Fake News Friday ｜ Legacy media pushed fake news about Freedom Convoy
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Summary
In this episode of Fake News Friday, Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner discuss the release of the Public Order Emergency Commission's report on the Freedom Convoy, the Emergencies Act, and the use of fake news by the legacy media.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to you all. This is another edition of Fake News Friday here on True North.
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It is Friday, February 24th and it is that opportunity in the week for us to wade through
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the whirlpool of lies and deception to make sense of it all, debunk the fakery and treachery that
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lurks among us on the airwaves in print, online, on social media, everywhere else. Enough of a
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preamble. Let me introduce my colleague Harrison Faulkner, host of Ratioed on True North. I'm
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Andrew Lawton. Harrison, big week last week that ended up preempting this program with the release
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of the Public Order Emergency Commission's report. So it's been a couple of weeks since we've chatted
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in this milieu, but how has the week been for you? Well, the week was good. You mentioned the Freedom
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Convoy, the Emergencies Act report. Of course, that kind of took the shine out of a lot of the
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other important stories. But, you know, I was reading the CBC and I came across an article which
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shook my entire outlook on the country. You know, I was thinking about these important issues or I
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thought were important issues, but I realized that actually none of that matters. The most important
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thing is that there aren't enough black-owned wineries in Canada. So, again, this is all part of
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the CBC mandate to put the news in front of us that Canadians aren't seeing, to give us the important
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hard-hitting facts. And these stories are so critical. So, you know, we're going to go into
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the Freedom Convoy, the Emergencies Act report. But, again, without the CBC, we would never know
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about these other very important issues. But let's first start off with one of the big takeaways from
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the Public Order Emergency Commission's report, which was obviously a report that, generally speaking,
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sided with the government, both in the decision to invoke the act as well as the specific measures
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that Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland and company used under the Emergencies Act. But one
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interesting takeaway was the Commissioner's finding that there was quite literally fake news from the
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legacy media about the Freedom Convoy. He was talking about misinformation and he said, yes, you know,
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there was some misinformation from people in the convoy protest. But he said, I'm also satisfied
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that there was misinformation about the Freedom Convoy, which was used as a basis to unfairly
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discredit all protesters. In one example, protesters were blamed for an act of arson in an apartment
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building, which the police later confirmed had no links to the protest. And this was a claim that
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I'll just give you like a 15-second primer on, was repeated by some very senior politicians,
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including the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh.
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Violence is commonplace. We saw an example of this violence, an attempted arson downtown
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of an apartment building where people started a fire. When they exited, they taped the door.
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There were many more. I think my colleague, Cosman Georgia's editing there, found like two minutes of
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that. And I have not seen any apologies from the people doing that. And as Commissioner Rillow
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mentions, one of several examples of misinformation being propagated and promulgated about the convoy.
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So it doesn't change the overarching tenor and tone and conclusion of the report. But I think it is a
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big takeaway that now we have. It's just a matter of what has been adjudicated in this country of
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finding that, yeah, the media was passing nonsense about the convoy a year ago.
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Everyone watching the Freedom Convoy knew that that was going on, Andrew. It didn't take a judge
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to uncover this reality. We all knew this was going on. But you know, it's interesting. Even in
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the Emergencies Act inquiry hearings, we had the OPP officer, Pat Morris, I believe his name was,
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he basically said that the media, he called this out in the inquiry itself. So everyone watching that
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knew that surely if this report was going to be accurate, if this report was going to have
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anything that Canadians could look at and take at face value, not just assume, well, it's a
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government inquiry, of course, they're going to clear the government. But if there's anything in it,
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they had to put this in there because we all saw it. It wasn't just the arson hoax, which of course
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did take up a lot of time on the airwaves. It was, of course, also the CBC anchor saying that there was
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Russian influence, that there was perhaps a Russian influence in the convoy, again, completely
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unfounded. And on top of that, there's now reporting that the government relied on fake CBC coverage
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to justify invoking the Emergencies Act. So the basis that the government used to invoke the
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Emergencies Act was on CBC coverage, which was dodgy at best, fake at worst. So again, we all knew
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this was the case. It's good to see it in paper, but the reality is, I don't think Canadians can
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take much away from this report. The government got away with it, and we all knew that that was
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going to happen. Yeah, and when you mentioned Superintendent Pat Morris, I should tell people
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that haven't followed this as closely, he wasn't just some random OPP beat cop, not that that would
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undermine his comments. He was actually the OPP intelligence officer that was responsible for
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intelligence and data collection about the convoy for the Ontario Provincial Police. And Superintendent
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Morris had one line here that what he was seeing in the media did not reflect what police
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intelligence was showing. Now, some people might be perhaps inclined to make a joke about police
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intelligence, but his reports were very detailed. And quite frankly, he was saying that the media was
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talking about this big, violent, insurrection-y white supremacist vibe. And OPP intelligence reports,
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which some of them were tabled in the course of the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings,
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were saying, yeah, bouncy castles, people having a good time, it's peaceful, there isn't this violence.
