Tag Archives: CBC

John Tory’s epiphany on the CBC

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Readers of Strictly Right’s predecessor will remember how frustrated I was with former Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader John Tory’s actions within the party after his crippling electoral loss(es.) Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to hear him in his new role as a talk show host on Toronto’s NewsTalk 1010 (CFRB.) While I still disagree with him on a lot of issues, one issue that I never understood was his constant defense of the CBC. Apart from social issues, John usually would take the ‘right’ stance on issues to do with accountability and transparency: Two departments the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation generally hasn’t paid too much attention to.

I can happily say now that Toronto bore witness to John’s transformation, he just railed against the CBC today, including a brief interview with Sun Media columnist (and future Sun TV News anchor) Brian Lilley. Lilley has been discussing the CBC’s shifty behaviors for a couple of weeks now, and thankfully the message is spreading.

Check out Brian’s latest post, and listen to the segment with John Tory (free audio.) The CBC is a giant who must be held to the same standards as every other Crown Corporation.

Brilliance from the CBC

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Running a nation-wide advertising campaign telling people that you’re transparent: Priceless

Sun Media’s Brian Lilley reports:

Under attack for its lack of transparency and accountability, the CBC has taken out expensive ads in newspapers across Canada, promising Canadians that they will be up-front with information.A series of reports this week from QMI Agency have highlighted the CBC’s refusal to release information under the Access to Information Act, and their ongoing court battle with the Information Commissioner, an independent officer of Parliament over who gets to see those documents.

While the ad boasts of tens of thousands of pages released under Access to Information, it fails to mention that tens of thousands of pages have also been released with all relevant information removed, the result being either blank pages or pages covered in black marker.

The CBC continues to claim exemptions under sections designed to protect their journalistic activities or protect the government on issues vital to the economic interests of Canada. As a result, they refuse to answer simple questions such as how many trucks the state broadcaster owns.

[...]

The key phrase is “Documents of interest,” meaning CBC will decide what they release, and what they don’t, for the public to view.

A review of what has been posted on the CBC website shows that hundreds of access requests have been left off the site for now, including expense reports for CBC president Hubert Lacroix. The 110 blank pages supplied to QMI for expenses by board member Louise Lantagne, and the cost of honorariums provided to board members, are also missing.

Lilley also adds that because “CBC spends public dollars and is therefore accountable to the public. That should mean full accountability, including the cost of these ads.” He’s absolutely right. The CBC has a lot to offer as a broadcaster, and as a business (Lord knows to whom, however.) It’s quite simple though: If there was a market for what the CBC offered, it could hold its own in the free market. No private corporations could get away with witholding information like the CBC did. Heck, even the military has a hard time getting away with blacking out that many pages of important documents.

There may have been a time where the CBC was required, but that time has certainly passed.

Tax Payer Dollars Go To 9/11 Truther Idiocy

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Hack ‘journalist’ Bob McKeown, of the Communist Broadcasting Corporation (Canadian state operated and financed television) hosts a show called The Fifth Estate. In one episode of this series that I came across McKeown examined the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories. The conclusions drawn on the show’s website are, shockingly, a whole host of moronic rants laden with conspiracy theory drivel – the type usually confined to opium dens and Democratic Party events. Here is one clip that demonstrates how someone masquerading as a credible journalist can be culpable in helping spread outright lies.

In the video McKeown examines a statement from George W. Bush made 3 months after 9/11. In the clip President Bush says:

I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in and I saw an airplane hit the tower…

The segment then cuts back to McKeown who states:

Now wait a minute, George bush was told about the second plane while he was inside the classroom so you just heard him describe seeing the first plane crash on television that day. But that’s impossible, no one saw the first plane crash on TV on September 11 because the video of it did not surface until the next day, so how could George bush have seen what he said he saw?

That one really set off the tinfoil hat crew. This is a perfect example of the hoops ‘truthers’ have to jump through to maintain their idiotic theory. If anyone ever misspeaks truthers are there to claim that they have more proof supporting their flat out stupid ideas. As for Mr. McKeown – here’s a hint you twit: maybe President Bush saw the news coverage of the World Trade Center from immediately after the first plane hit. Perhaps the president meant “I saw that an airplane hit the tower.” Or, maybe, just maybe, President Bush confused seeing the footage that day with all the videos he had seen in the intervening THREE MONTHS, seeing as McKeown picked a 15 second clip from three months after 9/11. McKeown has a well documented anti-American, radical left history on the CBC. He also has a propensity for selectively editing interviews to alter answers and disregard context (see: his Ann Coulter interview). Putting aside McKeown’s unprofessional practices, the larger point here is that Canadians are forced to pay a worthless and obscenely liberal network that produces filth like The Fifth Estate. It is far beyond irresponsible for a purported credible news source to peddle this type of conspiracy nonsense.

And those are my thoughts for this weekend.