Who is Telling the Truth: Jody Wilson-Raybould or Justin Trudeau?
The Goddard Report
The Goddard Report is an alternative media source that delivers
informative stories that are often ignored or underreported by the
mainstream media. Hosted by veteran investigative reporter Jim Goddard.
Exclusive: Former Clark aide involved in SNC-Lavalin meddling broke B.C.’s FOI law
Bob Mackin Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s chief
of staff, one of several officials that Jody Wilson-Raybould says wanted
her to let SNC-Lavalin off the hook, broke British Columbia’s freedom
of information law when he mass-deleted email while working as a senior
aide to Christy Clark in 2017. In her Jan. 29 decision, Information
and Privacy adjudicator Celia Francis ruled that the Office of the
Premier failed to respond “openly, accurately and completely” under the
law.
Ben Chin watches Christy Clark at a voting station in Dunbar in May 2017 (Twitter)
Ben Chin was Clark’s executive
director of communications when, on April 6, 2017, the Ombudsperson
released a damning report about the unjust 2012 firings of drug safety
researchers in the health ministry. theBreaker.news
asked for all of Chin’s email for a 12-hour period on the day that the
report dominated provincial news. But, after the provincial election,
Clark’s office released only three pages: an op-ed ghost-written for
Clark about softwood lumber exports to the U.S. In mid-June 2017, theBreaker.news
sought Chin’s message-tracking logs. The 17-pages of metadata contained
proof that a “recover deleted items” folder included email that should
have been disclosed to theBreaker.news. Nobody in Clark’s office
searched the folder before its contents were deleted and saved to a
backup server. On July 18, 2017, the NDP’s John
Horgan succeeded Clark as premier. In an awkward twist, Horgan’s staff
went to work to defend the conduct of Chin, even though Horgan
constantly skewered the BC Liberals for what he called a “culture of
deception, a culture of deceit, a culture of delete, delete, delete.” Francis noted that the government’s
own guide on transitory records directs employees to preserve transitory
records that are relevant to an FOI request or legal discovery. In her
2015 report, then-Commissioner Elizabeth Denham wrote that “once a
public body receives an access to information request, it must keep all
records, including both transitory and non-transitory records, in its
custody or under its control. If these records are responsive, the
public body must produce them unless specific exemptions to disclosure
under FIPPA apply.” The Office of the Premier argued that
Chin properly disposed of the transitory email and, she wrote, “also
suggested that the emails would be ‘of little or no value’ to the
journalist. However, whether the emails were transitory or valuable to
the journalist is irrelevant, in my view. The journalist did not request
emails pertaining to a specified subject. He requested all of the
Executive Director’s emails for a 12-hour period. As such, all of the
Executive Director’s emails for that period were responsive to the
request, whether transitory or valuable.” Chin’s affidavit said that he
regularly deleted emails he considered transitory, but would not have
searched the recovered deleted items folder because he felt those emails
were transitory and properly disposed. Though Francis found the Office of the
Premier broke the law, she followed the rulings of two previous
commissioners and did not order the premier’s office to find the deleted
email. “The Office of the Premier’s evidence
has persuaded me that it would be a complex, onerous and costly business
to restore the requested emails. In the circumstances of this case, I
am satisfied that it is not reasonable to require the Office of the
Premier to restore the email backups in order to respond to the
journalist’s access request.” Chin left the B.C. government with a
$159,533 golden parachute after the change of government and found a new
job in October 2017 as Morneau’s senior advisor. He was promoted to
chief of staff in May 2018. Ex-Attorney General Wilson-Raybould
testified Feb. 27 to the House of Commons justice committee that Chin
contacted officials in her office four times between Sept. 6 and 20,
2018 to talk about SNC-Lavalin’s desire to avoid a trial over the
payment of $48 million in bribes to the brutal Gadhafi regime in Libya.
Chin’s last contact came the day after Wilson-Raybould told Morneau to
leave her alone.
“[Morneau] again stressed
the need to save jobs and I told him that engagements from his office to
mine on SNC had to stop, that they were inappropriate,” said
Wilson-Raybould.
theBreaker.news sought comment from
Chin on both his email purge and Wilson-Raybould’s testimony. Instead of
answering, Chin referred the query to Morneau press secretary
Pierre-Olivier Herbert, who avoided the question about Chin breaking
B.C.’s FOI law. “It is Minister Morneau’s
responsibility to protect and promote the creation of jobs across Canada
and he will continue to raise such important issues with all his
cabinet colleagues,” Herbert wrote. “At no time did Minister Morneau nor
members of his office pressure the former Minister of Justice and
Attorney General into making any decision regarding the prosecution of
SNC-Lavalin.” Federal lobbying records show that
SNC-Lavalin CEO Neil Bruce communicated with Chin on Sept. 18 and Nov.
19, 2018. Clark hired Chin, the former spinner for Ontario Premier
Dalton McGuinty, in late 2012. Meanwhile,
British Columbians keep waiting for Horgan to fulfil a 2017 campaign
promise to enact a duty to document law and impose fines for those
caught deleting or destroying government records.
The
creepy political criminals seem to find work with anyone. Morneau
cannot remember he owns a Chateau, but can dig up shady characters for
staff. Interesting. The corruption is deeper than even I thought.
Along the way, I did character
voices in ads on JACK-FM
and KISS-FM;
I taught Media Law at BCIT
and Broadcast Journalism at Columbia
Academy,
and, most recently, in 2011, I obtained a Certificate of
Technology, with Distinction, from BCIT's
Software System
Developer Program Web Designer Option).
Over the course of my career I'm proud to have won several awards:
- CKWX
Employee of the Month
December 2007, for coverage
of the Pickton trial
- Radio-TV News
Directors Association Investigative Reporting Award 1996
- Honourable
Mention, “Prior Street Fire”
- Dan McArthur
Award (Investigative Reporting) 1997 - Canadian
Association of Broadcasters -
Honourable
Mention – “High Speed Pursuit”
I'm currently
working as a
freelance broadcaster for HoweStreet.com
It’s a big loss for the NDP and for Canadian Politics.Nathan Cullen’s announcement that he won’t be running in 2019 is bad news for the NDP.
He is the latest in a long-line of NDP MPs, including Murray Rankin, who won’t be running in the upcoming federal election.
Cullen – often seen as a potential leader of the NDP – is one of the
NDPs most effective MPs. His skill in grilling the PM and government,
and ability to logically define problems is quite rare in a
hyper-partisan era, and even when his colleagues disagreed with him
there was a level of respect.
Most recently, Cullen could be seen ripping the Trudeau Liberals over the PMO SNC-Lavalin scandIt’s yet another sign that – despite Jagmeet Singh’s win in Burnaby
South – things aren’t looking good for the NDP and their candidates know
it.
While Trudeau’s troubles may give Singh a lifeline, the more
departures that get announced the tougher it will be for him to convince
more people to run for his party.
Manitoba Liberal chief of staff, Fort Whyte candidate resign
Spencer Fernando resigns as chief of staff; Stephanie Danyluk, Fort Whyte candidate, resigns
CBC News ·
Stephanie Danyluk (left) and Spencer Fernando both resigned from the Manitoba Liberal Party Monday. The two are also partners. (Spencer Fernando/Facebook)
The Manitoba Liberal Party
leader's chief of staff has resigned, as has his girlfriend Stephanie
Danyluk — the Liberal candidate in Fort Whyte.
Spencer Fernando has stepped away from the party just weeks ahead of the provincial election.
"I
recognize that there's … really no good time to do it. The longer I
waited, the worse it would have been," Fernando said. "Every day you get
closer to the election it's worse, so better to do it now than
obviously during the election, or closer to it."
It speaks to a tension in the campaign organization that should not be there this close to an election.- Royce Koop
Fernando
resigned Friday; Danyluk resigned Monday. Both resigned via
email. Fernando wouldn't comment on whether he
and Danyluk co-ordinated their departures from the party.