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So the media was trying to pursue this narrative about the convoy. And as a result, when misinformation
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did come up, what's now been found is that they deliberately amplified this data, either out of
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laziness or out of malice. And what Pat Morris said there is exactly what so many Canadians on the
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ground in Ottawa at the time of the Freedom Convoy were telling me and other independent journalists
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like yourself. How many times did we go up to people and they said, you know, I saw these reports
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coming from the CBC that this was a group of angry people. They were racist, perhaps they were waving
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these nasty flags. And then they said, well, I wanted to go down and check it out for myself because I
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don't really believe what the CBC says, which is a good rule of thumb. And then that's exactly what
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happened. They came down to the Ottawa grounds and realized that what they were getting from the media
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was complete crap. It was not even accurate at all. And there was clearly an agenda on the
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part of the legacy media to demonize the Freedom Convoy, to try and make it to be something that
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it wasn't and it never will be. And that was their attempt. Turns out that I guess they got away
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with it. I mean, if the government's getting away with it, the legacy media is probably going to get
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away with it too. But at least Canadians can take away that the justice overseeing the process,
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Rouleau, called them out on it. So that itself is good. But like I said before, there's nothing
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really much that we can take away and celebrate from this. It's a dark day for Canada. It's a bad
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moment for us. And I think this report will probably backfire on Canadians going forward
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when another government does the exact same thing. Yeah, arson, Russian actors, you get to take your
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pick of the misinformation. But there was a lot of it going around, far more than there was of
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white supremacy and homelessness, food shelter, theft and statute desecration, all of this other stuff
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that was amplified without factual basis time and time again. And interestingly enough, I know I
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mentioned this on my show, but it's related to this. So I should include it here. CBC ran this feature
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on the National about the Freedom Convoy loosely on the one year anniversary. And they failed to include
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a single person connected to the convoy or even supportive of slash sympathetic of the convoy
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when they were talking. So they talked to quote unquote experts, they talked to critics, they were
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talking about where is the Freedom Convoy movement now, but they curiously didn't ask anyone who was
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in that movement to weigh in or even perhaps an author who might have written a bestselling book that
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CBC has thus far ignored about the Freedom Convoy. Not sure who that could have been. There's surely
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someone out there. But this is time and time again, an example of how CBC has only wanted to highlight
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very specific perspectives about the convoy. What else is going on, Harrison?
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So Andrew, this very important story from the Globe and Mail, well, they dropped two important
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stories. The first one on Friday was about CESIS election interference. This one, equally as important,
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is about gender neutral acting categories for Canadian Screen Awards. Of course, this is an opinion
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article from Matthew Chantelois, who thinks that acting categories for Canadian Screen Awards, you know,
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the awards shows that you never watch. They're too biased. They're not gender neutral enough.
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Having a male acting category and a female acting category, that's old world stuff, Andrew. We need
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to move to the new world where everyone gets lumped in together and we can just become this one
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lifeless, homogenous pot of actors. Yeah, I mean, I think you're burying the lead here, Harrison. I think
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the real breaking news takeaway here is that there's something called the Canadian Screen Awards, which I
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don't think Canadians knew about. And I think I might have vaguely seen something on like a poster
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in the subway several years ago and had forgotten about until now. So I guess in terms of ginning up
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some publicity for the Canadian Screen Awards, he's done something very useful here. But yeah,
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the issue is that it's too binary. So he thinks the Oscars should also do away with best actor and best
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actress. The Grammy should do away with best male singer, best female singer. And it's an odd thing
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because when you break out the categories into that binary, you actually have twice as many awards and
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you're ensuring that there's always going to be female talent recognized each year, which we've been
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told is a very important thing to do. So the idea that we need to just throw them all in one giant
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non-binary gender neutral mess just seems to be a solution in search of a problem here.
