Mission Statement for “What Was Wrong With The National”:
During the last federal election campaign, Justin Trudeau promised to give the CBC additional funding if he became PM. This clearly affected the CBC’s election coverage, where the so-called impartial public broadcaster actively promoted Trudeau as Harper’s replacement. After winning the election, Trudeau rewarded CBC for it’s assistance in the federal election by awarding the state broadcaster with an additional $675 million in early 2016 to be spread out until the end of 2021. This renewal of funding added to the annual $1.1 billion (it’s unclear if this is the true amount the CBC receives, some argue it’s closer to $1.5 billion) the federal government already gives the CBC courtesy of Canadian taxpayers. Trudeau’s gift to the CBC has been returned in kind. Who can forget Peter Mansbridge grossly fawning over Trudeau when he was sworn-in? Or when CBC did a special reality-TV-like special called “Face-to-Face with the PM” for Trudeau, which Hillary Clinton’s campaign wanted to emulate? Or when CBC let the PM do the opening monologue for it’s Canada 150 history special? But the CBC bias goes far beyond creating propaganda for Trudeau and the Liberals. The broadcaster is run by Canadian elites on both sides of the aisle, and for that reason, the broadcaster doesn’t have much teeth in going after high-profile Canadians abusing power in general, and usually ends up doing PR-style damage control for them instead. Exacerbating the situation is how CBC goes beyond its mandate of providing only what private broadcasters won’t, instead actively scavenging the Canadian media landscape, all with the unfair advantage of billions pouring in from Ottawa. To top it all off, with this massive financial advantage CBC is able to dominate the conversation and control the narrative in Canada. This needs to stop. That’s why I’ve begun deconstructing CBC’s flagship program, The National, which is emblematic of everything wrong with the CBC’s biased coverage. If you like what I’m doing, please make sure to share these posts on Facebook and Twitter. Eventually we’ll work on sending some polite but pointed letters to the CBC ombudsman for the most egregious coverage on The National, letting them know a large group of Canadians are not pleased with the so-called public broadcaster.
It turns out that The National revamp will be unveiled on November 6. The plan is to apparently have a day long program with four co-hosts: Adrienne Arsenault, Rosemary Barton, Andrew Chang and Ian Hanomansing. There’s no way in hell I’m going to subject myself to hours and hours of the CBC each day, lest I start believing their leftist agenda and Liberal government talking points.
At least there will still be a late evening show I can catch and quarter. I wonder how much money and resources the CBC will pour into the shows new sets and show graphics.
Anyhow, moving on to the last couple episodes of The National. First off, here are the time allotments for stories for the last two episodes.
Well, The National actually led with the top story on Thursday night. Susan Ormiston opened the show introducing the latest developments to Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s recent scandal.
Ormiston: A week ago in the thick of a controversy involving his personal finances and shares in his family’s company, Bill Morneau said he needed to do more to make sure Canadians had confidence in him. He has already agreed to put his assets in a blind trust and sell off his shares in Morneau Shepell.
(The CBC’s The National has never really given the context of how Morneau led the media to believe a blind trust had been set up two years when he assumed political office as Finance Minister.)
Ormiston: Today the Finance Minister took another step aimed at stamping out a political firestorm but his critics say it did the opposite. David Cochrane has our story tonight.
Cochrane: This controversy has already been politically expensive for Bill Morneau, now it is personally expensive.
(Cochrane fails to ask the obvious follow-up questions in his report: What kind of tax break will Morneau get from his donation? If you did nothing wrong why why do you feel the need to do this? How many shares did your family members also have in Morneau Shepell? You say you now have a million shares in Morneau Shepell, when did you sell the other half?)
Morneau [in the House of Commons]: I’ve decided to sell not only mine and my family’s assets in the company I built with my father for 25 years, but also decided to donate in difference of value in those shares from the time I was elected until now.
Cochrane: Those few words add up to big money. When he became Finance Minister Morneau Shepell stock traded at $15.58 a share. Today it closed at $21.08 a share. That’s a gain of $5.50 a share times one million shares, which means Morneau will donate as much as $5.5 million to charity to make this go away.
(Again, I’m not sure why Cochrane isn’t questioning the tax break Morneau will get over making such a large donation, which would likely mean Morneau will still benefit financially from holding such a large position in his family company while being in charge of regulating the industry that company is in.)
Morneau [in press scrum]: We made the decision that the most important thing for me is to continue to work on behalf of Canadians. I’m not sure what that value is and of course it’s not sure until it happens.
Cochrane [part of press scrum]: We’re talking about millions of dollars.
Morneau: Whatever that value is, that’s our decision. We’ve decided to make that donation.
Conservative MP Gerard Deltell: He acted only when in the corner. And it was a real profitable, personal conflict of interest for him and his family.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen: I think what we saw today was an admission of guilt. From my experience people don’t usually pay a fine or a fee if they’re innocent from something.
