Legacy media take the money and run!
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Summary
A legacy media outlet took a bailout from the federal government to protect journalism and then they turned around and fired the journalists anyway. It's Fake News Friday, where we go through the most egregious journalism in Canada and dissect the problem in Canada when you have a legacy media company by and large that is subsidized and funded by the government. There are so many inherent contradictions and conflicts and ethical issues with this structure, and yet they carry on as usual.
Transcript
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A legacy media outlet took a bailout from the federal government to protect journalism and
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then they turned around and fired the journalists anyway. It's Fake News Friday, I'm Candice
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Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into
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the show. It's a favorite day of the week here at The Candice Malcolm Show. It's Fake News Friday
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where we go through the legacy media, we dissect and pull out some of the examples of the most
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egregious journalism and we just generally talk about the problem in Canada when you have a legacy
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media by and large that is subsidized and funded by the federal government. There are so many so
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many inherent contradictions and conflicts and ethical issues with this structure and yet they
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all kind of carry on as usual but of course so much malfeasance comes out of that structure. And so
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we dedicate the Friday edition of The Candice Malcolm Show entirely in just focusing in on this problem
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and talking about the very many ways that it manifests. So if you're watching this video on
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podcast. It really helps us out in the discoverability of the show and don't forget to subscribe to the
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Candice Malcolm Show so that you never miss an episode. So before we get to this ridiculous story
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of a media company, a major media company taking taxpayer dollars and then turning around and firing
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journalists anyway, I want to talk about the major political development of the week with regards to
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the Conservative Party, the infighting that we have been focused on so much on the show this week and
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just talk a little bit about how the media has covered it. So usually with a Conservative leader,
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be it Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, Scott Moe, Stephen Harper, Andrew Scheer, whoever it is, usually the
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media do their best to demonize the leader, to point out all their flaws, to make them seem like
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a scary right-winger and to really make them repulsive. But Aaron O'Toole has done everything
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he can. He focuses all of his attention on winning over those media skeptics, making sure that they
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like him, that they know that he's one of them. He's part of the team, he's progressive, he's liberal,
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he's left-wing on the social issue so they don't have to be afraid of him. So this has led us to a place
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where the media sort of has this like sympathetic view of Aaron O'Toole, where they sort of feel
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sorry for him, they don't think that he could beat Justin Trudeau, but they don't want him to be
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replaced because they fear that whoever replaces him could be a scary right-wing Conservative. So
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they kind of treat him with kid gloves and you see a lot of editorials saying, you know, making the
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case as to why Conservatives should leave him in power. All of these liberal and left-wing columnists
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who would never in a million years vote for the Conservatives are trying to give advice to
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Conservative members to keep the more sort of left-wing party leader in place. So then at this
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point, when someone in the Conservative Party does come out to criticize Aaron O'Toole, we see the media
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sort of shift and try to portray and paint that person in a negative light and demonize them. And
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that is what we're seeing with Senator Denise Batters, who came out this past week and launched
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a petition to ask for a leadership review of Aaron O'Toole. Now, it should be noted that Denise Batters
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is an eminently reasonable person. She came forth with a very calm, very reasonable, very logical
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position. And it should be noted that Senator Denise Batters came to the Conservative Party from the
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Progressive Conservatives. So she didn't come from the Reform and the Alliance, the more right-wing
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part of the party. She came from the more left-wing part of the party. So she is not a right-wing
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figure. She's more on the center-left of the party, of the Conservative Party. And she backed Peter
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McKay in the last leadership race. He was the Red Tory candidate. He was sort of the standard bearer
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of Red Toryism. So it's not like Denise Batters is from the sort of more Conservative side of the
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party. She isn't. So this was a headline over in CP's Canadian Press. It's the wire service. So they