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Well, there's a couple of points to make on this, Andrew. First being that the Canadian Screen Awards,
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again, I did a little bit of research before we did the show today on this Canadian Screen Awards,
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and it's basically because none of us watch it. What it is, it's like the participation prize for
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Canadian movie, I hesitate to call them stars because we don't really know who they are, but Canadian
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movies, television, it's like the participation prize before they get to the real award, the Oscars.
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Now, again, if they do this gender neutral thing, Andrew, I did realize this,
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it will help clean up the historical record here because you never know, we're moving to a part
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now where an actor could be a man one day, they could play a man's role in a movie, and then they
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could transition to becoming a female or vice versa in the case of Ellen Elliot Page. You know, this way,
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actually, if we look back, we can say, well, it makes more sense that it's gender neutral because
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that way they're not switching back and forth. You know, you don't have one person winning male prize
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and then one person, the same person winning the female prize. This way, we're moving into the new
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world, Andrew, the brave new world of one big gender neutral mixing pot of actors and actresses.
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Well, I guess we'll have to get rid of those words too now. I guess what it'll be, actors?
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Yeah, just actors. We default to actors or act-exes, maybe.
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How this all started was there's this CBC show that we have mocked on Fake News Friday
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before, so we're familiar with it not as viewers in the sense of enjoying it, but as viewers
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in the sense of Fake News Friday producers. It's, I can't remember the name of it, but
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oh, it's Sort Of, it's called, as in like sort of relevant, except not really. Sort Of
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is a CBC comedy in the broadest sense of the word about a non-binary Pakistani Canadian
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nanny. I mean, what show isn't these days? But the show stars Bilal Begg, who is a Canadian
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writer and actor who themself is non-binary. I always want to make sure I'm being respectful
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here. But Bilal Begg did not apply in either category because of a discomfort with the male
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female binary. Now, I think this is a missed opportunity. Bilal should have applied in both
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categories, and that way you double your chances of winning. Problem solved.
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Well, that's some thinking strategy here, but you're downplaying this Sort Of show, Andrew.
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You're not giving it enough credit, you see. It is the award winner. It is the winner of
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the CBC Gem Peabody Award. So come on, now you say Sort Of relevant. Jeez, it's the CBC
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Gem Peabody Award winning show featuring the Pakistani non-binary nanny. I mean, this is some
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serious stuff. Let's not downplay it at all for our audience.
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No, they should redo that old Fran Drescher show, The Nanny, and make it about a Pakistani
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non-binary nanny. That's the way you can ensure that you get the Peabody Award and also win
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a gender non-neutral, wait, no, gender, no, neutral, not non-neutral. A gender neutral. See, it gets so
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complicated when you do this. Actor and actress is easy. I've remembered this. Hollywood's been
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structured around this. You know, I might just watch this for the sole purpose of seeing like some
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old-timey actor invariably slip up and then be heading right towards the cancel mill on this.
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So I couldn't even tell you after all this story when or where the CBC Screen Awards are,
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the Canadian Screen Awards. But if you watch them, be mindful that they might be getting less
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binary by the day. This is one you teased at the very beginning of this program here. Now,
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I don't know if you're a wine connoisseur. I certainly enjoy wine. And well, I think it's easy
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to poo-poo Canadian wines. There are some good ones and some good wineries. And when I go for a
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wine, I say, oh, yes, you know, it's a little bit oaky or, you know, oh, the tannins are a little
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bit nicer. Oh, look at the legs and the glass. And it's a full-bodied. I don't think, you know.
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We need to get some wine content on the show, Andrew, from you. We need to get perhaps a little
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wine tasting. No, I'm all for the True North Wine Hour. They keep telling me not to do it, but I should do
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maybe Fake News Friday will be Fake News Wine Day before long. But I never sip a wine and think,
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I don't think there was enough black representation in this.
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Well, Andrew, because that's because you're not, you're not thinking about the progress we need to
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make as a society in this country. I'm not, I'm not a wine woker. No. Or a woke winer. No, you're not.
