Facebook makes Trudeau's state-run broadcaster official 'fact checker' of the Canadian election

Canada is a strange country. We are a democracy built upon the foundation of the British Parliamentary system. However, we are also a nation where the media is funded by the taxpayer and owned by the state. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is the state-owned media outlet responsible for keeping the public informed, but how can a media body owned by the government efficiently hold that same government to account? The answer is simple. It can't

For years, CBC has played an active role in promoting "Canadian content" and is part of a larger Canadian objective of keeping out American-style culture. This is, at least, part of the justification as to why the federal government funds the news. CBC has additionally played an active role in spreading highly partisan and biased reporting. To the shock of nobody, the network's bias is seemingly always in favour of whichever political party plans to increase its funding.

To this end, Justin Trudeau is CBC's darling. When he first ran for Prime Minister in 2015, he did so, promising to reverse Prime Minister Stephen Harper's funding cuts to the network. Harper had cut the annual network budget by $115 million, leading to many journalists losing their jobs. As you can imagine, these journalists and their colleagues were not too happy to have their paycheque downgraded by the Prime Minister. They were also inherently incentivized to embrace whoever is promising to give them their jobs back, but they needed to make sure he wins!

As a result, the network turned on the Conservative Prime Minister. "They would not cover my announcements. They would not cover any gaffe of my opponent; they scrubbed it out," Harper told Dennis Prager in 2018. "They would not run any ad that showed footage depicting my opponent [Trudeau] in an unfavourable light. We literally were censored out of the coverage."

Harper lost the election to Justin Trudeau, who kept his end of the bargain and pledged $675-million in CBC funding. The same story continued in the 2019 election when the network covered Conservative leader Andrew Scheer in an unfavourable light. The network entered into a lawsuit with the Conservative Party because they used network footage—despite being allowed to do so. CBC has since been defeated in the lawsuit.

Both Stephen Harper and Andrew Scheer lost to Trudeau. Among other things, both blame it on the fact that the state-run broadcaster so profoundly misinforms the Canadian public. Upon resigning, Andrew Scheer even went so far as to make a war cry favouring independent media. "Please check out smart, independent, objective organizations like The Post Millennial," he said in his final speech.

We now enter another election, called by Trudeau at an opportunistic moment. In Canada, the Prime Minister can call elections whenever he wants. As I said, we are a strange country. Prior to calling this election, Trudeau coincidentally injected an extra $61 million tax dollars into the state-funded media. The government refuses to say where exactly this money has gone, only that it is meant to ensure readers receive "timely information they require from their government." A few days after this news broke, Trudeau calls the election.

Just halfway through the election period, Trudeau's poll numbers have begun to sink. As a result, he's released his full platform which includes yet another $100 million injection into the annual budget for the network. Will the extra cash make the difference in coverage?

Much has changed since the last election. Only three percent of Canadians watch CBC on television, despite being funded by one hundred percent of us. The world has become digitalized and with it, a dangerous amount of independent and free thought. To stop free speech, Trudeau attempted to pass Bill C-10, which would regulate the internet and treat social media users as broadcasters. The government would then be able to delete content they deem objectionable or against the "vision of the government." A wet dream for Justin Trudeau. This Bill was tabled just before the election but got stuck in the Senate and is thus not active.

Meanwhile, CBC has been made the official fact-checker for the election by Facebook. In other words, the news network, effectively owned by Justin Trudeau, is now in charge of what you can and cannot see on Facebook. This is a network that not only makes mistakes of its own but avoids important stories which make Liberals look bad.

CBC's aversion to holding Trudeau accountable is self evident in the fact that the one of the most significant political scandals in Canadian history was discovered not by this $1.2 billion network, but by an independent outlet.

Another ironic example of CBC's complicity was last week when Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland posted a highly doctored video of Conservative leader Erin O'Toole. The Post Millennial was, in fact, the first to break the story, and most interestingly, Twitter flagged her video as "manipulated media." This turned into something of a minor scandal for the Liberals and inevitably, the legacy media did catch on. Nonetheless, the video remains up on Facebook and has absolutely no flag or warning.

Meanwhile, conservative friendly brands like The Post Millennial are flagged and suppressed by big tech. Now, for the first time in the western world, big tech has voluntarily handed over the ability to censor people on their platforms. Thus, the state-funded network now has carte-blanche to deplatform political opponents and ignore their own missteps.

Under the newfound privileges of CBC on Facebook, the outlet can remove "harmful misinformation that could lead to imminent violence or physical harm, such as misinformation about COVID and vaccines." This moral crusade has been awarded to the state-funded network, despite the fact that CBC platformed an author who writes about blowing up and gassing white people during a "race war."

The marriage between big tech and state-funded media is a match made in hell for Canada and anyone who believes in free and honest discourse. The threat of free and independent media is seemingly too dangerous to the leftist propaganda machine. CBC will continue to slander Conservatives and potentially use its new power to silence competition. This may all inevitably lead to Justin Trudeau winning again, stuffing money into the pockets of journalists and keeping Canadians uninformed and apathetic.

Thus, let my strange country of Canada be the canary in the coal mine for Americans and the western world. Tyranny does not always come in a general's coat. It can come with a smile and a wink from your corrupt media, or perhaps tyranny can also be digital silence. A punishment fit for Conservative dissidents who dare question the supreme leader and his Pravda.