"After
dedicating nearly 10 years to political life, I have come to the
difficult personal realization that politics is no longer the career
path for me at this time," Fernando said in the resignation statement he
sent to the party Friday.
"There is a big world outside of
politics, which I look forward to exploring. I wish Rana Bokhari, my
former colleagues and the Manitoba Liberal team all the best."
Fernando
said he has spoken with the party president since submitting his
resignation, but has yet to hear from Bokhari. Neither Fernando nor
Danyluk attended the party's annual general meeting on Saturday, he
added.
"You
hate to lose key staff this close to an election," said Mike Brown,
Manitoba Liberal Party communications director. "But politics is
politics and sometimes people leave for their own reasons. If I was a
mind reader I could tell you what those reasons are, but I can't."
Royce
Koop, a University of Manitoba political science professor, said losing
a chief of staff and candidate so close to an election makes for "very
bad" optics and is possibly a sign of party inner turmoil.
Mike Brown is the director of public relations and communications for the Manitoba Liberal Party. (CBC)
"It speaks to a tension in the campaign organization that should not be there this close to an election," Koop said.
Brown
responded to Koop's comments, saying resignations at this point in the
game typically do have more of an impact on smaller parties like the
provincial Liberals.
"When you're a smaller party, it's
harder to lose people — no doubt about that," he said. "By the same
token, when you're a smaller party, you're nimble and you adjust."
Brown added the party is taking a step back now to figure out who can fill the void left in Fort Whyte by Danyluk.
"People
have expressed interest over the course of time. I think it's time we
need to go back and have a look at those people now."
Fernando's history in politics
Before
joining the Liberals, Fernando worked for both the Conservative Party
of Canada and the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives.
Spencer Fernando has resigned from his position as chief of staff of the Manitoba Liberal Party. (Courtesy Spencer Fernando)
Fernando previously
worked as a staffer for Rod Bruinooge, the federal Conservative MP for
the Winnipeg South riding from 2006 to 2015.
The Stephen Harper-led Conservatives were against an inquiry at the time.
Fernando
said he will be working with his father at his photography business. He
hasn't completely shut out the possibility of re-entering the political
arena down the line, but has a hard time imagining what it would take
for that to happen, Fernando said.
"I would never say never, but at this point it's not something I contemplate any time soon," Fernando said.
CBC Often Reports Competitors’ Scoops Without
Credit
“In our bureau, we tend to shake our heads and chuckle
at how often CBC uses the ‘CBC has learned’ on other news organizations’
scoops," says Robert Fife, The Globe's Ottawa chief
On Sunday, April 29, CBC’s The Weekly with Wendy Mesleyopened with a report concerning an
American far-right paramilitary group that had expanded north of the border. “An
investigation done by The Weekly can reveal that the Three Percenters
have come to Canada,” Mesley declared at the show’s outset.
Not mentioned however, was that Vice Canada journalist Mack Lamoureux had
already conducted an eight-month investigation into the same group, which
culminated in an exhaustive exposé published last June.
The Weekly rehashed much of the same information originally reported by
Lamoureux. No significant new details were provided, yet the segment did not
credit the Vice reporter or his work.
But the public broadcaster’s repackaging of Lamoureux’s exclusive was far
from the first time it had been accused of re-reporting another outlet’s scoop
without credit. CANADALAND, through online searches and interviews with
journalists at other outlets, has found that the CBC often appears to go out of
its way to avoid crediting others’ scoops — by independently verifying
information from another outlet, the CBC frequently sidesteps acknowledgement of
the original source.
“They do it all the time. Just last week, [Globe and Mail reporter]
Sean Silcoff had an exclusive on new IP policy two days ahead of the
announcement,” Robert Fife, The Globe’s Ottawa bureau chief, said in a
recent email. “The following day, it was ‘CBC has learned’ that same story that
was published on the front page of Report on Business.
“In our bureau, we tend to shake our heads and chuckle at how often CBC uses
the ‘CBC has learned’ on other news organizations’ scoops, which I assume is to
impress management, because most Canadians wouldn’t care less.”
how many times does the CBC have to get called out for
ripping off other outlets before they learn to link out? https://t.co/2DlPWDv17k
Anchor @tommurphycbc on the 6:00 news tonight,
with a straight face: "A CBC investigation uncovered the story of a mistaken
cremation and a viewing that went terribly wrong" The Mother Corpse continues
to take credit for a Frank exclusive. You're cool with this, Nancy Waugh?
Shortly after The Weekly episode aired, Vice Canada editor-in-chief
Josh Visser called out the CBC for its “CBC can reveal” packaging of the Three
Percenters story:
1. There’s virtually no new information in this report that
wasn’t first reported by @MackLamoureux last year. Why package it
as ‘CBC can reveal’ or an investigation.
Mesley responded by tweeting that Lamoureux “did an amazing
job on this story last year.”
Three days after the show aired, and after receiving more complaints, Mesley
defended the editorial decisions of her program by saying there were “exclusive
new details” in the report and that they had credited a Vice documentary on the
American faction of the paramilitary group:
Vice has done good work on this story and we are proud to
have been able to advance the story with original journalism revealing exclusive
new details. We'll keep focused on this important topic moving forward.
(The new details appeared to involve stating the occupations of some of the
group’s members, as well as showing some new Facebook pictures and comments in
the same vein as the ones in Lamoureux’s story.)
“Simply stated, our practice is to give credit to any news organization that
has broken a story where it exists nowhere else in the public domain or where we
have not sourced it ourselves,” CBC head of public affairs Chuck Thompson says
in an email.
Thompson did not explain if the policy is provided to CBC employees in a
guidebook or is an unwritten rule. CANADALAND could not find any formal policy
for crediting others’ work in the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices,
which states that “in our information gathering and reporting, we treat
individuals and organizations with openness and respect.”
Lamoureux and Visser declined to comment for this story.
The Canadian Association of Journalists’ Ethics
Guidelines state, “There is no copyright on news or ideas once a story is in
the public domain, but if we can’t match the story, we credit the originating
source,” and “If we borrow material from another source we are careful to credit
the original source.” The Associated Press’ News Values and Principles reads, “When
the material is exclusive, controversial, or sensitive, we always credit.”
“The CBC sold the funeral body-switcheroo story in [Berwick] as their own,
despite the fact that Frank went big with it two weeks before their
story came out,” says Andrew Douglas, editor of Halifax’s Frank
Magazine, referring to a story from this past January about a
Nova Scotia funeral home mistakenly cremating the wrong body. He also provided
CANADALAND with a letter of complaint to the CBC ombudsman that was sent on
January 22 and has gone unanswered.
Back in 2016, the Globe’s Fife reported a scoop that former Prime
Minister Stephen Harper was imminently retiring from federal politics. CBC did
its own follow-up report hours later, not crediting Fife.
"Hey, it's the CBC calling to confirm what Fife reported
hours ago? It's true?"
CBC received enough backlash for omitting credit to Fife that then-freelance
journalist Dylan Robertson wrote a piece for J-Source in which he surveyed Canada’s English-language newsrooms
on their approaches. The results showed that “many media outlets across
Canada lack a clear policy on when to credit a competitor’s scoop.” Two of the
exceptions were BuzzFeed Canada and Vice Canada.
Not true! We always credit for original reporting, especially
Mothercorp. Lots of other reporters do it.
Several journalists contacted for this story were reluctant to go on the
record criticizing the CBC, and the BBC declined to share its own policy with
CANADALAND for comparison purposes.
“Rather than revisit the details, may I just say I’ve noted many occasions
when large media and small have neglected to credit The Tyee for stories we’ve
broken,” says its founding editor, David Beers. “The journalism community as a
whole, including The Tyee, would gain in the long run by naming each others’
contributions more rigorously, as this would educate audiences to how the news
media ecology really functions, and the little fish can’t replace the big ones
but do play important roles.”
