National
Canadian journalists say Trudeau gov’t payouts are hurting mainstream media credibility
From LifeSiteNews
“Canadian media does need to be saved, that is very true,” said Henley. “My message is simple. The government cannot save us. We have to save ourselves.”
Legacy media journalists in Canada have pointed to government subsidies as one of the key reasons Canadians have lost trust in the industry.
On February 27, mainstream media journalists told the House of Commons heritage committee that ongoing media subsidies from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government have only damaged newsrooms’ credibility in the eyes of Canadians, according to information obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Legacy and new media lobbying for government money and accepting it does little to enhance confidence in their independence or reliability,” former Conservative MP and 1988 chair of the Commons communications committee John Gormley testified.
“Does government funding pay for better journalism? Does it restore credibility and trust?” he questioned.
“I don’t necessarily accept the supposition Canadian media is in trouble because it is underfunded by government,” he responded. “The government has nothing to do with this.”
Similarly, Tara Henley, a Toronto author and host of the Lean Out podcast on current affairs, argued that the government subsidizes have led to a loss of integrity for mainstream media outlets.
“Any funding from the government that flows to media at this point would hinder our attempts to rebuild trust,” she said. “There is evidence to suggest subsidies have created an environment in which segments of the public believe media has been bought off.”
“Without trust we have no audience,” Henley stated. “Without an audience we have no revenue. Without revenue we have no path forward.”
“Canadian media does need to be saved, that is very true,” said Henley. “My message is simple. The government cannot save us. We have to save ourselves.”
The journalist’s comments come as mainstream media outlets continually request increased government funding as their readership and viewership flounders. Legacy media journalists are projected to have roughly half of their salaries paid by the Liberal government after the $100 million Google agreement and the subsidies outlined in the Fall Economic Statement.
Mainstream Canadian media had already received massive federal payouts, but they have nearly doubled after Trudeau announced increased subsidies for legacy media outlets ahead of the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
Many have accused the mainstream media of becoming nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the Liberal government as their financial futures are seen as dependent upon continued public funding.
Recent polling found that only one-third of Canadians consider mainstream media trustworthy and balanced.
Similarly, a recent study by Canada’s Public Health Agency revealed that less than a third of Canadians displayed “high trust” in the federal government, with “large media organizations” as well as celebrities getting even lower scores.
Large mainstream media outlets and “journalists” working for them scored a “high trust” rating of only 18%. That was followed by only 12% of people saying they trusted “ordinary people,” with celebrities receiving only an 8% “trust” rating.
In direct opposition to Trudeau’s stance, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has repeatedly announced that his government would not support state-funded media.
In April, Poilievre labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) a “biased propaganda arm of the Liberal Party and frankly negatively affects all media.”
“For example, Canadian Press is negatively affected by the fact that you have to report favorably on the CBC if you want to keep your number one, taxpayer-funded client happy,” he said.
“We need a neutral and free media, not a propaganda arm for the Liberal Party… When I am prime minister, we are going to have a free press where every day Canadians decide what they think rather than having Liberal propaganda jammed down their throats.”
Poilievre added that if he becomes prime minister he will cut “corporate welfare,” including money to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which currently receives over a billion dollars a year in taxpayer funds.
National
Trudeau’s internet censorship Bill C-11 will not be implemented until late 2025
From LifeSiteNews
The delay is due to not having a framework to determine exactly how much streaming services will be forced to pay and also what kind of inclusion and diversity requirements will be mandated.
The implementation of a Canadian law passed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that would mandate the regulation of online platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure they meet government requirements, has been delayed until late 2025.
As reported recently by the Globe and Mail, Bill C-11, known as the Online Streaming Act that was passed into law in April 2023, was already supposed to have been implemented by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the country’s broadcast regulator that is tasked with putting in place the law.
The law mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada. Google has promised to do the same rather than pay the fees laid out in the new legislation.
