Jo-Ann Roberts campaigning for Green candidate Megan Mitton in 2018
Veteran journalist Jo-Ann Roberts says she’s upset by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s attempts to undermine the legitimacy of professional journalism both before and during the federal election campaign.
“It really breaks my heart, to be honest, because I think it is very much a campaign to discredit one of the elements of education,” Roberts said after signing copies of her new book Storm the Ballot Box earlier this month at Tidewater Books in Sackville.
“When you attack mainstream media, media that have a code of conduct and a code of ethics, you lose something the public’s not terribly aware of. You lose that credibility factor.”
Roberts was referring to Poilievre’s claim that mainstream media are biased and unreliable, especially those that get funding from government sources, including the CBC and media outlets that receive local journalism initiative (LJI) grants to hire local reporters.
During a stop in Niagara-on-the Lake last August, for example, the Conservative leader told a journalist for The Lake Report, that the Liberal government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was trying to use the LJI grants to turn news media into outlets for Liberal propaganda.
“It’s terrible…how local journalism has done under nine years of Trudeau,” the newspaper quotes Poilievre as saying. “He’s tried to take it over and basically wants everyone to work for the government so that he can have regurgitated propaganda paid for by taxpayers,” he added.
On August 15th, The Lake Report published a blistering editorial accusing Poilievre of pandering to supporters by misleading them and telling lies.
The paper, which receives LJI money, ridiculed Poilievre’s suggestion of Liberal bias as “insulting” and “out of touch with reality” adding: “Does he think that if he keeps the program running, news outlets are going to magically turn Conservative because we are so grateful?”
Defending or defunding CBC
Roberts writes in her book that in 2014, she left her job as host of CBC Radio’s afternoon show in Victoria, B.C. to fight Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s long-term plan to eliminate the public broadcaster after he had cut the CBC budget by $115 million over three years.
She ran unsuccessfully for the Green Party in Victoria in the 2015 federal election.
Now, to her dismay, Pierre Poilievre is promising to “defund” the English-language CBC if he becomes the next Conservative prime minister.
Pierre Poilievre wins applause for his promise to defund CBC during his campaign to win the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2022. Photo: Pierre Poilievre YouTube channel
“I’m going to do it,” Poilievre told a Toronto Sun columnist in December, and when asked how quick that would be, he replied, “Very quick, very quick,” then continued:
“I’m going to defund the CBC. That’s my commitment. My commitment has been the same since I first said it at my very first leadership rally in Regina. I said, ‘We will defund the CBC to save a billion dollars.’ That was my commitment then, it’s my commitment now.”
Roberts says a national public broadcaster is essential to democracy and that cutting it would be a devastating blow at a time when mainstream media are laying off professional journalists while misinformation and half-baked opinions spread across social media.
“If we lose our independent journalists in this country, we will have lost something that will hurt our democracy and will hurt our way of life,” she says.
“We’re watching it south of the border now. We’re watching it in other authoritarian governments.”
Conservatives break with tradition
For the first time in modern history, the Conservative leader is not allowing reporters to accompany him on party buses and planes as he campaigns across the country.
And, at daily news conferences, his aides select which of four reporters can ask one question each with no follow-up questions allowed.
Local Conservative candidates are not taking part in all-candidates’ events including broadcast roundtables or forums such as the one scheduled for tomorrow night, April 15th, at the Church by the Lake in Middle Sackville.
As the local Libertarian Party of New Brunswick and Libertarian Party of Canada advocate you could add my two bits here to this Bruce report and that is that the propaganda hub we call the “CBC” should be sold off, dismantled, and that will save the taxpayers money… just sayin. This sell off would, of course, include “CBC Indigenous”
[ #endracebasedlaw ]
You’re all for selling off programming that would promote Indigenous life, but I don’t see you asking about Radio-Canada… or are they somehow special?
Poilievre (Skippy P from here on) and his stance against Journalism is downright, well, Trumpian.
“On August 15th, The Lake Report published a blistering editorial accusing Poilievre of pandering to supporters by misleading them and telling lies.”