“I think all news organizations — and many individual journalists — are prone
to pettiness when it comes to acknowledging the originator of an important
story, or even just a good one,” says Carleton journalism professor and former
Ottawa Citizen reporter Randy Boswell. “It is easy to be slippery and
to not credit a competitor’s scoop by seizing upon some incremental advance on
the original news break and casting that next story as your own ‘exclusive’
discovery — and thus ignoring the initial work of the journalists who made your
secondary achievement possible.”
“All serious news organizations — i.e., the ones most likely to break
stories, whether a legacy operation or a digital native — should at least
initially credit the good work of their professional peers as a show of
solidarity that will be (or at least should be) reciprocated when the next big
scoop comes along,” he says. “It’s one small way for the keepers of the flame of
high-level journalism — almost all of which are facing survival challenges — to
collectively acknowledge and mutually support those reporters and newsrooms that
continue to commit resources to the serious investigating, watchdogging, and
storytelling that yield exclusive news in the first place.”
CBC’s Thompson declined to explain why the public broadcaster, which receives
annual federal subsidies of approximately $1.2 billion, would feel a need to go
out of its way to not credit others’ work.
In the past, private news outlets have voiced concerns about the CBC’s
dominance and aggressiveness in competing against them. In a late 2016 meeting
of the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage looking at the
future of news media in Canada, iPolitics owner and publisher James Baxter called the CBC “an
uber-predator” because of its “massive expansion into digital-only news in
markets where there is already brisk competition” and called it “the
single-biggest obstacle to there being a vibrant and innovative marketplace of
ideas in the media space [in Canada].”
A week and a half after The Weekly’s report on the Three Percenters,
CBC Radio’s Day 6invited Lamoureux on to discuss the group.
CBC News also published a follow-up story on the far-right militia
that gave Vice and Lamoureux credit: “Mack Lamoureux of the news site Vice first reported last spring that the Three
Percenters had established a chapter in Alberta. Nearly a year later, CBC’s
The Weekly has uncovered details about the group’s growing membership,
including a newly established chapter in Ontario and members spanning every
province.”
This is very inside baseball, but also extremely irritating.
Our national broadcaster—for all its merits—is a leech, loath to give credit
when it’s been beaten.
Graeme Gordon has written several op-eds for the CBC in the past but has
also been an open critic of Canada’s public broadcaster. If you’re a journalist
who’d like to share an experience of the CBC failing to give credit, feel free
to get in touch at graemecgordon@protonmail.com. Top image: Vice’s Mack Lamoureux and the CBC’s Wendy Mesley. Correction (May 23, 2018, 1:47 p.m. EDT): A quote
originally misidentified the location of the Nova Scotia cremation error as
Bridgewater. The incident, in fact, took place in
Berwick.
#202 Jody Wilson-Raybould Ain’t Nuthin To Fuck
With
The former Minister of Justice testified before the
House of Commons justice committee this week and it was like nothing we've seen
in recent memory. And what did Howie Mandel do to make so many Canadian
comedians so upset?
You might think that yesterday’s surprise exit of Gerald Butts would
have Canadian journalists tripping over each other to investigate the
many questions raised by the resignation of the PM’s closest advisor,
such as:
• If he’s done nothing wrong, why resign?
• Is this a strategic move to put space between himself and Justin
Trudeau for the next round of this scandal, when Butts could face direct
and specific allegations from Jody Wilson-Raybould?
• What the hell happened, anyhow?
But while some reporters are asking these questions, many
members of Canada’s pundit class seem to be tripping over themselves in
the opposite direction — racing to heap praise on the bedraggled ex-consigliere, whose actions around the Lavalin file remain shrouded in secrecy.
Former National Post / Maclean’s editor turned vanity-press dilettante Ken Whyte says Butts is a great guy and predicts he’ll come out of this all just fine, thanks!
Be afraid: The brains behind Ontario's energy disaster are now advising PM
Phasing out coal, a feverish pursuit of green energy, new tax regimes — where have we heard all this before?
Graeme Gordon · for CBC News ·
Ontario's green energy gambit is migrating to Ottawa. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)
It is uncontroversial to call
Ontario's energy situation a disaster. As Premier Kathleen Wynne has
herself conceded: Ontarians are now having to "choose between paying the
electricity bill and buying food or paying rent."
Wynne's
polling numbers suggest that most Ontarians know where to square the
blame, with a pitiful 15 per cent approval rating and 58 per cent of the
electorate believing she should resign.
However,
Wynne alone shouldn't bear the burden for the fact that hydro bills for
the average consumer have skyrocketed over recent years; it was former
premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal team from 2003 to 2012 —
including his former principal secretary and "policy guru"
Gerald Butts — who set Ontario on this financially bleak, dead-end
road. And now, Butts is headed on the same path, leading not the
premier, but the prime minister, on the way down.
'The brains behind the operation'
Butts was, according to the Toronto Star,
"the man they call 'the brains behind the operation'" and the "policy
architect of the Liberal government since 2003." Butts departed from
McGuinty's government in 2008, but not before he and the Ontario Liberal
team set the stage for the ill-fated Green Energy Act, in part, by
signing onto dubious wind power projects and its cripplingly inefficient
Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP).
For
those thinking Butts cannot be held responsible for the Ontario hydro
plights of today and tomorrow, many past articles give — and Butts
himself takes — credit for initially enacting and seeing through those
energy policies. As the Toronto Star reported
in 2012: "On his biography page at the WWF website, Butts cites how he
was 'intimately' involved with the McGuinty government's environmental
initiatives." Another Canadian Press article made it clear that
Ontario's energy policy was Butts' design: "McGuinty's plan, which
called for replacing coal with a combination of conservation, renewable
energy, natural gas and nuclear power, came from his senior adviser,
Gerald Butts."
Butts has himself taken credit for McGuinty's energy plan. (Canadian Press)
Butts
has graduated to the halls of Parliament Hill as Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's own principal secretary, leaving behind a province still
paying the price, literally, for his tenure. His promise to eliminate
coal, for example — a worthy gambit, if done fiscally responsibly— cost
Ontario consumers an extra $37 billion between 2006 and 2014, according
to an auditor general, and is expected to cost another $133 billion from
2015 to 2032.
Now he's doubling down, via
the prime minister, on his green energy gambit by promising to enact
carbon pricing regimes (read: tax) on all provinces by 2018 and phasing
out coal by 2030, even as our neighbour and biggest competitor moves in
the opposite direction. How team Trudeau sees a carbon-priced Canada competing against the U.S. on an off-kilter playing field confounds most people's common sense.
The
incoherence of the federal government's energy plans is further
evidenced by its approvals of the Pacific Northwest liquefied natural
gas project — with a cap of 4.3 million tonnes of emissions per year —
as well as Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline and Enbridge's Line
3, combining to pump out about a million more barrels
of cheap oil a day into the world market. Although the approval of
these projects is great news for Alberta's anaemic economy in particular
(especially if they all actually come to fruition), they also create a
conundrum: how can the government at once pledge to reduce Canada's
greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously increasing them through
new pipeline infrastructure? Does it not undermine the government's
lofty goal of helping reduce overall emissions on the planet?
Running deficits
The
federal Liberals, under the stewardship of Butts, has already run a
projected $30 billion deficit in its first year in office. Phasing out
all coal by 2030 will have a cost that will add to that deficit. (This
sounds awfully familiar, no?) Forcing carbon taxes
on all Canadians by 2018 will, in theory, be a revenue generator for
Canada, yet it also promises to eat up more of Canadians' paycheques,
and potentially trigger businesses to flee to greener (and cheaper)
pastures down south — a phenomenon that is of real and pressing concern for Ontario's government.
The
architects of Ontario's energy fiasco are now stationed in the PMO. The
whole country should be wary of the financial disaster of that province
being replicated nationwide.