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You've got to be thinking about the color of the skin of the person who picked the grapes to make
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the wine. You have to think about the color of the, the skin color of the person who was involved
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in the whole process. You know, over the, what was it, over April, I was able to go tour a French
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winery. And it was a great experience. I got to see all these things again. Like you, though,
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I didn't stop to think about the skin color of the workers at that winery. That just, I think,
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shows my inherent bias, shows the fact that I'm not really living in the Canada the CBC wants us to
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live in, which, as they say, you know, we need to think about this. I love how it starts.
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Of course, black people in Canada's wine industry say they are underrepresented and it's time to
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examine the culture and break down barriers that hold others back. Again, this is the kind of
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hard-hitting journalism that all Canadians really want to see. It's why we pay them so much money.
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Yeah, they quote in this story, Trina Plamendon, who is a BIPOC wine consultant. Again, I didn't know
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this was a job title. Like, to be a wine consultant in and of itself, I think, is a pretty niche position.
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To be a BIPOC consultant seems to be an increasingly relevant position. But a BIPOC
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wine consultant, I don't know if she's a consultant on BIPOC wines, if she's a wine consultant who
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happens to be BIPOC, or if she consults on BIPOC winery. So there are different strains that you
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could take from this job title. But what Trina Plamendon says is that the biggest barrier for
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black people trying to get into the wine business is not seeing themselves represented,
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which leads to a belief that a future career isn't possible. I would hesitate to say that
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systemic racism is holding back black people from jobs in the wine business in Canada. I think it's a
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very snobby and closed business. A lot of the times you have family connections and pedigree that are
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getting people in. So there certainly may be an existing demographic. But if you can become a BIPOC
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wine consultant, surely you can also penetrate the wine industry regardless of your skin color.
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I love this part in the article where they're quoting a black wine cellar owner. So clearly
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this man's been able to break down the structural barriers that the CBC have so eloquently described
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Byfield says he has heard from black wine consumers who have told him that they were uncertain if
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they'd be welcomed at wine tours, tasting rooms, and wine stores. They were intimidated by the
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process, he said, and that just kept them away. Is he talking about the LCBO here? It's a very strange
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line, Andrew. I've never heard this before, that black people are concerned that they won't be
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welcomed in wine stores. I'm pretty sure that they'd take anyone's money for booze. That's kind of how the
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government works and operates these stores. I've never heard that line. It's very eye-opening stuff,
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Well, I mean, he's talking about wine tours. So presumably he's talking about winery. But even then,
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I'm not aware of a winery in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada that's ever turned anyone away because of
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their skin color. Our colleague at True North, Rupa Subramanye, weighed in on this. She said, you know,
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3.5% of Canada's population is black. They're an incredibly relevant group. There's a significant
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history in Canada of black history, especially in Nova Scotia and Southern Ontario. So I think
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it's critical to the country's story, but it's a small demographic group. So Rupa is saying here,
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singling out a particular group that's statistically unrepresented in a certain sector
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as a share of total population is one of the problems. There's also an unproven inference that
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underrepresentation is because of discrimination and racism. She says there are lots of reasons why
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blacks, South Asians, Persians, et cetera, don't own wineries in Canada. And they're asserting
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without evidence that racism is to blame. So I thought that was a very good comment from Rupa,
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who again, is not taking aim at the underrepresentation of people of Indian origin in
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owning wineries. Well, again, these are the kinds of things like, you know, for example,
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I don't think Andrew will see a CBC article about the underrepresentation of white people in the
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shawarma business, for example. But again, that's the, that's basically what I wouldn't want. I
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wouldn't want white, white shawarma. No, I wouldn't want to wait. I want the person who has like the
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recipe that's been in their family for like 45 generations from Syria to make my shawarma.
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Well, fair point, fair point. But I'm still going to take the point. The point stands that I don't
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think we're going to see an article from the CBC like that. But again, one can hold out hope just like
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you can hope that maybe the CBC would ask you to do an interview on the national with the freedom
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convoy. I think in both instances, we'd be waiting quite a while. Yeah, it all comes full circle.
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Well, that wraps us up for today. Another edition of Fake News Friday in the can here. I hope you have
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a wonderful weekend. We'll be back next week with more of the program and all of the other shows on
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True North, including Ratioed with Harrison Faulkner, the Andrew Lawton Show with yours truly,
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the Rupa Subramania Show, and perhaps Wine Wednesday, if that finally gets approved by management. So
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have a great weekend, everyone. We'll talk to you soon.