In a reasonable world, the CBC makes for an odd enemy. You can argue about how it is run, sure: ask the opinion of just about any employee of the CBC, then sit back and crack a beer. You can have an adult conversation about the CBC鈥檚 value and impact as a catch-all competitor to media across Canada, and the parameters of its mission, and all that. Debating the CBC is a shared Canadian pastime, and we don鈥檛 have enough of those left.
But labelling the CBC as an enemy is something else entirely, no matter how much you miss Don Cherry. Labelling Canada鈥檚 public broadcaster as an enemy of Canadians is a different kettle of fish, indeed.
Which brings us, regrettably, to the leader of Canada鈥檚 Official Opposition. Last week Twitter owner Elon Musk slapped new labels on the BBC and NPR accounts, calling them 鈥済overnment media鈥; it was Musk鈥檚 own version of the labels the previous Twitter regime had applied to places such as Tass, the Russian-controlled news service, or China鈥檚 People鈥檚 Daily, or Iran鈥檚 IRNA News Agency, which are called 鈥渟tate-affiliated media.鈥
The problem should be clear. Tass, People鈥檚 Daily and IRNA are literal organs of the state, under full government control. The BBC and NPR 鈥 and the CBC 鈥 are independent entities that receive government funding, but have editorial independence. If you can鈥檛 see the difference, please consult an optometrist.
It鈥檚 predictable, though. Since buying Twitter, Musk has leaned heavily into easily disprovable right-wing conspiracy theories 鈥 for instance, he promulgated the repellent lie that the home invasion attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of prominent Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, was a gay tryst gone wrong. Equating the BBC and NPR to state propaganda was in keeping with Musk鈥檚 fart-cushion childishness of late, and his habits.
Pierre Poilievre has habits of his own, and an audience to court. .
鈥淲e must protect Canadians against disinformation and manipulation by state media,鈥 wrote Poilievre. 鈥淭hat is why I鈥檓 asking @Twitter @elonmusk to accurately label CBC as 鈥榞overnment-funded media.鈥 It is a fact. And Canadians deserve the facts.鈥
Let鈥檚 take this at face value for a second. Does anybody argue whether the CBC is government funded? Is that a state secret? It鈥檚 literally a public broadcaster. Anybody who doesn鈥檛 know the CBC receives money from the government is, in the words of Douglas Adams, thick as a whale omelette.
But it鈥檚 the attempt to conflate funding with control where this gets ugly, and Poilievre is clear about that when he writes, 鈥渨e must protect Canadians against disinformation and manipulation by state media.鈥 Look, I recognize that we as a nation have internalized the CPC鈥檚 hostility to the CBC as a given, from Danielle Smith going after their reporting to Poilievre promising to defund the Corporation. It鈥檚 just what they do.
But I鈥檓 sorry, no matter what you think of the CBC, that is bonkers. If the CBC and certain right-wing op-ed newspaper sections have one thing in common, it鈥檚 a desire to avoid the wrath of far-right howlers like The Rebel: internally, the CBC bends backwards to avoid the appearance of any bias whatsoever. You can argue that the CBC makes mistakes. You cannot credibly argue it is propaganda.
But in an era of anti-institutional anger, the war is escalating. CBC president Catherine Tait said to the Globe and Mail in February that 鈥淭here is a lot of CBC-bashing going on 鈥 somewhat stoked by the Leader of the Opposition. I think they feel the CBC is a mouthpiece for the Liberal government.鈥
That was both true and stupid: the president of a Crown corporation should stay above the fray, as maddening as it may be. It put their political reporters in an uncomfortable spot, and people have noted that over the past month the daily show 鈥淧ower & Politics,鈥 hosted by highly respected broadcaster David Cochrane, has been saying that Conservative MPs have declined to appear on all-party panels. The show has swapped in Bloc Qu茅becois MPs, instead; withholding MPs looks like strategy.
It all has a logic to it. Musk attacks media such as the New York Times and the BBC and NPR because his far-right coterie eggs him on, and because real media reports on real things he finds uncomfortable; he has therefore been openly hostile to mainstream media while enabling its far-right competitors, and .
NPR, which gets less than one per cent of its funding from government, said Wednesday it would no longer update its 52 different organizational accounts after Musk鈥檚 move, calling it an attack on NPR鈥檚 credibility. Musk agreed to change the BBC鈥檚 label to 鈥減ublicly funded media鈥 in an interview with the BBC.
So why did Poilievre waste time trying to jam the CBC 鈥 and not the many Canadian newspapers that receive government funding, not even Radio-Canada 鈥 onto a far-right pyre? Well, measured disinformation level by asking respondents to agree or disagree with five statements: Vaccine-related deaths are being concealed from the public; COVID-19 vaccines can cause infertility; COVID-19 vaccines can alter a patient鈥檚 DNA; inflation is much higher in Canada than in the United States; and climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
(The correct answers are, very clearly: , , , and .)
Voting intention, as measured by how people answered those questions, was stark. At no disinformation, voters go 39 per cent for the Liberals, 35 per cent for the NDP, 12 per cent for the Conservatives, and the rest go to the Greens or the Bloc. At a high level of disinformation, the numbers flip: 68 per cent for the CPC, 12 per cent for the People鈥檚 Party of Canada, seven per cent for the NDP, six per cent for the Liberals, and the rest go to the Greens and the Bloc.
And that鈥檚 the only real way that claiming the CBC is the enemy of Canadians makes sense: you have to be in a hall of mirrors where the mirrors are cracked, and you have to want to not just work the refs, but replace them. In a reasonable world, that wouldn鈥檛 fly. Alas.
