Internet
It’s only a matter of time before the government attaches strings to mainstream media subsidies
Misinformation is not exclusive to alternative online news organizations
In a previous world, whether they succeeded or failed at that was really no one’s business, at least provided the publisher wasn’t knowingly spreading false information intended to do harm. That is against the law, as outlined in Section 372 of the Criminal Code, which states:
“Everyone commits an offence who, with intent to injure or alarm a person, conveys information that they know is false, or causes such information to be conveyed by letter or any means of telecommunication.”
Do that, and you can be imprisoned for up to two years.
But if a publisher was simply offering poorly researched, unbalanced journalism, and wave after wave of unchallenged opinion pieces with the ability to pervert the flow of information and leave the public with false or distorted impressions of the world, he or she was free to do so. Freedom of the press and all that.
The broadcasting world has always been different. Licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), content produced there must, according to the Broadcasting Act, be of “high standard”—something that the CRTC ensures through its proxy content regulator, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC).
Its most recent decision, for instance, condemned Sportsnet Ontario for failing to “provide a warning before showing scenes of extraordinary violence” when it broadcast highlights of UFC mixed martial arts competitions during morning weekend hours when children could watch. If you don’t understand how a warning would have prevented whatever trauma the highlights may have caused or how that might apply to the internet, take comfort in the fact that you aren’t alone.
The CRTC now has authority over all video and audio content posted digitally through the Online Streaming Act, and while it has not yet applied CRTC-approved CBSC standards to it, it’s probably only a matter of time before it does.
The same will—in my view—eventually take place regarding text news content. Since it has become a matter of public interest through subsidies, it’s inevitable that “high standard” expectations will be attached to eligibility. In other words, what once was nobody’s business is now everybody’s business. Freedom of the, er, press and all that.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
Which raises the point: is the Canadian public well informed by the news industry, and who exactly will be the judge of that now that market forces have been, if not eliminated, at least emasculated?
For instance, as former Opposition leader Preston Manning recently wondered on Substack, how can it be that “62 per cent of Ontarians,” according to a Pollara poll, believe Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to be a separatist?
“The truth is that Premier Smith—whom I’ve known personally for a long time—is not a separatist and has made that clear on numerous occasions to the public, the media, and anyone who asks her,” he wrote.
I, too, have been acquainted for many years with the woman Globe and Mailcolumnist Andrew Coyne likes to call “Premier Loon” and have the same view as Manning, whom I have also known for many years: Smith is not a separatist.
Manning’s theory is that there are three reasons for Ontarians’ disordered view—the first two being ignorance and indifference.
The third and greatest, he wrote, is “misinformation—not so much misinformation transmitted via social media, because it is especially older Ontarians who believe the lie about Smith—but misinformation fed into the minds of Ontarians via the traditional media” which includes CBC, CTV, Global, and “the Toronto-based, legacy print media.”
No doubt, some members of those organizations would protest and claim the former Reform Party leader is the cause of all the trouble.
Such is today’s Canada, where the flying time between Calgary and Toronto is roughly the same as between London and Moscow, and the sense of east-west cultural dislocation is at times similar. As Rudyard Kipling determined, the twain shall never meet “till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat.”
This doesn’t mean easterners and westerners can’t get along. Heavens no. But what it does illustrate is that maybe having editorial coverage decisions universally made in Hogtown about Cowtown (the author’s outdated terminology), Halifax, St John’s, Yellowknife, or Prince Rupert isn’t helping national unity. It is ridiculous, when you think about it, that anyone believes a vast nation’s residents could have compatible views when key decisions are limited to those perched six degrees south of the 49th parallel within earshot of Buffalo.
But CTV won’t change. Global can’t. The Globe is a Toronto newspaper, and most Postmedia products have become stripped-down satellites condemned to eternally orbit 365 Bloor Street East.
The CRTC is preoccupied with finding novel ways to subsidize broadcasters to maintain a status quo involving breakfast shows. So we can’t expect any changes there, nor can we from the major publishers.
Which leaves the job to the CBC, whose job it has always been to make sure the twain could meet. That makes it fair to assume Manning will be writing for many years to come about Toronto’s mainstream media and misinformation about the West.
(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 Fraser Institute
Loosening restrictions on foreign investment and removing regulations that constrain how firms can compete in Canadian telecommunications
and broadcasting industries would benefit Canadians through increased service offerings, improved product quality, and lower prices, finds a new study released by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“Telecommunications and broadcasting are both vitally important to the economic health of a nation, and yet in Canada, both suffer from inefficient competition, which means Canadians suffer through more limited service offerings and high prices,” said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Promoting Efficient Competition in Canadian Telecommunications and Broadcasting.
The study finds that opening up telecommunications and broadcasting in Canada to increased and less regulated competition, including from foreign investors (except in cases where national security might be compromised), would promote more consumer-focused content, more choice and lower costs for Canadians over time.
Specifically, in telecommunications, competition has been tightly managed by successive governments and focused on establishing a fourth national carrier to compete with the major incumbents: Bell Canada, Rogers, and Telus. Consequently, investment and innovation has been discouraged and prices have been higher than they otherwise would be. However, given the emergence of a fourth national carrier, the justification for regulated competition no longer holds.
