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Trudeau claims Canada must subsidize CBC to ‘protect our democracy’

Published

2 years ago

6 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Trudeau failed to explain how the CBC could be an unbiased news source for Canadians when it is being funded by the Liberal party.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claims that Canada must continue to subsidize mainstream media outlet CBC to “protect our democracy.”

During the January 31 question period in the House of Commons, Trudeau promised continued funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s public radio and television broadcaster, arguing that the state-funded outlet is necessary for Canada’s democracy.  

“At a time of misinformation and disinformation, and the transformation of our media and digital era, we need CBC/Radio Canada to be strong to protect our culture, to protect our democracy, and to tell our stories from one end of the country to another,” Trudeau said.  

“We’ll always be here to defend CBC/Radio Canada, and we are going to seek to make necessary investments … to fulfill their mandate to inform and to strengthen democracy here in Canada,” he continued.  

Trudeau’s statement was in response to a request from Quebec Member of Parliament Martin Champoux (BQ-Drummond) for increased government funding for the Quebec division of CBC, Radio Canada. 

Trudeau pointed out that the Liberal government is already massively subsidizing the mainstream media. 

Ironically, Trudeau celebrated Bill C-18, the Online News Act, a law which mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms.    

“This is why we put forth [Bill] C-18 which will help our journalists at all levels to continue operating,” Trudeau stated. “We’ll be here to support a free and independent press. That is professional. We know there’s a lot of work to be done still.” 

However, thanks to his law, Canadians can no longer view or share news on Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, which blocked all access to news content in Canada rather than pay the fees outlined in the new legislation. Google, on the other hand,  agreed to pay Canadian legacy media $100 million. 

Additionally, Trudeau failed to explain how CBC could be an unbiased news source for Canadians when it is being funded by the Liberal party.  

Indeed, many Canadians have pointed out that the massive subsidies have made the CBC into a wing of the Liberal party.  

In April, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre labeled the 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 favourably 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 CBC.

Despite being nominally unaffiliated with either political party in Canada, CBC takes in about $1.24 billion in public funding every year. This is roughly 70 percent of its operating budget.  

That subsidies are the CBC’s largest single source of income has become a point of contention among taxpayers who see the propping up of the outlet as unnecessary.  

Furthermore, the CBC was set to receive increased funding thanks to the deal with Google that followed the passing of Trudeau’s Online News Act. 

The deal was finalized in early December. Under the new agreement, Google will pay legacy media outlets $100 million to publish links to their content on both the Google search engine and YouTube.  

As a result of the government handouts and the Google agreement, roughly half the salary of a CBC journalist earning $85,000 is estimated to be paid by the combined contributions of the Trudeau government and Google.  

Additionally, Trudeau recently announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets ahead of the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.  

However, even these massive payouts may be insufficient to keep the CBC relevant amid growing public distrust in mainstream media.  

According to a recent study by Canada’s Public Health Agency, 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 percent. This was followed by only 12 percent of people saying they trusted “ordinary people,” with celebrities receiving only an eight percent “trust” rating.  

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Senate Grills Meta and Google Over Biden Administration’s Role in COVID-Era Content Censorship

Published on November 2, 2025

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By Cindy Harper

Lawmakers pressed Meta and Google to explain how far White House outreach went in shaping their censorship decisions.