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write the news stories that go in most of the newspapers. Most of the news websites are all based
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on this wire service. And this was a story. This was a headline. It says, Expelled Conservative
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Senator Denise Batters' defense position lashes out at O'Toole. Lashes out, we're told. She's lashing
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out. Now when I saw that verbiage, I was just sort of put off because I watched Denise Batters. I saw
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what she wrote. I saw what she put on Twitter. Lashing out. Let me just read you the definition of
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what it means to lash out. To lash out is to suddenly attack someone or something physically or to
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criticize him or her in an angry way. Okay, so we're told that she's lashing out, which implies
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sort of physical violence or at least lashing out, criticizing someone in an angry way. When I
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looked at what Denise Batters was saying, I didn't see an angry lady. Again, I saw a reasonable,
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logical, calm, clear-headed plea for the party to review this leader. And so the fact that the media
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is painting this as her lashing out. Now, even if you read the story, read the article that's attached,
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a very short one, and nothing in there suggests that she's lashing out. Okay, let me just read
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the news story. It's really short. And again, nothing in here suggests anything close to
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lashing out. Okay, so it says, Senator Denise Batters is taking off the gloves in her fight
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with conservative leader Erin O'Toole. Okay, again, this sort of builds it up and implies that
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by taking off the gloves and that she's engaging in this fight with Erin O'Toole, that maybe there's
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like a war of words or she says something harsh. But as we'll see, that's not the case. Let's go on
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to see what Canadian press is writing about a fight, taking off the gloves and saying that
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Denise Batters is lashing out. So it just says this. O'Toole announced late Tuesday that the
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Saskatchewan senator will be expelled from the Conservative caucus after she launched a petition
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calling for a referendum on his leadership within six months. A leadership review is currently
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scheduled for the party's national convention in 2023, though MPs did vote in October to give
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themselves the power to potentially host him earlier. Okay, so that's just all background.
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Nothing about Denise Batters yet. Now it comes on to tell us what Batters is actually doing
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and it says this. Batters in a statement this morning says she is and will always be a Conservative
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and says members deserve to have a say on the leadership and direction of the party after
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an election loss. So how is this lashing out? How is this taking off the gloves? How is this
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fighting? She issued a calm statement just saying that she's still a Conservative and she believes
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that members should have a say on the direction of the party. How is that lashing out? How is that
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fighting? How is that taking off the gloves? Give me a break. Okay, the story goes on. It says
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she goes on to question why she's being singled out. Another Conservative senator, Michael McDonald,
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urges Tories ahead of the October vote to give themselves the power to hold an early leadership
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review. And Batters says if O'Toole is truly confident in the direction he's taking the party,
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then he should have no fears about an expedited leadership review. And then that's it. That's it.
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Then the story just goes back to explaining the background of the story and saying that Batters
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is kicked out of the party before the caucus, the Conservative caucuses meeting in Ottawa.
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And again, that's it. That's the whole story. It's like a 10-line story and that's it. So nowhere
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in there did we see anything like the headline was saying. So much so they've actually have changed
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the headline now. But this was the initial headline that was out for the first day of the story was up
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and across the internet. Again, the media just love creating a narrative. They love trying to create
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conflict, trying to make it seem like Denise Batters here is just like crazy, unhinged, bad guy,
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villain. Really, she's just being very reasonable and the media just can't help but demonize and
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create these really, really ridiculous caricatures of the Conservatives. Okay, going on. This is
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actually pretty amusing. So as the MPs were heading into go into this meeting, journalists were sort of
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camped out and again, trying to exploit this division, trying to drum up the drama and asking MPs
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what they thought about Denise Batters petition and where they stand on Erin O'Toole. Now, let me just
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pause from the show for a moment to just say that things in British Columbia are absolutely horrendous.