Cochrane: Rather than letting it drop, the opposition said this is just proof of wrongdoing, and they say there is even more out there. Cullen has asked the Ethics Commissioner to investigate Morneau’s role in drafting pension reform legislation known as C-27. Legislation his critics say will mean big money for Morneau Shepell. Today the Ethics Commissioner wrote Cullen to say she will look into it. ‘…your letter leaves me with concerns in relation to Mr. Morneau’s involvement with Bill C-27. Consequently, I will follow up with Mr. Morneau.’ So Morneau will go under the microscope of the Ethics Commissioner though it isn’t at the level of a formal investigation. His office has said that he will cooperate fully with the commissioner and answer any questions that she has. David Cochrane, CBC News, Ottawa.
Cochrane’s report also failed to mention that the commissioner has no teeth–giving Morneau a pathetic $200 fine for not disclosing his villa in Fance–and is usually appointed by the PM, but in Trudeau’s case Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson’s replacement will be chosen by his friends, Trudeau’s communications director Kate Purchase and his Government House Leader Bardish Chagger. Trudeau had to recuse himself from the appointment process because of the hilariously ironic fact that he is currently being investigated by Dawson over his clear breach of the Conflict-of-Interest Act when he decided to vacation at the billionaire Aga Khan’s private island, all while Khan’s charity is lobbying the government.Thankfully for him and Morneau, however, the most Dawson can do is slap them with fines worth less than the average speeding ticket.
That same Thursday night, Morneau continued to show his unapologetic arrogance when he appeared on CTV News for a train-wreck interview where he remained adamant he’d done nothing wrong.
Somehow I don’t think we’ll be seeing that on Friday’s The National.
The next story was on Trudeau’s government giving $31 million in settlements to Canadians wrongfully accused of terrorism. Of course the story led with the PM, Minister Ralph Goodale and a human rights lawyer all defending the settlement. Even the Conservattive MP didn’t argue they were entitled to money because of their innocence, but no-one questioning the amounts given to the three men in the settlement was presented in the report.
Midway through Thursday’s program Ormiston said before taking a break, “Just ahead, At Issue with their take on the conflict-of-interest controversy that continues to dodge (sic) the Finance Minister.”
(CBC’s The National has been helping the Finance Minister dodge accountability in his conflict-of-interest scandal that should be rightfully dogging Bill Morneau.)
I won’t bore you with the details of the panel discussion, but right from the get-go the National Post‘s Andrew Coyne laid out how Morneau is still in a lot of trouble politically. Huffington Post’s Ottawa bureau chief then added to the pile-on over how Morneau’s story on whether or not he recused himself from working on pension legislation keeps changing. Then Angus Reid Institute’s Shachi Kurl then joined in pointing out how Morneau has “alienated” himself from the small business community and everyday Canadians. Overall the panel was much more honest and accurate than Cochrane’s reporting over the past week. And I understand Cochrane is suppposed to do an objective news report, but his leaving out of the details that make Morneau look bad is unacceptable, and The National barely reporting on the scandal as it developed was also unacceptable.
Anyway, moving on to Friday’s The National. Noe of the reports from that day were really noteworthy enough to report on, and didn’t really have much to do with CBC bias. However, the rerun report on asylum seekers illegally entering Canada was pretty telling. At one point Ormiston spoke with an American border guard.
Ormiston: And so do you think that the messaging was that Canada was open to this?
American Border Guard: I think that’s what the Premier said right up front, didn’t he? The Prime Minister said that right up front, right [eyebrows raised]? So I think people took that literally.
Yeah, no shit. I’ve heard from several Canadians who have travelled abroad in the developing world that many people they met on their travels mentioned their intentions to want to come to Canada because of Trudeau’s careless words. It amazes me how the CBC and most of the media has forgotten or chosen to ignore that Trudeau tweeted to the world that Canada would welcome anyone to Canada. Why would a 12-minute report leave out Trudeau’s tweets, which encouraged these migrants to jump the immigration queue illegally? Perhaps it’s because the majority of Canadians are against it. Like I said, I wrote a CBC opinion piece warning about Trudeau’s ill-advised virtue-signalling tweets that resonated with many Canadians and was very popular online. It’s frustrating that the media tends to only cover the humanitarian side of this story. There are many criminals entering Canada as well, and it is promoting a black market for human trafficking and people flying to America simply to then illegally enter Canada.
Once again the Finance Minister’s story was no where to be found on Friday, despite Morneau’s arrogant refusal to admit he’d done anything wrong the night before. The National has also done zero reporting on the latest investigations started in relation to Hillary Clinton, or the Canadian connection in the sale of uranium to Russia that has also been developing over the past several days. Don’t hold your breath.
If you’re unhappy with CBC’s The National coverage click on the YouTube links below and give them both a thumb down.
Raving Canuck 
Had the conservatives the only party to go after Bill Morneau’s conflict of Interest’ cbc would have place the story under the carpet but since NDP are just much involve on Bill Morneau’ case CBC has no choice but to report but not as viciously as they had while PM Harper was in gov which was a 24/7 daily attacks.
NDP can destroy cbc for their lack of coverage, if cbc makes the attempt to chastise the ndp view point as they (cbc) have done to the conservatives.
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