Peter Menzies

Better thousands of us die prematurely, apparently, than risk a grownup conversation

About the same time as William Watson’s outstanding book Globalization and the Meaning of Canadian Life was being published in the late 1990s, the newspaper I worked for was sending a journalist to Europe to research a series of articles on how health care systems work in some of those countries.

I mention Bill’s book, which was runner-up for a public policy Donner Prize, because it exquisitely details many of the things Canadians believe about themselves that simply aren’t true. Which was the same reason why the Calgary Herald sent its health reporter (yes, there used to be such a thing), Robert Walker, to Europe – to expose its readers to the fact that there are more than two health care systems: our “defining” one and America’s, both of which are extremes. To the best of my knowledge, that remains the only time a Canadian news organization has taken on that task.

In every country examined in Walker’s reports, as is the case with almost every country in the world, public and private health care and insurance systems maintained a peaceful coexistence and the public’s needs were being met. Almost 30 years later, that remains the case. Also almost 30 years later, neither Bill’s book nor the Herald’s reporting has had the slightest impact on the prevailing media narrative in Canada. It remains determined to perpetuate the fear that any move to increase the role of private health providers or even allow doctors to work in both systems (as was proposed this week by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith) is the first step on the slippery slope to “American-style” health care. This line has been successfully used for decades – often hyperbolically and occasionally hysterically – by public monopoly advocates for Canada’s increasingly expensive and difficult to access systems. We have known for 40 years that once Baby Boomers like your faithful servant turned bald and grey that the system would be unsustainable. But that single, terrifying “American-style” slur has halted reform at every turn.

The Tyee responded with a “Danielle Smith’s secret plan to Destroy Public Health Care” column while the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason, a Boomer, challenged my thesis here by suggesting it was time for open minds because “the reality is, the health care system in Canada is a mess.”

It is. And at least some of the blame – a lot, in my view – belongs at the door of Canadian news organizations that for decades have failed to fully inform readers by making them aware that there are a great many alternatives to just “ours” and “US-style.”

I was reminded of this in a recent Postmedia story concerning the perils of private health care provision. Referencing a study on MRIs, the story, right on cue, quotes the part of a study that states “It’s a quiet but rapid march toward U.S.-style health care.”

One would not want to suggest that those clinging to that parochial view should be denied a platform. But at the same time, readers have every right to demand that journalists push back and ask advocates for state monopolies simple questions such as “Why do you say that? Could it not be the first step towards UK-, German-, Dutch-, French-, Portugese- or Swedish-style health care?” and open the debate.

But, as it was 30 years ago and likely ever shall be, there is nothing to suggest that approach even crossed the reporter’s mind. Canadians deserve to be fully informed on major public policy matters and the record shows that when it comes to health care, media have largely failed to do so. Stuck in the fetid trench of an us and them narrative that compares two systems at extreme ends of the spectrum, the public is largely unaware that moderate alternatives exist, ensuring that no meaningful reforms will ever take place and tens of thousands of Canadians will continue to die on waiting lists – a story that continues to be of little interest within the mainstream. Better thousands of us die prematurely, apparently, than risk a grownup conversation that could challenge our national mythology and lead us down the path to “European-style” healthcare.

Postmedia’s Brian Lilley has written a defence of the use by journalists of anonymous sources. Lilley’s introduction describes him as coming down on both sides of the issue and that “Using anonymous sources is completely justified, if done right.” Well of course it is, but in my view it’s frequently and increasingly not being done right and its abuse is being exploited by government comms people to control the narrative.

An example of that occurred last week when the Globe and Mail, in a story concerning Prime Minister Mark Carney’s sojourn to the United Arab Emirates, declined to reveal the identity of a source offering very standard information. To wit:

“The (senior government) official, whom The Globe and Mail is not identifying because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said this visit matters because the UAE economy is very much driven by personal relationships – the kind that benefit from face-to-face meetings.”

This story had three bylines – from a senior parliamentary reporter, an institutional investing reporter and an economics reporter. It is inconceivable to me that, between them, they couldn’t find an on the record source who could explain how important it is, culturally, to have face to face meetings, particularly in that part of the world. Doing so would have added some needed thump to a “sources say” story and helped mute criticisms by others in the industry such as John Robson and Holly Doan, the latter stating in a Tweet that “Anon sources are gov’t propagandists.” Others have privately expressed their dismay.

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Meanwhile, I expect Lilley’s piece is worth a read and it’s important to hear all sides but as it is behind a paywall I haven’t got to it myself. It’s also worth pointing out that a recent Reuters Institute survey put Lilley in Canada’s top 10 social media influencers and creators.

Sadly, we have more this week on unnecessary online smartassery by journalists.

First up is Global News’s Sean O’Shea who managed to allow himself to look like a member of Carney’s comms team when he Tweeted his disapproval of some fans’ behaviour at the Grey Cup.

Then came The Hill Times’s Stu Benson, who blasted his alarm from a loudspeaker before deleting.

Honestly, folks, to paraphrase grandpa’s advice and as I have to remind myself from time to time, just because something pops into your head doesn’t mean it has to pop onto your social media feed.