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I know my parents are out there. Most of my family lives in the lower mainland and Vancouver and they
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are dealing with a catastrophic flood. It is unbelievable, probably will end up being the most
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costly natural disaster in Canadian history. And of course, if something like this was happening in
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central Canada, something like this was happening in Quebec or Ontario, it would be all the news. It
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would be everything wall-to-wall coverage, nothing but. But in our country, because it's happening out in
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Vancouver, barely anyone's paying attention, barely anyone's talking about it. This is a sad reality
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of the sort of regionalism in our country that anything that happens out west is kind of an
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afterthought and anything that happens in British Columbia is even more than an afterthought. It's
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almost like a different country out there. It's a sad state of affairs and this MP, this Conservative MP
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rightfully points it out. So as these Conservatives are walking in, this is again Wednesday afternoon,
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right in the height of the flooding and the chaos in British Columbia. So we have Conservative MP
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Brad Vease, who is the MP for Mission, Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon, and an unidentified reporter
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jumps in to ask him about the air neutral drama. And to him, it's like he is completely focused on this
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crazy disaster that is happening in his writing, in his constituency, completely worried about the lives of
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his constituents, the lives of Canadians. And that is where he's focused. And he just sort of takes the media
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to task for asking sort of like a dumb political partisan question, instead of really asking the more
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pressing question at that moment in that time about his writing and the people in his writing and how
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he's acting to represent them and to help them. So here is a BC Conservative MP just sort of smacking
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Do you support Erin O'Toole's decision to remove Senator Batters?
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You know what? The most important question needs to be, why aren't you asking me about Mission,
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Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon, and the devastating flooding that's taking place in Chilliwack,
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Cope, Abbotsford, in the Okanagan, in Dan's riding. I want to thank Minister Blair for meeting with us
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this morning to discuss the dire situation on the ground. Our constituents, 7,000 people were evacuated
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in Dan's riding. All of the major roadways in British Columbia are destroyed. We don't have rail
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infrastructure right now. Our country is facing an unprecedented situation in the province of BC right now.
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Do you think Batters should have been kicked out of caucus?
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Right now, my only focus is on supporting the people of Mission, Matt Squee, Fraser Canyon,
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in British Columbia. There's no time for partisan politics. Right now, there's only time to support
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British Columbia and get people safe. That should be your only question right now. Keeping British
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Columbia safe. The people need our help. They don't want to hear about a senator. They want to hear
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about what we're doing here today to help our province and to help our country.
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Do you attribute this to climate change? How do you prevent this from happening again?
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Well, right now, we need to focus on the safety of British Columbia. How do you prevent
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this from happening again? You've talked about the fires. You've talked about the flooding.
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How do you prevent this from happening again? Ed, why don't you comment? It's Barrow Townsend
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in your riding. Listen, there are many things that are going to have to take place going forward
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to rebuild all the infrastructure that has been damaged. There's infrastructure that needs to be upgraded
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to seismic standards. There's a lot of work that has to be done going forward. These are long-term
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And you can just see how completely tone-deaf these journalists are. Like, he makes a passionate
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plea about his riding and how dangerous it is and how worried he is. And the journalists
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like can't even compute that. They don't even care. They just go and ask the same question.
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Uh, but do you think batters should have been kicked out of caucus? It's like so tone-deaf
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and so unbelievably callous of these journalists. They don't actually care what the
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MPD has to say. They don't care about the Canadians that he represents. They don't care
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about the real challenges that are being faced out there. They just care about the drama.