However, the CRTC said it will not be until late 2025 that it will finally have a framework to determine exactly how much streaming services will be forced to pay, to be in line with mandates for more Indigenous and Canadian content.
As per the Globe and Mail, consultations will be held that will go into March 2026, on what kind of inclusion and diversity requirements will be mandated by the CRTC.
“The Online Streaming Act and the policy direction are both complex and multi-faceted, and we have announced an ambitious set of public hearings and proceedings to address all of the elements they contain,” CRTC spokesperson Leigh Cameron said.
“The CRTC anticipates that by 2026 it will have both had the opportunity to consult widely with Canadians and to have put in place the key elements of the new broadcasting framework,” he added.
Critics of recent laws such as tech mogul Elon Musk have said it shows “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada.”
This bill has been panned by other critics, such as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, after in October 2023 the CRTC said that certain podcasters must “register” with the government by November 28, 2023.
Regarding Bill C-11, Canadian law professor Dr. Michael Geist warned last year that new powers granted to CRTC via Bill C-11 will not stop at “Web Giants” but will lead to the government going after “news sites” and other “online” video sites as well.
“Bill C-11 was never just about ‘web giants’ and the latest CRTC decision confirms that an extensive regulatory framework is in the works that is likely to cover podcasts, adult sites, news sites, and a host of other online video and audio services,” Geist observed.
Geist said that the “crucial” issue with Bill C-11 was always whether “CRTC exemption from registration requirements, which it sets at $10M in Canadian revenue.”
“That isn’t trivial, but additional exemptions for podcasts, social media, adult sites, news services, thematic services were all rejected,” he noted.
Geist observed that the CRTC in its new rules is effectively saying that a “podcaster or news outlet that generates a certain threshold of revenue must register with the government.”
Delay means Bill could be rescinded before it’s ever implemented
The Conservative Party of Canada, under leader Pierre Poilievre, was a strong opponent to Bill C-11. With polls showing them on track to win the 2025 election in a landslide, it is conceivable the bill may be rescinded before it’s ever implemented.
After the bill was passed by the Senate last year, Poilievre promised a Conservative government would “repeal” Bill C-11.
“The power-hungry Trudeau Liberals have rammed through their censorship bill into law. But this isn’t over, not by a long shot,” Poilievre tweeted.
“A Poilievre government will restore freedom of expression online & repeal Trudeau’s C-11 censorship law.”
Recent polls show that the scandal-plagued federal government has sent the Liberals into a nosedive with no end in sight. Per a recent LifeSiteNews report, according to polls, in a federal election held today, Conservatives under Poilievre would win a majority in the House of Commons over Trudeau’s Liberals.
Canadians are not happy as well with Bill C-11 or the other internet censorship laws put in place by the Trudeau Liberals.
Indeed, in light of the barrage of new internet censorship laws being passed or brought forth by Trudeau, a new survey revealed that the majority of Canadians feel their freedom of speech is under attack.
Trudeau’s other internet censorship law, the Online News Act, was passed by the Senate in June 2023.
The law mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada. Google has promised to do the same rather than pay the fees laid out in the new legislation.
The Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, will target internet speech retroactively if it becomes law. The law, if passed, could lead to large fines and even jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions, and has also been panned by Musk.
espionage
The Scientists Who Came in From the Cold: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part I
From the C2C Journal
By Peter Shawn Taylor
In a breathless 1999 article on the opening of Canada’s top-security National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, the Canadian Medical Association Journal described the facility as “the place where science fiction movies would be shot.” The writer was fascinated by the various containment devices and security measures designed to keep “the bad boys from the world of virology: Ebola, Marburg, Lassa” from escaping. But what if insiders could easily evade all those sci-fi features in order to help Canada’s enemies? In the first of a two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor looks into the trove of newly-unclassified evidence regarding the role of NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng in aiding China’s expanding quest for the study – and potential military use – of those virus bad boys.
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