Of course truth hurts and to Skippy P, it hurts a lot – to the point that he heavily, HEAVILY controls the media that attend his campaign stops, he refuses to acknowledge actual questions and not any he and his staff have hand picked and of course, how dare he be called out on any misinformation and lies he wants to tout to the public in an effort to try and fearmonger people to vote Trumpservative.
Of course mentioning his staff nearly coming to blows with journalists would also be detrimental to his campaign (and heaven forBID the reporter be a WOMAN). I mean, his own staff helped to harass an INDEPENDENT Journalist (who just happened to be, of course, a woman) so that she LOST her segment on CTV, because she DARED FACT CHECK him (and other parties, though the only one that mattered WAS the Cons). THAT is the reality of what the Conservatives under Skippy P view Journalists and Journalism. The only thing that’s missing from their comments and how Trump treats the press in the US, is the stupid claims of “no one watches your show” or “no one reads/pays attention to you”. It’s Gross and anyone who doesn’t see that either hasn’t paid attention, or approves of it and if you approve you’re part of the problem.
The longer this political race goes on, the more Skippy P shows he’s NOT fit to be any kind of leader, let alone the PM of Canada, and it’s his own fault.
As for the CBC – anyone who wants to get rid of it is clearly clueless to the actual GOOD that the CBC provides Canada as a whole, and each province individually. Getting rid of the CBC (English only of course because Radio-Canada he’s petrified of upsetting) would mean also getting rid of shows like “Information Morning”, “Cross Country Checkup.” “Maritime Noon”, “Quirks and Quarks” and other radio programming.
Really, this “Defund the CBC” push tends to be because there’s an assumption of Liberal Bias. And I’m sure to some people, there is. I’ve not heard it myself; I’ve actually heard the CBC be critical of all parties and be supportive of all parties, when the story presents it. Just because the Conservatives don’t like the coverage the CBC does, does not mean it should be gotten rid of. Maybe instead the Conservatives should start actually doing things that would lessen the idiocy of their party to MAKE news that shows them – rightly – in negative spotlights.
Should the CBC be looked at, restructured and have issues dealt with? Absolutely, just like any organization.
But the BIGGEST gift of the CBC is that it airs – whether on radio or streaming/TV – programs that might not otherwise see the light of day in the world of the other broadcasters. Certainly not now with the competitiveness that goes on. And it promotes Canada programming first.
To me, getting rid of the CBC is like saying “Yeah, we don’t need Canadian focused Content, we’re happy with American Everything”. And I rather LIKE having a Canadian perspective on things, thanks very much.
Don’t like the CBC; don’t listen or watch, it’s that simple.
I wrote in 2005: A nation of our size and diversity needs a strong public broadcaster. I really appreciated the CBC when I was serving with the Armed Forces in Europe, and I’m sure that our troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere could do with some good programming from Canada.
https://jarche.com/2005/09/old603/
Do people realize that the CBC is more than just the 6 p.m. news broadcast?
As well as journalism and reporting, and political shows, the CBC produces and/or broadcasts Canadian television programs, including dramas, reality shows, sports, comedies, kids’ shows, and movies. It produces radio shows about Canadian books, music (Weekend Mornings focusses on Maritime music and has been responsible for introducing and promoting many young artists to the public), Canadian perspectives on all kinds of international issues, current events other than politics, science and medicine, human interest stories, etc. Its journalists have been responsible for uncovering injustices and scandals, and bringing us news coverage from some of the world’s most dangerous places. And its mandate is to reach as many Canadians in every corner of Canada as possible.
All of that disappears with the defunding of the CBC.
You’re saying without CBC how would we ever entertain ourselves or learn about the rest of the country? I’m saying when your husband Rev. John Perkin was invited on to speak to CBC to tell the rest of the country that our little town “needed more diversity” with his project to help bring in Syrian Refugees and fundraise for their housing and food etc. he was used as a mouthpiece to represent everyone else in the town and that’s unfortunate, in my opinion.. its also incorrect.. our town doesn’t need anything other than to be left to grow organically as it normally would with people finding their way here and establishing lives and jobs and homes here without meddlers socially engineering the population day and night.