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They just care about the soundbite. And they just want to possibly exploit this, this drama
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even more to get even more news out of it. And then finally, once he really just schools
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them and says like, like, this is not my priority. I don't care about the partisan
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infighting. I'm completely focused on this flood and saving my constituents. And then
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of course they pivot to, uh, well, do you attribute this to climate change? Like trying
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to sort of like trap him and again, turn it into a partisan wedge trap manufactured by
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the liberals to say, well, if you care about this flood, then how can you not admit that
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it's climate change and therefore don't you want a carbon tax? Like it just, again, just
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shows how out of touch and bad these journalists are at their job. Okay. So I want to move on
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to this story about the media company taking taxpayer money and then firing its employee
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because this in a nutshell is the problem with Canadian media. So this comes to us from
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our friends over at Blackhawks Reporter also reported by us at TNC.news. And it's about
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a newspaper company called the Halifax Chronicle Herald. So the media company, the Halifax Chronicle
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Herald took taxpayer funded media rebates, but then they ended up firing employees. So according
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to Blackhawks Reporter, the media outlet, which is part of a broader company called Salt Wire
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Network Inc. They ended up firing 111 employees on September 1st, 2020. In the same year, the
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company received an undisclosed amount of taxpayer COVID-19 funding and was also benefiting
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from payroll rebates passed by the liberal government. So they're getting the $600 million
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newspaper bailout. The whole idea was that all of these media companies couldn't compete
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with the CBC. The Trudeau government was giving the CBC money and then the newspapers couldn't
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compete with them. So they went hat in hand and asked the Trudeau government for money as
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well. So Trudeau gave them money. The purpose of that was all under the guise of protecting
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local journalism to make sure that in all of these markets across Canada, these companies
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could still employ local journalism because the role of a local journalist was so important
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to democracy. And it was so important that we had these reporters on the ground to keep
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our democracy strong, to hold politicians accountable. Never mind the contradiction there
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about the government paying journalists to investigate them, which of course doesn't happen
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in the way that it should. But regardless, the idea is this media company is taking our money,
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taking taxpayer dollars to protect journalism jobs. And then on top of that, when the economy
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crashed, when the government forces all into lockdown, the idea behind the COVID rebate
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was to keep things afloat, was to make sure that people didn't lose their jobs, to make
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sure that companies didn't go out of business. So here is a company, a media company that's
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basically double dipping. They're getting a bailout from the government for the newspapers,
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for local journalism, and they're also getting a bailout from the government for COVID.
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And yet on top of this, they still fire 111 employees. It is such a joke.
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So here it says under the rebate program, the company could have received up to $13,750
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per employee. Court records show that six form employees pursued legal action with regards
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to their dismissal. Saltwater contends in March, 2020, its business was significantly
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impacted by COVID-19 pandemic revenues more substantially reduced. So that's all justification
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as to why they were taking taxpayer money. What we still don't understand though, is why
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they took taxpayer money and then turned around and fired a whole bunch of people, 111 people.
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Well, some of them are now suing the paper, regardless, you know, it's going to be stuck
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in the legal court battles for a while. But again, what a sad state of journalism
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where you have these big, big companies taking all this money, basically part of their business
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model now to just lobby the government. Rather than go out there and try to find a more successful
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business model, rather than try to go out and try to build your audience or try to find new revenue
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streams. These media companies are part of the revenue. Part of their business plan is spending
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money on lobbyists, spending money on consultants, and going hat in hand to the government. That is
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part of the revenue stream. And you see it across the spectrum in the media.
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So another example is the FP Newspaper Inc., the Free Press newspapers, including the Winnipeg
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Free Press, which is one of the most left-wing papers in the country. As of May of this year,
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the company had received $6.2 million in taxpayer funds, majority of which were the COVID subsidies,
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federal grants. They make up 54% of the company's revenue. So more than half the money that this
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newspaper and this media company are bringing in every year is from the government. I can't imagine,
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you know, we talk a lot about the CBC and how they get billions. Well, more than half of the
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money that this company, I mean, it might as well be a state broadcaster as well. They're taking so
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much money from the government. They're so beholden to the government and the governing party. It's just
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absolutely wild, the landscape in Canada. It deserves to be criticized because you're not
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going to get a situation where opposition parties and other politicians get a fair shake when these
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newspapers that are so influential in telling the stories and reaching Canadians are so beholden to
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Justin Trudeau and the governing Liberal Party. It is a huge problem in Canada. It's all the more
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reason why we need independent outlets like True North. It's Fake News Friday. I'm Candace Malcolm,