A Senate hearing this week discussed government influence on online speech, as senior executives from Meta and Google faced questions about the Biden administration’s communications with their companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The session, titled “Part II of Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans,” highlighted the growing concern in Washington over what lawmakers describe as government-driven pressure to suppress lawful expression.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the hearing, began by declaring that “the right to speak out is the foundation of a free society” and warning that “censorship around the world is growing.”
He accused the Biden administration of pushing technology companies to restrict Americans’ speech during the pandemic, and he faulted both the companies and Democrats for failing to resist that pressure.
“Today, we pick off where the story left off,” Cruz said, pointing to Meta and Google as examples of firms that “were pressured by the Biden administration to censor the American people.”
He pledged to introduce the Jawbone Act, which he said would “provide a robust right to redress when Americans are targeted by their own government.”
Markham Erickson, Google’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy, defended the company’s approach, emphasizing that its moderation decisions are guided by long-standing internal policies, not by government direction.
“While we are a company dedicated to the goal of making the world’s information universally accessible, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have certain rules,” Erickson said, citing restrictions on “terrorist content, child sexual abuse material, hate speech, and other harmful content.”
He acknowledged that officials in the Biden administration had contacted Google during the pandemic to urge the removal of certain COVID-19 content from YouTube.
But Erickson maintained that the company “develop[ed] and enforce[d] our policies independently” and “rejected suggestions that did not align with those policies.”
Erickson also alleged that Google has a record of resisting censorship demands from foreign governments, citing its refusal to remove politically sensitive videos in Russia despite threats of imprisonment against employees and fines “that exceed more than the world’s GDP.”
Neil Potts, Meta’s Vice President of Public Policy, took a more reflective stance.
He reiterated that Meta has a “foundational commitment to free expression” and acknowledged that the company had yielded to “repeated pressure” from the Biden White House to restrict COVID-related posts, including satire and humor.
“We believe that government pressure was wrong and wish we had been more outspoken about it,” Potts said. He added that Meta “should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction.”
Potts pointed to policy changes the company has made since then, such as ending its third-party fact-checking program, reducing restrictions on political topics, and adopting what he described as “a more personalized approach to political content.”
These steps, he said, were intended to “return to our ideals about free expression” and “allow for more speech.”
Senator Cruz pressed both executives on whether their companies regretted complying with government demands.
Potts responded that Meta “do[es] regret our actions for not speaking out more forcefully.”
Erickson, however, declined to use similar language, saying Google regularly receives “outreach from a lot of actors” and evaluates flagged material independently.
The exchange grew more pointed as Cruz questioned Google’s removal of a YouTube video that compiled election-fraud claims made by both major parties. Erickson conceded, “Yes, that is news,” when Cruz asked whether statements by presidential candidates about election integrity should be considered newsworthy.
But Erickson defended YouTube’s policies during the 2020 election, saying that after states had certified results, the company acted against “claims of widespread fraud” due to potential “real-world harm.”
Cruz accused Google of ideological bias and suggested the company was “unwilling to express regret for anything at all.”
He contrasted that with Meta’s statement of remorse and concluded that Google’s position reflected “a level of contempt for free speech that does not reflect well.”
Where Erickson had insisted that Google “continued to develop and enforce our policies independently,” the company’s letter to Congress acknowledged that “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach” urging the removal of COVID-19 content that did not violate platform rules.
This was somewhat of a departure from the defensive posture Google maintained before the Senate.
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Every issue we publish is part of a larger fight: preserving the principles that built this country and protecting them from erosion in the digital age.
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Internet

Musk launches Grokipedia to break Wikipedia’s information monopoly

Published on November 2, 2025

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MXM logo MxM News

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI launched “Grokipedia” on Monday — a new online encyclopedia built to challenge what he says is Wikipedia’s entrenched political bias. The site, powered by xAI’s technology and integrated with Grok, the same AI system behind Musk’s X platform, aims to provide a politically balanced alternative to the long-dominant Wikipedia, which critics have accused for years of leftist censorship and selective editing.

Grokipedia, now live in its beta “v0.1” stage, opens with roughly 885,000 entries — a fraction of Wikipedia’s seven million English-language pages but a notable start for a platform that launched just hours ago. Some users experienced temporary errors upon the rollout, but by Monday evening the site was running smoothly. Musk framed the project as part of his broader effort to restore transparency and ideological diversity to the digital space, echoing his moves to overhaul Twitter into X.

The billionaire’s feud with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has grown increasingly bitter in recent months. Musk has accused Wales of allowing Wikipedia to devolve into a propaganda outlet that protects liberal narratives while suppressing dissenting voices. “Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored,” Musk wrote in a January post on X. Wales, for his part, has dismissed Grokipedia as an unserious experiment, telling the Washington Post last week that AI-generated content is prone to “massive factual errors” and lacks editorial oversight.

Breitbart News has documented numerous examples of Wikipedia’s bias, from its editors smearing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk following his assassination to attempts to delete articles about his widow Erika Kirk and Ukrainian activist Iryna Zarutska. One editor even proposed deleting Bible verses, while another added Nazi references to politically conservative entries. The site’s governing “neutrality working group,” announced amid backlash, has ignored allegations of left-wing bias and instead congratulated itself on maintaining “neutrality on contentious subjects.”

For Musk, Grokipedia represents more than a product launch — it’s another front in his campaign to dismantle what he sees as the internet’s entrenched progressive gatekeepers. While Wikipedia’s defenders dismiss his challenge as quixotic, the early traffic surge to Grokipedia suggests that many users are ready to see if Musk’s alternative can deliver what the old encyclopedia no longer does: balance, transparency, and a willingness to question the narrative.

(Photo/Alex Brandon)

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