if you do. Comparing coverage would be highly instructive.
Holy Bias,Batman. When the comments are listed like that it really does show thier agenda.If anyone can access the archives of cbc ,try to find the cbc newsworld for nov. 22 or 23. It was the day that Harper recognized the Quebecois as a nation with-in a nation. David Gray ,says something very close to “I wish I was allowed to say something good about Harper”.
Sorry,I forgot to put in the year. It was 2006.
Are we going to leave close allies in the lurch?
“AUSTRALIA’S long-term military commitment in Afghanistan is under threat after a decision by the Dutch Government to withdraw all of its troops by 2010.
The decision follows a grim warning this week by new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, who told a NATO conference in Scotland that the increasingly bloody war being waged against resurgent Taliban extremists would be lost unless NATO and its allies agreed to dramatically rethink their tactics.
Mr Fitzgibbon told The Australian yesterday he remained hopeful The Netherlands parliament would reconsider…
The Dutch parliament decided on Tuesday night to withdraw the troops, after announcing last month that the deployment would be extended by two years to December 2010…”
Now if Canada pulls out of combat at Kandahar in Feb. 2009, where will that for almost two years leave the Dutch and Aussies to the north in Uruzgan with their southern flank unprotected? Will any Canadian politicians (and I include the Conservatives) even raise this issue which has a moral, er, perspective ?
Mark
Ottawa