This column is an opinion. For more information about our commentary section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.
About the Author
Graeme Gordon
Graeme Gordon is a freelance journalist writing for Loonie Politics and his blog, Raving Canuck.
A new wave of alternative political media
operations has been growing in Canada over the last few years, and these
sites and groups will be looking to sway voters in the lead-up to the
federal election this fall.
One of the first prototypes for success was Rebel Media, a wildly
popular far-right outlet and hyper-partisan political advocacy group
that rose from the ashes of Sun News Network’s early-2015 implosion.
Despite highly publicized setbacks, The Rebel still boasts over a million monthly visitors to its website, according to SimilarWeb estimates, and racks up several million views on its YouTube videos each month.
But several other Canadian political media startups — although not
nearly as incendiary or as big as The Rebel — have also grown popular
online in very short order, largely flying under the radar of the
mainstream media’s attention. Although we have covered a couple of these
organizations in the past, we believe a one-stop guide would be a
helpful resource for Canadians looking for background information on our
country’s rapidly evolving political media ecosystem.
Below are six profiles of relatively new startups that continue to
grow more influential by the day in shaping political discourse in
Canada.
Jump to:
• The Nectarine
• North99
• Ontario Proud
• The Post Millennial
• PressProgress
• SpencerFernando.com
The Nectarine
What it is: Launched in the summer of 2018, The Nectarine
is a conservative news website with politics, business, sports, and
entertainment sections, mixing original reporting and Canadian Press
wire copy. It also offers a daily newsletter, and much of its content is
shared and cross-promoted by Ontario Proud on its Facebook page. In its
first several months, The Nectarine has published the odd exclusive,
such as reporting on the councillors of Alberta’s Bigstone Cree Nation quietly granting themselves $60,000 bonuses. Where it’s physically based: Montreal Who’s behind it: The Nectarine shares three of its founders with The Post Millennial (another site on this list): Matthew Azrieli, a property manager of commercial real estate; Ali Taghva, a former president of the NDP’s Richmond Hill riding association; and SEO consultant Madison Hofmeester. The fourth co-founder is Jeff Ballingall of Ontario Proud. Who funds it: According to its website,
The Nectarine funds itself through ads, Patreon support, hosting
events, and “an agency side” of the business that involves handling web
development and ad campaigns for clients. However, its Patreon page
doesn’t show any patrons, and it’s unclear who provided the seed
investment for the news outlet. In an interview, Taghva explains that
The Nectarine shares back-end resources with The Post Millennial. How far it reaches: The Nectarine has over 10,500
likes on Facebook and 1,600 followers on Twitter. SimilarWeb estimates
that The Nectarine’s traffic fluctuates between 100,000 to 300,000
monthly visits, with 68 per cent coming from social media (93 per cent
from Facebook, and another 7 per cent split between Twitter and Reddit). What’s next for it: In addition to The Nectarine and
The Post Millennial, Taghva says he, Azrieli, and Hofmeester are
“preparing to set up a satire website” that he describes as “like The
Beaverton but centre-right.”
North99
What it is:North99
appears to be a centre-left-progressive mirror-image response to
Ontario Proud. A non-profit incorporated in August 2017, North99 creates
shitposting memes mocking Ontario Premier Doug Ford, federal
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, and other Conservative leaders, while
contrasting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a competent and honourable
world leader compared to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Similar to PressProgress (also on this list),
they publish myriad critical articles about Conservative politicians
and other right-wing figures. Some of the subjects they’ve covered have
included the connections between the Koch brothers and Canadian Conservative politics, the relationship between the Manning Centre and a company that worked with Germany’s far-right AfD party, and The Rebel’s connections to Quebec City mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette.
They also try to pressure governments to adopt progressive policies, such as creating petitions to shut down offshore tax havens and ban handguns, which also allows them to compile an email list of supporters like Ontario Proud. They’ve run campaigns to get Shopify to ban “hate groups from their platform, including the violent right-wing Proud Boys” and to discourage Rogers from broadcasting Faith Goldy’s ads in Toronto’s mayoral election.
North99 registered as a third-party advertiser in last year’s Ontario
provincial election and ran a “Stop Ford” campaign advocating strategic
voting to keep Ford’s PCs from winning. Where it’s physically based: Toronto Who’s behind it: The organization has four listed directors: former Trudeau and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne campaign staffer, and co-founder of a “cannabis business accelerator” company,
Taylor Scollon; former consultant for prominent public strategies and
communications firm Navigator and digital manager for Wynne Geoff Sharpe; freelance writer and web designer (developing pages for the federal Liberals back in 2015) Tara Mahoney; and doctor Safi Sayeed.
Scollon says he and Sharpe run the day-to-day activities of North99,
while also doing freelance digital marketing and web development for
independent clients on the side. (Scollon has been CANADALAND’s web
developer since early 2016.)
Scollon and Sharpe both host their own podcasts for their progressive media outlet The Cable,
whose content is cross-promoted by North99’s Facebook page. While
positions held by North99 and The Cable often align with federal Liberal
policies on issues like carbon pricing and firearms, Scollon writes in
an email that they “advocate for progressive policies and ideas, not
political parties or politicians.” Who funds it: “We are funded 100% by individual
grassroots donors, with an average donation of $16,” writes Scollon.
“Our largest donation was $500.” As of late last year, there were just
under 300 donors contributing $5 or more monthly to North99.
The website’s About page
also states that they don’t “receive any funding from large
organizations, corporations, or foreign donors.” But North99’s website
discloses a partnership with advocacy group Wellington Water Watchers and provides a contact (priority@north99.org) for “other organizations [who] help promote progressive issues” to inquire about partnering.
“Over the spring we partnered with Wellington Water Watchers on a
volunteer basis to advocate for protection of Ontario’s freshwater from
private corporations like Nestle, who extract public water and sell it
off for a profit,” says Scollon. “It involved supporters sending letters
to the Ontario Liberal government calling on them to ban the sale of
public water by private corporations.” How far it reaches: According to SimilarWeb data,
North99 receives an estimated 102,000 monthly visits, of which two
thirds come from social media: 71 per cent from Facebook, 21 per cent
from Reddit, and 8 per cent from Twitter. Its Facebook page has over
78,000 likes, and Scollon says they have 60,000 email supporters. What’s next for it: To inform a coming campaign
focused on the 2019 election, North99 recently surveyed its community
members to determine their top issues. Scollon says the organization
aims “to push all parties and candidates to embrace a range of
progressive policies. We will be calling attention to those candidates
who refuse to do so.”
Ontario Proud
What it is: The third-party political advertiser has continued to steadily grow its influence in Ontario and across the country since we first profiled the group toward the end of 2017. Ontario Proud’s
content used to mainly consist of shitposting memes and videos
primarily targeting former Liberal Premier Wynne (and then Ontario NDP
leader Andrea Horwath, when she started polling well during the last
provincial election). Since the Wynne government was ousted from power
in June, OP has focused its crosshairs squarely on the PM. Ontario Proud
also shares negative news stories on the Trudeau government, and is now
promoting The Nectarine (further up this list), with which it shares a co-founder, Jeff Ballingall. Where it’s physically based: Toronto Who’s behind it: Ballingall previously worked for
the Harper government, the Sun News Network, and Navigator. Ontario
Proud’s other co-founders include personal-injury lawyer Ryan O’Connor and Chris Spoke, another Sun News alum. Who funds it: Despite its self-portrayal as a
“grassroots” group, the overwhelming majority of OP’s political
advertising in the run-up to Ontario’s June 2018 election was funded by companies connected to the development industry,
according to mandatory filings with Elections Ontario. However, the
sources of funds spent on non-advertising-related activities — like phone and text message polling,
staff salaries, and door-to-door campaigning — do not need to be
disclosed, nor were there any legal limits placed on the funding of
these activities. Last fall, PressProgress (also on this list) reported on a confidential Ontario Proud fundraising pitch to special interest groups, asking for upwards of $700,000 in contributions. How far it reaches: Unlike most other populist
political media on this list, Ontario Proud primarily focuses on pushing
content on Facebook and building its page’s following, instead of
driving traffic to its website. Ontario Proud’s Facebook page has over 425,000 likes, up almost 50 per cent over the last 14 months, and an October video
about Tori Stafford’s murderer being moved to a healing lodge is shown
by Facebook as having over one million views. By asking its audience to
sign petitions and take a pledge to vote out Wynne last year, Ontario
Proud has also built up a large email and postal code database, which
Ballingall says is now up to more than 150,000 supporters.
