Liberal House Leader tells gov’t-funded media they must ‘scrutinize’ Conservatives

Liberal House leader Karina Gould told government-funded reporters to ‘scrutinize’ Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.

The Liberal House Leader told government- funded media that it is their job to the scrutinize the Conservative Party. 

In a September 16 news conference, Government House leader Karina Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.

“Make sure we are holding (Pierre Poilievre) to account, to ensure he faces the proper scrutiny, because as Canadians get closer and closer to an election he has to answer those tough questions,” Gould instructed.

“Instead of answering legitimate questions from journalists – that’s his job – what does he do to journalists?” she questioned. “He attacks them. This is not something done by a responsible leader,” she asserted.

Gould’s comments were in reference to Poilievre’s promise to defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) if elected prime minister. Poilievre is a long-time critic of government-funded media, especially the CBC.

Gould claimed that Poilievre’s suggestion would deny Canadians access to important information, ignoring the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new legislation blocked all access to news content on Facebook and Instagram.

“When it comes to making sure that Canadians have access to good quality information in a time of incredible disinformation, what does he propose to do?” Gould questioned.

“Defund the CBC. And all of you as journalists have experienced firsthand how he treats people who try to ask him tough questions, who try to have him face the scrutiny of what he puts forward,” she continued.

“How does he react?” asked Gould. “As a bully, as someone who will not stand to scrutiny, who will not respond respectfully, not just to you as journalists but on the questions you’re asking on behalf of Canadians because your job is to get that information to Canadians. There is a reason why he doesn’t want Canadians to know what his true agenda is.”

While the reporters did not respond to her demands in the moment, mainstream media in Canada relies on government subsidies to stay afloat, and is often criticized for its left-wing bias. In fact, there have been multiple instances of the CBC pushing what appears to be ideological content, including the creating 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.

Despite this, beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year, to a maximum of $13,750.  

The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not even sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running, and recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.  

Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets, payouts which coincide with the lead-up to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.     

Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC for 2024-25.    

The $42 million to the CBC is in addition to massive media payouts which already make up roughly 70 percent of its operating budget, and total more than $1 billion annually.   

Related Topics:#ClareMarieMerkowsky #LifeSiteNews CBC LiberalHouseLeaderKarinaGould

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Carney speech highlights how easily newsrooms are played by politicians

Business

Bank of Canada governor warns citizens to anticipate lower standard of living

Published on November 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem gave a grim assessment of the state of the economy, essentially telling Canadians that they should accept a “lower” standard of living.

In an update on Wednesday in which he also lowered Canada’s interest rate to 2.25 percent, Macklem gave the bleak news, which no doubt will hit Canadian families hard.

“What’s most concerning is, unless we change some other things, our standard of living as a country, as Canadians, is going to be lower than it otherwise would have been,” Macklem told reporters.

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Macklem said what Canada is going through “is not just a cyclical downturn.”

Asked what he meant by a “cyclical downturn,” Macklem blamed what he said were protectionist measures the United States has put in place such as tariffs, which have made everything more expensive.

“Part of it is structural,” he said, adding, “The U.S. has swerved towards protectionism.”

“It is harder to do business with the United States. That has destroyed some of the capacity in this country. It’s also adding costs.”

Macklem stopped short of saying out loud that a recession is all but inevitable but did say growth is “pretty close to zero” at the moment.

Canadian taxpayers are already dealing with high inflation and high taxes, in part due to the Liberal government overspending and excessive money printing, and even admitting that giving money to Ukraine comes at the “taxpayers’” expense.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Carney boldly proclaimed earlier this week that his Liberal government’s upcoming 2025 budget will include millions more in taxpayer money for “SLGBTQI+ communities” and “gender” equality and “pride” safety.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently blasted the Carney government for spending $13 million on promotional merchandise such as “climate change card games,” “laser pens and flying saucers,” and “Bamboo toothbrushes” since 2022.

Canadians pay some of the highest income and other taxes in the world. As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canadian families spend, on average, 42 percent of their income on taxes, more than food and shelter costs. Inflation in Canada is at a high not seen in decades.

Media

Carney speech highlights how easily newsrooms are played by politicians

Published on October 31, 2025

Todayville

The Rewrite

Peter Menzies

Plus! Global’s oops on Trump in the crosshairs and assuming what Stephen Harper thinks may not be the best idea!

It has never been easier, thanks to the internet, for journalists to check if they are being played for fools. But due either to sloth, neglect, habit or servility – pick one – way too many lack the motivation to use a search engine.