Last week’s column for The Hub on how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives remain alive and enforced in the nation’s newsrooms is available here. And don’t forget to watch out for the Full Press podcast with myself, Harrison Lowman and Tara Henley on Thursday.

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(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Joe Duarte

Federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) continue to fund invalid, ideologically driven “scientific” research that subsidizes leftist activists and harms conservatives and the American people at large. There’s currently no plan to stop.

Conversely, NIH does not fund obvious research topics that would help the American people, because of institutional leftist bias.

While serving as a senior advisor at NIH, I discovered many active grants like these:

“Examining Anti-Racist Healing in Nature to Protect Telomeres of Transitional Age BIPOC for Health Equity” — Take minority teens to parks in a bid to reduce telomere erosion (the shortening of repetitive DNA sequences as we age). $3.8 million in five years and no results published – not surprising, given their absurd premise.

“Ecological Momentary Assessment of Racial/Ethnic Microaggressions and Cannabis Use among Black Adults” – This rests on an invalid leftist ideological concept – “microaggressions.” An example of a “microaggression” is a white person denying he’s racist. They can’t be validly measured since they’re simply defined into existence by Orwellian leftist ideology, with no attempt to discover the alleged aggressor’s motives.

“Influence of Social Media, Social Networks, and Misinformation on Vaccine Acceptance Among Black and Latinx Individuals” — from an activist who said the phrase “The coronavirus is genetically engineered” was “misinformation” and also conducted a bizarre, partisan study based entirely on a Trump tweet about recovering from COVID.

I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2020

The study claimed that people saw COVID as less “serious” after the tweet. I apologize for the flashback to when Democrats demanded everyone feel the exact level of COVID panic and anti-optimism they felt (and share their false beliefs on the efficacy of school closures, masks, and vaccines ). NIH funded this study and gave him another $651,586 in July for his new “misinformation” study, including $200,000 from the Office of the Director.

I’m a social psychologist who has focused on the harms of ideological bias in academic research. Our sensemaking institutions have been gashed by a cult political ideology that treats its conjectures and abstractions as descriptively true, without argument or even explanation, and enforces conformity with inhumane psychologizing and ostracism. This ideology – which dominates academia and NIH – poses an unprecedented threat to our connection to reality, and thus to science, by vaporizing the distinction between descriptive reality and ideological tenets.

In March, I emailed Jay Bhattacharya, Director of NIH, and pitched him on how I could build an objective framework to eliminate ideological bias in NIH-funded research.

Jay seemed to agree with my analysis. We spoke on the phone, and I started in May as a senior advisor to Jay in the Office of the Director (NIH-OD).

I never heard from Jay again beyond a couple of cursory replies.

For four months, I read tons of grants, passed a lengthy federal background check, started to build the pieces, and contacted Jay about once a week with questions, follow-up, and example grants. Dead air – he was ghosting me.

Jay also bizarrely deleted the last two months’ worth of my messages to him but kept the older ones. I’d sent him a two-page framework summary, asked if I should keep working on it, and also asked if I’d done something wrong, given his persistent lack of response. No response.

In September, the contractors working at NIH-OD, me included, were laid off. No explanation was given.

I have no idea what happened here. It’s been the strangest and most unprofessional experience of my career.

The result is that NIH is still funding ideological, scientifically invalid research and will continue to ignore major topics because of leftist bias. We have a precious opportunity for lasting reform, and that opportunity will be lost without a systematic approach to eliminating ideology in science.

What’s happened so far is that DOGE cut some grants earlier this year, after a search for DEI terms. It was a good first step but caught some false positives and missed most of the ideological research, including many grants premised on “microaggressions,” “systemic racism,” “intersectionality,” and other proprietary, question-begging leftist terms. Leftist academics are already adapting by changing their terminology – this meme is popular on Bluesky:

DOGE didn’t have the right search terms, and a systematic, objective anti-bias framework is necessary to do the job. It’s also more legally resilient and persuasive to reachable insiders — there’s no way to reform a huge bureaucracy without getting buy-in from some insiders (yes, you also have to fire some people). This mission requires empowered people at every funding agency who are thoroughly familiar with leftist ideology, can cleanly define “ideology,” and build robust frameworks to remove it from scientific research.

My framework identifies four areas of bias so far:

1. Ideological research
2. Rigged research
3. Ideological denial of science / suppression of data
4. Missing research – research that would happen if not for leftist bias

The missing research at NIH likely hurts the most — e.g. American men commit suicide at unusually high rates, especially white and American Indian men, yet NIH funds no research on this. But they do fund “Hypertension Self-management in Refugees Living in San Diego.”

Similarly, NIH is AWOL on the health benefits of religious observance and prayer, a promising area of research that Muslim countries are taking the lead on. These two gaping holes suggest that NIH is indifferent to the American people and even culturally and ideologically hostile them.

Joe Duarte grew up in small copper-mining towns in Southern Arizona, earned his PhD in social psychology, and focuses on political bias in media and academic research. You can find his work here, find him on X here, and contact him at gravity at protonmail.com.