Through the month of December, the third-party advertiser, on behalf of an undisclosed client(s), launched a #StopSaudiOil
advertising blitz, which according to Ballingall included a $21,000 ad
buy with the TTC that covered a streetcar inside and out for a month, as
well as $69,000 on digital and radio advertising. What’s next for it: When Ballingall is asked what Ontario Proud has planned for this year’s federal election, he gives a one-word reply: “Lots.”
The Post Millennial
What it is:The Post Millennial
(TPM) was created in August of 2017 as an alternative Canadian news
outlet with a right-of-centre editorial leaning. Editor-in-chief Ali
Taghva, who also edits The Nectarine, says there are around 30 employees (and dozens of contributors) between the two sites, with almost two dozen on staff at TPM.
TPM includes articles that match (re-report) other outlets’ stories,
with some writers posting several items a day. TPM also publishes many
opinion pieces from columnists like Barbara Kay, Diana Davison, Lindsay Shepherd, and John Carpay.
“When we started TPM and the Nectarine, I would write seven to 10
articles a day. A single person can do a lot of work, especially when
you’re doing op-eds,” says Taghva.
The big difference between TPM and The Nectarine, he says, is that the former publishes far less aggregated content. Where it’s physically based: Montreal Who’s behind it: TPM’s co-founders are Taghva, Matthew Azrieli, and Madison Hofmeester, all of whom are also co-founders of The Nectarine.
Taghva says that while TPM “doesn’t completely align with any party,”
they “generally oppose big government and try to have the most freedom
possible in a diverse society.” Who funds it: Taghva says TPM’s funding is split
between “advertisers, consulting clients, and investor cash,” with
himself and Azrieli having provided the initial seed investment. (Canadian Businessranks Azrieli’s family at #13 on its list of the richest people in the country; he tells CANADALAND that no one else in his family is involved in TPM in any way.) How far it reaches: TPM currently has over 14,000
likes on Facebook, and its posts receive hundreds or thousands of
interactions. Taghva says his most popular piece, “Middle class families about to lose tax rebates,”
received over 24,000 shares on social media and a quarter million hits.
According to SimilarWeb estimates, The Post Millennial often gets more
than 200,000 monthly visits, with more than half of its social media
referrals coming from Facebook, another 45 per cent from Twitter, and
most of the rest from Reddit. What’s next for it: TPM is currently making a major
shift to focus on video content, investing in a six-figure studio from
which they intend to launch a channel that will be available on
streaming devices. “We’re getting prepared to have a fairly large video
foothold” in time for this year’s federal election, Taghva says. He also
hopes to conduct polling and publish “a few breaking news stories in
the works for the election cycle.”
PressProgress
What it is: Launched in 2013, PressProgress bills
itself as “Canada’s most shared source for progressive news and
information” and regularly reports critical stories about Conservative
politicians, big business, and right-wing media organizations. Many of
their reports involve access-to-information requests, fact-checking, and
seeking comment from politicians.
In a 2017 interview with CANADALAND, PressProgress’ Luke Savage (who recently left to join Jacobin) called their work “advocacy journalism.”
PressProgress has broken exclusives like the Harper government ignoring its own internal research
showing a connection between mental illness and terrorism, and was
widely credited by mainstream media for being the first to report on The
Rebel’s odd retirement savings “Freedom Fund.” But as a news organization, it’s conspicuously absent of any critical coverage of the NDP.
Whatever PressProgress is, it punches well above its weight —
although expanding with new reporters in BC and Alberta, it has until
recently gotten by with a staff of just two. Where it’s physically based: Ottawa Who’s behind it: PressProgress is the brainchild of former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent’s non-profit think tank, the Broadbent Institute.
On that same 2017 CANADALAND episode, PressProgress editor Luke
LeBrun told Jesse Brown that there were no formal links between the
federal NDP and the think tank. But Brown pushed back, reading part of
an email from a listener who pointed out overlap between the NDP and the
institute, and observed that PressProgress’ “news stories often run
parallel with NDP talking points and never criticize the NDP for
non-progressive choices like supporting a west-to-east pipeline.”
As a news organization, PressProgress doesn’t register as a
third-party advertiser during elections. LeBrun has been accredited by
the Parliamentary Press Gallery to cover special events. Who funds it: The Broadbent Institute and, by
extension, PressProgress are funded by NDP supporters and unions.
PressProgress also independently solicits donations from readers and
supporters, including a monthly donor program. The Broadbent Institute’s
annual summits have also received sponsorships from major Canadian corporations such as Loblaw, Rogers, CN, Air Canada, WestJet, and Telus. How far it reaches: “Based on data from a
media-monitoring service we subscribe to, our stories regularly compete
with bigger publishers like CBC News or the Toronto Star and
quite often rank in the top 10 of all Canadian news content on a
week-to-week basis,” LeBrun says in an email. “In July, we put out a
piece spelling out the implications of Doug Ford’s sex-ed repeal that
stood as the most shared piece of news content in Canada for about three
months this summer.”
PressProgress’ scoops have led to the organization’s Facebook page
growing to more than 126,000 likes, and many of its posts get hundreds
to thousands of shares.
“Over the last five years, our original reporting has been cited by
every major media outlet in Canada as well as major US outlets like The Washington Post, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, and Teen Vogue,”
says LeBrun. “During one of the 2015 federal leaders’ debates, two
original PressProgress stories were cited by two different party leaders
— including one who would go on to become Prime Minister of Canada.”
SimilarWeb estimates that PressProgress gets an average of 140,000 to
220,000 visits per month, with around two thirds of social-media
referrals coming from Facebook, 20 per cent from Twitter, and 11 per
cent from Reddit. Much of PressProgress’ search traffic comes from
searches for Canadian conservative figures. What’s next for it: “Over the next few years, we
hope to expand our capacity by hiring more reporters who can focus on
additional regional and issue-based beats,” says LeBrun.
SpencerFernando.com
What it is:Spencer Fernando — who describes himself in his Twitter bio
as “Canada’s best & most modest writer” — is the only individual
included on this list, because of the noteworthy popularity of his
articles among Canadian conservatives online, with many pieces racking
up thousands of shares on Facebook and hundreds of retweets on Twitter.
Fernando is a prolific writer focusing on Canadian federal politics
and general news, writing several stories daily for his eponymous
website. His prime target is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with many of
his tabloid-style headlines aggressively attacking the PM, such as:
“DISGRACEFUL: Justin Trudeau Had Time For Joshua Boyle, But Not Tori
Stafford’s Father”; “ARROGANCE: Justin Trudeau REFUSES To Answer
Question On Why Criminal Who Never Served In Military Is Getting
Treatment Covered By Veterans Affairs”; and “DIVIDING CANADIANS: Justin
Trudeau Called Conservatives ‘Disgusting’ For Asking Questions About
Government Ethics.”
