Juno News - The CBC's latest scandal JUST GOT WORSE

00:00:00.000 Prime Minister Carney is once again musing about selling off public assets,

00:00:09.240 including airports and port facilities, to private investors.

00:00:13.480 He says the money raised from selling off those assets

00:00:16.480 could be used to build new infrastructure projects.

00:00:19.680 Are there assets that the federal government has

00:00:22.320 that we could recycle the investment into supporting building new assets?

00:00:29.280 airports is an example that that is out there I think the port reference is

00:00:35.340 within a much broader series of things we will we will look to what we're

00:00:42.180 looking to do with all the tools we have is to catalyze building of this economy

00:00:48.940 if there are some assets that the federal government has that can help

00:00:55.720 with that process. We'll look at it as part of a comprehensive approach.

00:01:00.160 The Carney government thinks privatization could eventually help lower travel costs for Canadians.

00:01:06.240 Rebel News journalist Ezra Levant has been banned from entering Britain ahead of a scheduled rally

00:01:12.640 this weekend. Levant is suing the UK government over the move and released this video in response.

00:01:18.660 This is a crazy story. I'm suing Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister.

00:01:23.960 Starmer is the disgraced UK Labour Party leader, and a few days ago, he illegally put me on a blacklist.

00:01:31.500 He's banning me from entering the UK, and he's done it just days before the massive rally in London this weekend,

00:01:39.220 organized by Tommy Robinson, the British journalist and civil rights activist.

00:01:43.360 Now, I'm a journalist, and the UK government wants to stop me from doing news reports about this rally.

00:01:50.460 Levant is just one of a number of people the Starmer government considers far-right agitators to be blacklisted.

00:01:58.640 Supporters of Alberta independence say media pundits are underestimating the number of conservatives who want out of Canada.

00:02:06.480 In this exchange on CBC, journalist Bob Fyfe says only about one in five supporters of the United Conservative Party,

00:02:14.660 that's the party that Daniel Smith leads, support independence.

00:02:18.480 independents. These guys talk a good game. There may be 25% or 20% of that UPC party. They can't

00:02:25.900 take over the UPC party. They can cause her a lot of problems, for sure, and they have cars in a lot 1.00

00:02:31.140 of problems. But, you know, where's the Margaret Thatcher and Premier Daniel Smith? We don't see 0.54

00:02:37.500 it. If she says she's an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, well, the Iron Lady would have just

00:02:42.760 told these people, get lost. Pro-independence lawyer Jeff Rath responded with this post on

00:02:48.140 X, we are well over 65%. That is at least 35,750 of 55,000 members. He goes on to say that number

00:02:58.760 will eventually grow to 85%, at which point he says no UCP, MLA, or cabinet ministers will get

00:03:07.020 nominated in Alberta without supporting independence. The Conservative Party of Canada

00:03:11.640 is calling out the CBC over the broadcaster's elaborate sting operation, which appeared to be

00:03:17.600 aimed at discrediting a conservative commentator, a sitting MP, and John A. Macdonald.

00:03:23.260 The sting was supposedly intended as a spoof, but the targets of it say it was a malicious

00:03:29.400 attempt to discredit and smear supporters of Canada's first Prime Minister.

00:03:34.420 Conservative MP Rachel Thomas has written a letter to the president of the CBC.

00:03:39.640 This is a quote from that letter.

00:03:41.220 This is incredibly offensive and unethical.

00:03:45.420 At a time when Canadians should be reflecting on and taking pride in our shared history,

00:03:50.580 the CBC chose to mislead interviewees under false pretenses in pursuit of a program aimed at discrediting a foundational figure in Canadian history,

00:04:01.300 all while using taxpayer dollars.

00:04:05.440 Thomas wants a full public explanation of what the CBC did and why.

00:04:11.220 mp aaron gunn was one of the targets of the sting and posted this on x wait until people find out

00:04:19.620 how this cbc show tried unsuccessfully to manipulate and deceive a sitting member of parliament on its

00:04:26.420 crusade to further attack canada's history and smear the reputation of canada's first prime

00:04:32.420 minister aaron welcome to the show thank you for having me tell us how this transpired take us back 0.76

00:04:40.660 to when you were approached by this uh group aligned with the cbc well before they even tried

00:04:48.500 contacting me directly they reached out to uh some former associates of mine back when i was

00:04:53.860 actually making documentaries and tried to to bribe to contract to entice them uh to basically

00:05:00.740 land me in their words or book me as the feature interview for this new documentary that they were

00:05:06.500 working on about Sir John A. Macdonald. And in their words, the documentary that they were

00:05:14.820 looking to make was one that was looking to bring balance to the conversation around Canada's first