Instead, they frequently accept the role of featherheads manipulated by politicians staging one of the oldest scams in the Machiavellian playbook, the recycled “news” announcement. I say “featherheads” (patsies was another option) because, for instance, Prime Minister Mark Carney can book news network time for a full half hour speech that is nothing more than a rehash of everything he’s been saying for the past 10 months and still lead newscasts and make the front pages.

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Here, I must pause to credit the Toronto Star. It, like other news organizations, received an embargoed copy of Wednesday’s speech in advance. It read it, saw that it contained no news and did not put a report on its front page. Others such as National Post and the Globe and Mail tried desperately to find a fresh angle within the speech but put it on their front pages anyway. CBC threw everything it had into it and CTV also led with it and tried its best to make it sound like news had happened.

Now, I am a reasonable and fair-minded person, so I would not be reacting were it just this incident that captured my attention. The PM is speaking, everyone gets excited, you review and lock in your story lineup and, ya, I get it. Been there, done that. But this was part of a troubling pattern that has emerged.

For instance, the government’s “plan” to hire 1,000 more Canadian Border Services guards was first announced in the Liberal election platform last spring. It was then, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, re-announced “April 10, April 28, June 3 and August 12.”

That Blacklock’s report was published Oct. 14 and focused on Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s insistence he was “not responsible” for the promised hiring that hadn’t happened yet. Two days later, Carney announced that the previously announced and re-announced plan would be announced again in the Nov. 4 budget. And the day after that – Oct. 17 – Anandasangaree announced his ministry would be doing what he said a few days previously wasn’t his responsibility and hiring 1,000 new border guards – over the next five years. A similar pattern of announcement and reannouncements took place regarding the government’s plan to hire 1,000 more RCMP officers, also not immediately but eventually. Then, last week, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced a financial crimes agency would be up and running by next June. This, too, was reported as a new initiative even though the government first committed to that agency in 2021.

While not all news organizations rise to the bait, this widely carried Canadian Press story is an example of how easily the public can be misinformed by reporting that lacks proper context. Re-announcements are presented as “news” despite there being no news other than “politicians repeat what they said before to keep their names in the news.” Media that go along with this pattern of manipulation allow themselves to be accused of defining news as anything the government wishes to present as news, something about which – now that media are subsidized by politicians – they should be more cautious.

The nation needs journalists to tell the whole story or, as Robert Maynard, founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, put it:

“The first thing about journalism is about accuracy and fairness, but that’s not enough. It has to be about context, it has to be about depth.”

Speaking of headlines, Global News deserves a long stare and shake of the head for the one it slapped on its report of the “No Kings” protests held last weekend.

Seemingly oblivious to the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk and two attempts on the life of US President Donald Trump, Global initially went with the above illustrated “Trump in the crosshairs” headline before changing it to “No Kings Day rallies draw hundreds of thousands of protesters.” The updated version made no reference to the initial version.

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There was quite a stir within the punditry when Dimitri Soudas, defrocked Conservative comms guy and former pal of notorious floor-crosser Eve Adams, wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star criticizing party leader Pierre Poilievre. Rather than go with the disgruntled former employee angle, the Globe and Mail’s Larry Martin led the pack in leaping to a conclusion:

“Soudas wouldn’t have written this attack on Poilievre without Stephan (sic) Harper’s okay,” he posted. “It means the knives are out to get PP and they are big knives that could kill his leadership.”

Martin, who has had a very distinguished career, hadn’t confirmed what he assumed Harper was thinking and was quickly schooled by Anna Tomala, the former PM’s spokeswoman.

“Mr. Soudas does not speak on behalf of Mr. Harper,” she stated curtly.

Martin did not delete his original post but while to his credit he did post an update, it’s unclear his blushes were spared.

CTV, meanwhile, declined to include Tomala’s Harper statement in its report on Soudas’s op-ed.

Retired CTV reporter Alan Fryer, meanwhile, gave his past employer a blast on X after it delivered this headline: “Carney is going ‘where the puck is going to be’ in first trip to Asia as PM.”

Fryer’s world-weary response?

“My Lord, the headline. A leader couldn’t hope for a more compliant media.”

Finally, two commentators for news organizations were subjected to harm and intimidation last week and we learned that a third had been threatened in August. Terry Newman of National Post posted that she would be contacting police, Ezra Levant of Rebel News was laid out at a protest in Dublin and it was discovered that Brian Passifume of the Toronto Sun faced a death threat in August. I checked to see if the Canadian Association of Journalists (which has abandoned X) had something to say on their behalf. The CAJ’s most recent web post regarding abuse of journalists was on Sept. 25 in defence of Isaac Peltz of theindependent.ca and William Wilson, who writes for therover.ca.

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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.)