In contrast, headlines about federal Conservative leader Andrew
Scheer and People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier read much more
favourably: “Andrew Scheer Promises Conservative Government Would
Recognize Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital”; “VIDEO: Andrew Scheer Rips
Trudeau For Violating Ethics Rules”; and “VIDEO: Maxime Bernier Says ‘I
Think We Have Too Many Refugees,’ And Must Focus More On Canada’s
Needs.” Where it’s physically based: Winnipeg Who’s behind it: Despite his right-leaning editorial
slant, it doesn’t appear Fernando is currently tied to any political
party. He previously worked for former Manitoba federal Conservative MP
Rod Bruinooge and then for the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives. He
was fired from his staffer job with the PCs in 2014 after writing a blog post on his website
that called for the federal Conservatives to consider supporting an
inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, something the Harper
government opposed at the time. He then went on to work as the chief of
staff for the Manitoba Liberal Party leader, before resigning in early 2016. Shortly after leaving the latter job, he began writing prolifically and grew his online audience. Who funds it: Fernando’s funding appears to come from ads (there are several per page) and Patreon crowdfunding (he currently has 31 patrons). How far it reaches: According to SimilarWeb,
Fernando’s website ranks 9,807th in Canada with an estimated average of
over 300,000 monthly views. More than half of his overall traffic comes
from social media, which consists of almost 70 per cent from Facebook,
25 per cent from Twitter, and a smaller portion from Reddit. Fernando
also has 20,500 followers on Twitter and over 12,000 likes on Facebook.
Fernando did not respond to interview requests.
“Listen up y’all. Let’s get one thing clear,”
raps the large man dressed as Ontario’s premier, in a tightly-fitted red
dress, pearls, glasses, and grey curly wig. “I’m Kathleen Chin, I run
the racket here.”
Published Wednesday, the musical attack video — with the
designed-to-go-viral refrain “Where’d my money go? It went to Hydro!” —
was just the latest elevation of anti-Liberal shitposting from Ontario Proud,
a registered non-profit whose primary activity is cranking out
low-quality, highly shareable anti-Wynne memes on Facebook. The video
also shows the Kathleen Wynne character stealing a wallet from, tying
up, and gagging a “Joe Schmoe,” as well as basking in bundles of cash,
smoking cigars, and drinking champagne alongside another actor
portraying the Hydro One CEO as a villainous crook.
An official third-party advertiser in the upcoming provincial
election, Ontario Proud knows how to weaponize social media platforms in
the same way that has proven effective for the successful populist
movements of Brexit and Trump. Its Facebook page
now boasts over 289,000 likes, which — if the vast majority are indeed
Ontarians, as founder Jeff Ballingall asserts — would translate to one
in every 47 Ontario residents following the page. That’s more likes than
the respective pages of Premier Wynne, the Ontario Liberal Party,
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, the Ontario PC Party, NDP
leader Andrea Horwath, and the Ontario NDP — combined. The Ontario
Proud page also gets more Facebook engagement than the the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail pages together, something Ballingall is fond of gloating about.
Ballingall explains that he’s trying to reach people who are only “moderately interested” in politics.
“How do I reach the woman who works at the Honda dealership in
Oshawa? You reach her through Facebook, not through Twitter,” he says in
a sit-down interview.
The rapid growth of Ontario Proud
Thirty-two-year-old Ballingall has gained a lot of experience in the
art of political messaging and communications over the past decade. Up
until the middle of last year, he worked as a consultant for Navigator,
the public strategies and communications firm known for
behind-the-scenes crisis management work for high-profile clients
including Michael Bryant and Jian Ghomeshi (the latter of whom they
ultimately dropped). Before that, he worked as a political aide for the
Harper government and Toronto city councillor John Parker, and for the
now-defunct Sun News Network.
It was at Sun News that Ballingall says he learned about Facebook’s
“power to reach the general public.” Ballingall ran the digital side of
Sun News up until December of 2013, boasting that he “tripled their web
traffic.” Canadian comedian and commentator Dan Speerin would later criticize
Sun News’ Facebook likes as mostly fake clicks bought from India, but
Ballingall says “there was huge confusion with Sun News in India, so I
know that was a challenge after I left.” India has its own Sun News
brand, which apparently led many Indians to mistakenly like the Canadian
Sun News page. “I built it up, and then they ran with it when I left.”
(Ballingall says Facebook has completely changed since then and “you have to constantly adapt to beat its algorithm.”)
Despite his conservative bona fides, Ballingall claims that Ontario
Proud “is nonpartisan and is promoting strategic voting.” He says he’ll
vote for the NDP candidate in his own riding, because the NDP has the
best chance of beating the Liberals there.
Ballingall says he created Ontario Proud back in February 2016 “just
for fun,” after he saw a close friend had success with an Alberta Proud
Facebook page. He says his page organically earned 100,000 likes in the
first year. Then from April until November of this year, he says the
organization spent close to $200,000 in advertising — primarily on
Facebook — to promote further growth. He estimates that it now takes up
60 per cent of his time, the rest spent managing BC Proud and doing social media consulting.
Ballingall bought the rights to the rap video from a group of comedians calling themselves The Wack MC’s,
based out of London, Ontario, who produced it and then sought out
Ontario Proud in the hope of selling it to them. It was viewed 99,000
times and reached 218,000 people in the first 30 hours it had been up,
but some of Ontario Proud’s previous posts have performed much stronger,
with hundreds of thousands, over a million, or, in a few cases, several
million views on the social media juggernaut. Beyond attacking Wynne,
Ontario Proud also routinely goes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
interspersing the attacks with the odd upbeat video appealing to
Canadian national pride.
CANADALAND reached out to BuzzFeed News media editor Craig Silverman —
who’s been at the forefront of covering the spread of fake and
hyper-partisan news and disinformation on Facebook since the tail end of
the US election — to analyze Ontario Proud’s rapid rise over the last
year and a half.
“It is possible and very easy to buy fake fans for a page, or fake
members for a group. But if you do that, then you will not see
engagement on your page that matches your number of fans. But [Ontario
Proud] does seem to be getting engagement, and it ebbs and flows as if
it’s real,” he says in an email, upon examining the page via CrowdTangle.
“It’s certainly possible that this page has grown thanks in part to
running ads on Facebook to attract new fans. These result in real likes
from real people, though fans who come via ads do tend to be less
engaged than ones you acquire organically. This is a common strategy,
and many page owners in fact will say that it’s increasingly hard to
grow a page from scratch without paying for ads.” Many successful Ontario Proud posts use a similar formula.
A new form of third-party political campaigning in Canada
Back on Monday of this week, Ballingall showed up at Wynne’s public
town hall meeting at Toronto’s Concert Hall and sat in the front row.
When questions were opened up to the floor, Ballingall made sure he got
to spar with Wynne over how Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt got nearly $4.5 million in compensation last year.
Accompanying Ballingall was another Ontario Proud employee, filming
footage of several disgruntled Ontarians questioning Wynne to be used
for their page, and the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers
Federation, Christine Van Geyn, who has been featured on camera in over a
dozen Ontario Proud videos.
“I’m just friends with Christine Van Geyn. We have like-minded
interests and mutual friends. But no, [the Canadian Taxpayers
Federation] is not involved [with Ontario Proud] whatsoever,” says
Ballingall.
It wasn’t the first time Ontario Proud has gone outside of Facebook
to aggressively attack the premier. Earlier this year, they showed up at
other public events Wynne attended and also paid for an airplane to fly over downtown Toronto during a marathon with a banner reading “ANYONEBUTWYNNE.COM.”
Ontario’s Liberal government put new restrictions on third-party advertising
late last year in a bill reforming campaign finance laws. Unions took
full advantage of the old rules, which allowed unlimited spending, and
were responsible for 94 per cent of all third-party advertising in the last three elections, including the lion’s share of the almost $9 million
spent in the 2014 election, largely aimed at the PCs. Under the new
rules, however, third-party campaign groups can spend only $100,000 on
advertising during an election period and a maximum of $600,000 on
advertising in the six months beforehand.