Public policy in broadcasting has primarily focused on subsidizing the production and distribution of Canadian content. Incumbent broadcasters are the conduit, directly or indirectly, for the relevant subsidies, which, in turn, are largely passed through to consumers. This means Canadians pay a higher price for streaming services and other broadcasting services.
“Public policy in both the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors has been directed at objectives other than promoting efficient competition, and the result has been less innovation, more limited choice of products and services and higher prices for Canadians,” Globerman said.
Fewer regulations and loosening foreign ownership restrictions in telecoms and broadcasting would improve services and lower prices for Canadians
Promoting Efficient Competition in Canadian Telecommunications and Broadcasting
- Competition policy in the telecommunications sector has long focused on establishing a fourth national carrier to compete with the major incumbents: Bell Canada, Rogers, and Telus.
- The effort to establish a major rival to the incumbents has encompassed indirect subsidies to entrants to acquire spectrum and mandated interconnection to the incumbents’ networks.
- While a fourth national carrier has emerged in the wake of the merger between Rogers and Shaw Communications, the development has come at the cost of decreased rates of network innovation and higher prices to consumers.
- Government policy in the telecommunications sector going forward should focus on promoting efficient competition, which includes foregoing competitive handicapping and promoting contestability. The latter would be enhanced by eliminating all restrictions on foreign ownership except in cases where national security might be compromised.
- Public policy in broadcasting has primarily focused on subsidizing the production and distribution of Canadian content. Incumbent broadcasters are the conduit, directly or indirectly, for the relevant subsidies, which, in turn, are largely passed through to consumers.
- The subsidy scheme can be a barrier to entry or expansion, particularly for streaming services that are uncertain about their competitive ability to be profitable in the face of an effective tax on their revenues beyond a minimum revenue threshold.
- Efficiency and transparency argue for subsidizing Canadian content through general taxes if the relevant subsidy scheme is maintained.
- Removing restrictions on foreign ownership of conventional broadcasters and cable companies would also enhance contestability in the sector.
From LifeSiteNews
While X sits at number one, CBC News, Canada’s crown news agency, ranks at number 9 in news apps. Similarly, CTV News is ranked at number 10.
Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, now ranks number one in news apps for Canadians, outranking mainstream media outlets.
In an August 7 post, Elon Musk, the owner of X, celebrated X placing first among news apps downloaded from the app store in Canada, as Canadians increasingly turn to alternative media sources amid ongoing media censorship and bias.
“This indicates that a very large segment of the Canadian population no longer trusts the mainstream media,” Campaign Life Coalition’s Jack Fonseca told LifeSiteNews.
“They view legacy news outlets like the CBC as nothing more than propaganda factories, paid by the Liberal government to spew forth its narratives,” he continued.
Since X was bought by Musk in 2023, the platform has relaxed its censorship policies, allowing for a more open discussion of controversial topics.
While by no means perfect, the app has become a valuable method of sharing censored information, especially in Canada, where most media outlets receive funding from the Liberal government.
“Generally speaking, free speech reigns on X, and that’s what people want,” Fonseca declared. “They want the ability to hear both sides of an issue, no matter how controversial. The freedom to say what they believe and not be censored.”
“The CBC, CTV, Toronto Star and all the other propaganda machines do not allow both sides of an issue to be aired in a fair or balanced manner,” he continued.
Indeed, while X sits at number one, CBC News, Canada’s crown news agency, ranks at number 9 in news apps. Similarly, CTV News is ranked at number 10.
CBC’s low ranking is likely linked to the fact that the outlet receives over a billion dollars in funding from the Liberal government each year. Liberal funding, in addition to biased reporting, has led many Canadians to consider the outlet nothing more than an arm of the Liberal party.
This January, the watchdog for the CBC ruled that the state-funded outlet expressed a “blatant lack of balance” in its covering of a Catholic school trustee who opposed the LGBT agenda being foisted on children.
There have also been multiple instances of the outlet pushing leftist ideological content, including the creation of pro-LGBT material for kids, tacitly endorsing the gender mutilation of children, promoting euthanasia, and even seeming to justify the burning of mostly Catholic churches throughout the country.
However, many Canadians are awakening to the lies and half-truths perpetuated by legacy media outlets and are instead turning to alternative media sources.
According to a 2024 global “trust” index, the majority of Canadians believe that legacy media journalists and government officials are not trustworthy and are “lying to them” regularly.
Fonseca stressed the importance of “the rapidly growing independent media orgs (…) like LifeSiteNews, Rebel News, the Western Standard, Juno News and Epoch Times. But even these alternative media rely significantly on X to amplify their content.”
“Undoubtedly, the Carney regime will try to shut down X, or force censorship on the platform through legislation and regulation, so we must fight and pray to ensure our shill globalist Prime Minister doesn’t succeed,” he warned.
“Carney would have us all become slaves to the state, without any voice or real power. Although X isn’t perfect, we need it desperately if we’re to have any hope of Canada staying ‘glorious and free,’” Fonseca declared.
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