00:05:19.940 Prime Minister to defend his legacy and all things like this. And they didn't get super far

00:05:29.120 with these contacts and friends of mine. So then they reached out to our office directly

00:05:34.600 um we didn't hadn't heard of this company before the individuals behind it we did some research

00:05:40.860 there were websites they seemed like a legit company although they didn't have a very long

00:05:44.680 track record or history and the instinct was of course we'd love to talk anyone who wants to talk

00:05:50.400 about canadian history and the importance of preserving our identity and national symbolism

00:05:54.720 was conversations that i enjoy having but we ended up not doing the interview just because the

00:06:00.260 company didn't seem to have any track record and they were so eager to they originally wanted to

00:06:05.180 do the interview in Vancouver then they offered to fly their entire crew to Campbell River where

00:06:09.880 I live they wouldn't give us really details on who else they were talking to so we ended up

00:06:14.460 not proceeding with that interview but a number of other Canadian citizens such as Lindsay Shepard

00:06:19.480 a children's author were ensnared in this what turned out to be a very elaborate

00:06:25.120 kind of setup of fake companies, fake names, interviewing people under false pretenses.

00:06:34.220 They created fake merchandise, and of course, all using taxpayer money. And it's just, you know,

00:06:42.080 I always thought journalism was supposed to be about the unvarnished pursuit of the truth and

00:06:45.580 holding the powerful accountable. And this instead seems to use taxpayer money to basically try to

00:06:52.560 silence and humiliate, I guess, what you might call dissident views and to try to kind of

00:07:00.740 mislead and deceive opposition members of parliament? I mean, this may have been an attempt

00:07:06.620 at spoofing you, at maybe humor. I mean, I don't know how the CBC is going to justify this,

00:07:16.480 but I'm going to assume that that's the direction that they'll say that this was really all about

00:07:22.560 you know, making people laugh, but you're suggesting that this was really, uh, much more

00:07:31.260 harmful in terms of how it proceeded using essentially means that could be construed and

00:07:39.100 could be investigated under, under a fraud, um, investigation. You know, if you look at it,

00:07:44.660 because what they said with the, what they presented themselves as turned out to be completely

00:07:50.320 false um what what was going through their minds what were they trying to do here

00:07:57.620 well look i think it's a it's it was a piece of political propaganda that's another example of

00:08:04.520 the taxpayer funded state broadcaster trying to use their resources to target um opposition

00:08:11.180 members of parliament or those that hold conservative viewpoints i think that it's um

00:08:18.720 Look, if this was a private entity, the other thing is this is, I mean, they're going to say that this was some kind of, you know, spoofing or comedic show.

00:08:28.700 Even in their funding application, they refer to it as a form of social action.

00:08:33.680 And that might have been their messaging track, but make no mistake, this was a piece of political propaganda.

00:08:38.960 They partnered with American producers to try to smear the reputation of Canada's first prime minister and the reputation of anyone who dared defend him or Canada's history for that matter.

00:08:52.980 So I think it is completely beneath the already low bar that the CBC had set for itself over the past few years.

00:09:03.620 and you know at this time when i thought we're all supposed to be on the the team canada

00:09:09.620 bandwagon here they are again trying to discredit canadian history and using

00:09:14.340 these kind of low tactics and american media personalities to achieve it and by the way i

00:09:20.720 mean just to remind people cbc gets their funding from heritage canada so the entity that's supposed

00:09:27.140 to be out there promoting Canada's identity and history is literally funding these smear spoof

00:09:33.780 projects in partnership with Americans to take down the father of confederation and any individual

00:09:40.820 who was decided to go out there and defend him in public. And spending tens of thousands, I want to

00:09:48.360 say hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, this sounds like a very elaborate and expensive

00:09:52.940 enterprise that the CBC was on. And when people want to know what they've spent that extra 150

00:09:58.860 million on, which they got from the current government, they won't say, well, that's none

00:10:03.600 of your business. I want to read part of the letter that was sent by your colleague, Rachel

00:10:09.680 Thomas. And this was sent to the president of the CBC. This is incredibly offensive and unethical

00:10:17.220 at a time when Canadians should be reflecting on and taking pride in our shared history. The CBC

00:10:22.840 chose to mislead interviewees under false pretenses in pursuit of a program aimed at

00:10:29.740 discrediting a foundational figure in Canadian history, all the while using taxpayer dollars.

00:10:36.540 Are you expecting that the president of the CBC will come forward and give you

00:10:41.300 some kind of accounting of what was done and justifying it in whatever way she can?