Ballingall registered Ontario Proud as a third-party advertiser
on the opening day of registration, November 9, ahead of the Ontario
election coming on or before June 7, 2018. The name on the registration
belongs to personal-injury lawyer Ryan O’Connor, who sits on the organization’s board alongside Ballingall and Chris Spoke, another Sun News alum, who works in tech.
Pressed on who funds Ontario Proud, Ballingall says, “No massive
donors. It’s not like one group or another. Small businesses, a lot of
people giving $100 or $200, $300, that kind of thing.”
Despite the tightening of the rules, third-party advertisers aren’t
required to disclose donor contributions until after an election is
over. The new campaign finance rules also don’t cap third-party spending
on staff, polling, and door-to-door campaigning.
Ballingall says they intend to spend the maximum advertising amounts if they can raise that much.
Similar to Rebel Media, Ontario Proud has amassed a large email and
postal code database of 88,000 supporters by asking viewers of their
video content to sign petitions and take a pledge to vote out Wynne next
year. The petitions and pledge require an individual to provide their
email address and postal code. Also like The Rebel, Ontario Proud uses
the popular campaign software NationBuilder to compile this information.
Ballingall also brags that the most recent videos on the Ontario
Proud page are getting tens of thousands or over a hundred thousand
views without any advertising spending.
“Facebook is incredibly important for getting around the media
filter, to get around the political filter and speak to voters directly —
and it’s so cheap to do so.”
The difficult act of gently stoking the anger of Ontarians
Back in June, Wynne’s office told CBC Toronto, “We’re not going to comment on a website that supports profane, hateful, and abusive comments.”
The spokesperson was referring to comments on Ontario Proud’s
Facebook page at the time, documented by CBC’s Mike Crawley, which
included: “That ugly nasty greedy no good money grubbing snot faced
witch”; “The ugliest human dyke who ever existed”; and “I’m surprised
that no one has shot her but maybe the bullets cost to much.”
Ballingall says that they’ve since curbed the use of slurs and derogatory comments by implementing a community guidelines policy,
which “encourages respectful discussion. Personal attacks, racism,
misogyny, homophobia, other forms of discrimination and harassment will
be deleted without warning.” Ontario Proud also now filters out comments
that contain any of the words on a list of over 900 banned terms.
In spite of this, Ballingall admits that obscene and inappropriate
comments do get through the filter and that his team can’t monitor
thousands of comments every day. “Scum” is on the list of banned words, but “scumbag,” which appeared in this early Ontario Proud meme, is not.
“I’m not responsible for what other people say, I’m responsible for
what Ontario Proud says. People say mean things on the internet,
unfortunately.”
Wynne spokeswoman Jennifer Beaudry declined to comment on the “It
Went to Hydro” rap video but referred CANADALAND to comments the premier
made “about similar content in the past.”
“It’s not that I am worried about myself or being thin-skinned,” she
told reporters in January about the river of hateful comments she gets
on Twitter and Facebook, “but I do believe that the kinds of things
we’re seeing on social media, as I say, undermine community, undermine
civil debate, and you know, even more worrisome than that is that I
think it discourages people from even entering politics.”
Ballingall describes his focus on attacking Wynne almost as a vendetta over how he believes the premier has hurt the province.
“Honestly, what is going on in Ontario is insane. I don’t like to see
[that] in 2015, 59,000 families had their hydro disconnected… I grew up
in Sarnia, and the last stat I saw they lost 20 per cent of their jobs
in the last decade,” says Ballingall. “My wife’s family is paying
egregious hydro bills. It’s personal to me.”
Premier Wynne intends to have more town hall events across Ontario,
and Ontario Proud intends to encourage its supporters to attend. Whether
or not all of their supporters will keep to civil discourse in
non-virtual reality remains to be seen. Top photo of Jeff Ballingall with a cardboard cutout of Obama courtesy of Ballingall.
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward
conservative causes through story selection and/or political
affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts
to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes),
publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may
damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be
untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.
Factual Reporting: HIGH World Press Freedom Rank: Canada 22/180
History
Co-Founded in 2017 by Matthew Azrieli and Ali S. Taghva, The Post
Millennial is an alternative news and opinion website based in Montreal,
Canada. According to their about page
their mission is “To accurately and adequately report Canadian news
events as they unfold and progress, and to share this reporting with as
many Canadians and citizens of the World as possible.” Funded by / Ownership
The Post Millennial is owned and operated by the Après le Millénaire /
The Post Millennial Corporation. The website is funded through online
advertising and donation links. Analysis / Bias
In review, The Post Millennial covers Canadian news, Breaking News,
Politics and Opinions. When reporting news there is moderate use of
loaded words in headlines such as: 5 big Trudeau military failures. For
the most part news articles are sourced properly and factually based,
though there is a strong right leaning bias in story selection that
denigrates the left and in particular PM Justin Trudeau. The
opinion/editorial pages provide little balance and primarily support
Conservative and Libertarian positions.
A factual search reveals they have not failed a fact check.
Overall, we rate The Post Millennial Right Biased based on story
selection that favors the right and High for factual reporting due to
proper sourcing and a clean fact check record. (D. Van Zandt 9/19/2018)
Source: https://www.thepostmillennial.com
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected the official oppositions request to resign while an RCMP investigation occurs into the government’s alleged pressuring of the former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould.That
decision selfishly taken by the PM is a serious problem for our
democracy, our faith in our institutions, and our standing on the world
stage.
“The testimony Canadians have just heard from the former Attorney
General Jody Wilson-Raybould tells the story of a Prime Minister who has
lost the moral authority to govern. A Prime Minister who allows his
partisan political motivations to overrule his duty to uphold the rule
of law. A Prime Minister who doesn’t know where the Liberal Party ends
and where the Government of Canada begins. And a Prime Minister who has
allowed a systemic culture of corruption to take root in his office and
those of his most senior cabinet and public service colleagues.
Andrew Scheer
Scheer continues:
“Before Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, Canadians knew Justin Trudeau
had engineered an unwanted, sustained, and co-ordinated attempt to get
Ms. Wilson-Raybould to change her mind and stop the criminal trial of
SNC-Lavalin. Today, thanks to Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s testimony, we now
know just how intense those efforts were: ten meetings and ten phone
calls involving eleven senior government officials relentlessly
targeting Ms. Wilson-Raybould over a four month period – with the sole
objective of bullying her into bending the law to benefit a
well-connected corporation.
Andrew Scheer
The NDP leader has been more lukewarm, but he too has not minced words, noting that there were now “clear allegations of political interference & veiled threats by the PMO.”
Andrew Coyne perhaps broke down the sentiment felt by many best in his article for the National Post,
“for those in power to enable law-breaking by others is every bit as
much of an assault on the rule of law as if they had broken the laws
themselves
That is just the beginning.
The
idea that this pressure was done to protect the Liberal government’s
re-election in Quebec is nation-shattering. Of course, it now makes
sense why more Albertans want to separate than Quebecors, the PM appears to be willing to potentially break the law to keep 3000 jobs in Quebec(9000 nationally) but does nothing when B.C. stands in the way of pipeline development.
I
can’t help but imagine many in Canada are currently wondering to
themselves, if the Prime Minister represents the national interest, or
if instead, he has decided to become the Prime Minister of Quebec.
The
one province to have magically been provided with a reduced immigration rate, even as the Trudeau government campaigns on the competitive advantages of expanded immigration for every other region.
I
suppose that is ok as long as transfer payments cover the slowed down
Quebec economy, and the Trudeau government is re-elected.
The potential blow-back does not stop there. The allegations against
the Trudeau government directly place them in sight of China for having a
politicized judicial system, precisely when the nation faces serious
diplomatic strain in its relationship with the nation due to the
extradition of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.
While pundits, politicians, and news sites are an important part of the discussion, the most important are the Canadian people.
Their
engagement level and over-all reactions are the key to deciding what
really happens here given that the Trudeau government are in the
majority.
For the most part, only a caucus push forced by grass roots members will force a quick response.
How do Canadians feel about the SNC-Lavalin Affair?
While
there has been no legitimate and verified polling has been done on how
Canadians feel about a potential Trudeau resignation, there are a few
interesting points of data available.
Firstly, the overall support for the Liberal party has significantly dipped poll after poll during the SNC affair.
According to a recent Angus Poll. the Liberals have fallen to a low of 31% while the Conservatives have edged towards 38%.
That
kind of shift has not been seen(outside of outlier polls) since the
days before Mr. Trudeau’s nomination victory. Secondly, we can look at
online polls done on large non-partisan websites.
One of these is the following Yahoo News poll which
found out of 26,000 online voters 70% wanted the PM to resign. Yahoo
News is by no means a polling organization, but the views of their
readership could be relative to the country. Lastly, we can look at the
closest official polling which exists around the SNC-Lavalin topic.
According to a Forum Research poll,
a majority (57%) of individuals who have heard about the SNC-Lavalin
affair had a worsened outlook on the PM. Interestingly to 36% of voters
it had no affect.
It would not be strange to see these kinds
numbers considering that Conservatives and NDP members overwhelmingly
oppose the scandal, while most Liberals continue to blindingly support
their leader.
Now here is the good news for the Liberal party. If
the Prime Minister resigns it could still very well be possible for
another Liberal MP such as Jody Wilson-Raybould to win the 2019
election.
The 2015 Sunny Ways coalition may be bruised, but it is still the largest group of active voters within the country.
With
the right potentially split, and the NDP literally a hollow shell of
itself, a Liberal party led by someone other than the PM could very well
still win. But only if the Prime Minister does the right thing and
resigns providing enough time for a new leader to salvage this
government and fight in a free and fair election.
For that to happen though, the PM must make a hard but needed choice.
For
the good of his party, our institutions, and the nation’s global
standing the Prime Minister should resign. If not this, than at the very
minimum the PM must show that he still has the confidence of the
canadian electorate, and call for an early election.
Canadians should not be governed by those who have lost the confidence of the electorate.
What do you think? Could this scandal end the Trudeau government?
You
are correct in stating that JT should resign. But don't hold your
breath! As it appears now, JT may go down as the worst PM in Canada's
history to date.
Don JordanIf JT had any brains at all he would resighn. Like I said IF he had any brains.
Arshy
Mann is a staff writer for Canadian Lawyer and Law Times.
After receiving his journalism education at the Ubyssey student
newspaper, Arshy has worked at the Canadian University Press,
the Toronto Star and Canadian Business. He can be reached
at arshy.mann@thomsonreuters.com
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Correspondence with Ms. Tessa Vikander, Mr. Arshy Mann and Mr. Michael Mui
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 10:03:31 -0400
From: Stefan Jetchick
To: Tessa.vikander (go away spambots!) metronews.ca,
arshy.mann (go away spambots!) dailyxtra.com,
michael.mui (go away spambots!) metronews.ca
CC: Whatcott, Bill
Good day Ms. Tessa Vikander, Mr. Arshy Mann and Mr. Michael Mui,
You recently wrote articles about Bill Whatcott and the
"Gay Zombies" of the 2016 Toronto Parade:
Toronto police charge anti-LGBT activist for 2016 Pride zombie stunt
and
Anti-gay activist wanted for promotion of hatred will surrender in Calgary, lawyer says
I was one of the "zombies", and was even sued
for it before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice
(see correspondance with the lawyer leading the
lawsuit, Mr. Douglas Elliott, along with all court
documents available on that web page)
Shouldn't you be telling your readers that the Police
is not doing their job right? No arrest warrant has
been issued for me. What gives? Shouldn't the Left
Hand of the Police talk to the Right Hand of the Police?
Thank you and have a nice day!
Stefan Jetchick
[Usual contact info]
Just got a phone call a few minutes ago (it's 13h37,
Quebec City time) from Mr. Michael Mui. I was taking
a nap, so I was totally confused when I answered!
Offhand, he seems like a nice guy and competent
journalist. I'm not sure what I said, because I was
trying to wake up, and trying to understand who this
voice was. Apparently this whole story about the
arrest warrant for Bill reeks of political meddling.
I wish Mr. Mui would write up what he told me over
the phone. I'll probably e-mail him that request.
I also tried to mention the weird things happening
in Quebec City with "Islamophobia", so-called "hate
crimes", and my Love Tubes.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Minor update about Bill Whatcott arrest:
Stefan Jetchick tries to contact Toronto Police
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2018 08:20:55 -0400
From: Stefan Jetchick
To: Tessa.vikander metronews.ca, arshy.mann dailyxtra.com
Hello again Ms. Tessa Vikander and Mr. Arshy Mann,
Just to say I tried yesterday to contact the Toronto
Police Service:
Open Letter to All Canadians
(and the Toronto Police)
about Bill Whatcott's arrest
www.jesus-eucharistie.org/en/polit/artic/toronto_police.htm
Spoiler: this is the flyer I hand out at all "gay pride"
events I go to:
www.jesus-eucharistie.org/gay
(It's not the same as Bill's. Actually, mine was written
over eight years ago, because I disagreed with Bill's
flyers. The content is roughly the same, but it is
presented in a very "boring" way, according to Bill!)
Cheers,
SJJ
Stefan is a registered candidate for Louis-Hébert.
Louis Casgrain, Official Agent
1450, avenue des Grands-Pins
Québec, QC
G1S 4J6
About Stefan
Stefan Jetchick was born in 1964 in Pennsylvania,
USA, of an American father and a Canadian mother. He has lived most of
his life in Quebec City. He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy
from Laval University, and currently earns a living as a conference
interpreter.
[Bio Under construction]
Web site: www.chp-quebec.ca
Roelof is a registered candidate for Fort McMurray-Cold Lake.
You may also donate via cheque:
The Official Agent of Roelof Janssen
3317 Twp Road 624
County of Barrhead, AB
T0G 1R1
About Roelof
Roelof Janssen was born and raised in The
Netherlands by godly parents. At the age of nineteen, in 1980, he
immigrated to Canada and received his Canadian citizenship in 1985. He
is owner of a Christian publishing company, focussing on historical
novels and study materials. In 1992 he married Theresa Bootsma and they
have been blessed with ten children. His work has allowed him to travel
extensively throughout Canada and the USA and has brought him in contact
with a great variety of people. His desire has always been to love and
serve God with all his heart and to encourage others to do the same.
His priorities in politics are to be obedient to God in all things,
including the protection of human life in all stages, building a strong
economy with true free trade policies, clean and safe oil processing and
transpiration, just and compassionate support to the first nation
peoples in the recognition that the earth belongs to the Lord (Psalm
24:1), and transform depleted oilfields into green pastures and
fishponds so that we together can be faithful stewards of the earth.
Send your questions to him at:
Mike Brown is the director of public relations and communications for the Manitoba Liberal Party. (CBC)
"It speaks to a tension in the campaign organization that should not be there this close to an election," Koop said.
Spencer Fernando has resigned from his position as chief of staff of the Manitoba Liberal Party. (Courtesy Spencer Fernando)
Fernando previously
worked as a staffer for Rod Bruinooge, the federal Conservative MP for
the Winnipeg South riding from 2006 to 2015.
Butts has himself taken credit for McGuinty's energy plan. (Canadian Press)
Butts
has graduated to the halls of Parliament Hill as Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's own principal secretary, leaving behind a province still
paying the price, literally, for his tenure. His promise to eliminate
coal, for example — a worthy gambit, if done fiscally responsibly— cost
Ontario consumers an extra $37 billion between 2006 and 2014, according
to an auditor general, and is expected to cost another $133 billion from
2015 to 2032.
RIGHT BIAS
Don JordanIf JT had any brains at all he would resighn. Like I said IF he had any brains.
https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/author/arshy-mann/
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