00:10:48.060 Well, there needs to be an explanation. Again, if this was a private sector

00:10:52.460 company you can disagree and criticize their methods but ultimately we live in a free country

00:10:59.540 but this is a taxpayer the taxpayer funded state broadcaster engaging in juvenile behavior like

00:11:07.640 this that quite frankly you would you would expect more from a university fraternity than you would

00:11:12.560 from what's supposed to be kind of the broadcaster of record so it's unfortunately it's going to be

00:11:20.240 We're going to be sending another letter myself to the CBC Ombudsman later today, demanding

00:11:26.420 accountability for this, demanding an explanation on who thought this was a good use of taxpayer

00:11:30.820 dollars.

00:11:31.820 Unfortunately, because Mark Carney, of course, used backroom deals and floor crossings and

00:11:37.220 who knows what else to recently get a majority and stack committees with Liberal MPs, it

00:11:43.200 will probably make our job a little bit more difficult than it would have been even a couple

00:11:47.620 months ago when we could have used that power at committees to compel testimony and compel

00:11:52.640 evidence forward from the government. Right. So hopefully you'll get some kind of

00:11:58.660 explanation. I mean, I'd love to know how much money was spent. Have you considered also

00:12:02.800 filing a complaint or sending a letter to the CRTC, which oversees broadcasting,

00:12:08.040 regulates broadcasting in Canada, including the CBC Act, which, you know, oversees CBC,

00:12:15.240 the broadcasting act i mean have you considered taking steps that would deal with the regulator

00:12:20.600 here well i mean who knows if this show even sees the light of light of day after this all this

00:12:26.920 controversy and you mentioned how much did this cost taxpayers we saw a photo of their um cat

00:12:33.720 or their cast slash crew that they shared as like 20 25 people in it i mean and again from someone

00:12:39.720 that comes from the world of making uh politically charged documentaries i mean everyone knows i have

00:12:45.960 a political perspective and i went out to try to seek the truth more than 25 times didn't take a

00:12:51.080 dime of money from the government and never had accrue even you know a fifth of that size and um

00:13:00.040 also have never in more than 300 interviews have never deceived uh the subject about who i was or

00:13:07.000 what I was trying to do and what the video and documentary was covering. So it's, yeah, I think

00:13:14.520 it's just another embarrassing moment for the CBC and another attempt where, you know, one of the

00:13:19.360 things that I've told people, which makes this even more egregious, two things. One, not only is

00:13:25.560 how they went about doing this, but it's the fact of they would never do this to someone on the

00:13:30.580 other side of this political debate, right? Can you imagine them trying to spoof like climate

00:13:35.220 activists or environmentalists or groups that were trying to stop the construction of a pipeline or

00:13:41.700 or that were obsessed with tearing down statues of canadian history no there's there's no way and

00:13:46.740 the second thing is when it comes to these conversations when it comes to these issues

00:13:51.060 surrounding canadian history canadian identity how we memorialize and remember those who laid

00:13:58.020 the groundwork for the country that we all now call home those are those are reasonable conversations

00:14:05.060 to have and i would be more than happy to have those conversations and sometimes those are

00:14:08.580 difficult conversations to have and you would think that's what the state broadcaster would be

00:14:13.460 potentially looking to do and to platform but instead they go out and engage in childish

00:14:20.420 behavior like this with individuals in almost every case that they would never platform to

00:14:26.660 have a real discussion and a real debate about their views and about these very important issues

00:14:31.620 yeah and you make a great point about the fact that if they're trying to couch this under

00:14:37.520 journalism you know there's ethics that have to be followed you can't misrepresent who you are

00:14:43.040 you know you have to be honest about who you are and what you're doing and it doesn't sound like

00:14:48.320 they were doing that at all last word to you aaron i just think when you look at at the end

00:14:55.140 at the end of the day what is happening here is you have a crown corporation using taxpayer money

00:15:00.320 money that they've recently been increased from the Liberal government after they got

00:15:04.640 re-elected, to go out there and essentially target opposition members of Parliament and

00:15:10.900 dissident individuals with dissident or insurgent opinions about important issues facing the

00:15:18.040 country and attempt to deceive them and to trick them into these traps.

00:15:24.300 We didn't end up sitting down for the interview, but I just think it's something that you would 0.69

00:15:28.220 expect from a banana republic not from a country that likes to to think of itself as a first world

00:15:34.660 democracy with you know the highest um respect for for free speech free expression and um separation

00:15:42.060 of of the government from the institutions that are supposed to hold that government accountable

00:15:49.320 in this case the media aaron thank you so much for coming on the show we appreciate it thank you so

00:15:55.200 much. Aaron Gunn. If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism

00:16:01.220 by becoming a premier member of Juno News. Please go to junonews.com backslash straight up.

00:16:07.640 You can find the link below. It helps us do what we do. Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:16:11.880 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - May 15, 2026

The CBC's latest scandal JUST GOT WORSE

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