Sunday, February 7, 2010

THE CBC'S "THE HOUR" REVEALS ITS BLATANT PARTISANSHIP

On January 26/10 , the master of glib PC banter, the cocky George Strombopolous, once again showcased the CBC Mission---to attack the Consevative government . George launched into another of his routine rants against the Harper government, this time for not convening parliament. The problem you see, is that all those partisan groups that feed from the public trough are left to starve for want of "funding". Funding that must be approved by parliament. Particularly vexing is that Canada's noble white knights, "the environmental groups", will not be able to carry on their good and necessary work. But then, Strombopolous adds, the Conservatives are not noted for their environmental concerns. Yeah right. As if the opposition parties were. Oh, I know, Harper is responsible for that horrid blemish on Canada's reputation, the tarsands development, which last year poured out 40 million metric tonnes of C02 and despoiled a vast area of formerly boreal forest cover. But here is a newsflash. The five million immigrants who have been admitted to Canada have been responsible for four times as much Green House Gas emissions as the tarsands, and used up four times as much land, mostly prime farmland, to house them. And who would boost our immigration intake by 25%? The opposition parties. The folks who bleet about a "carbon neutral economy" that somehow can be decoupled from population and economic growth. Growth with out emissions. If they were diet counsellers we would no doubt be told that we can consume litres of ice cream without gaining calories.

Meanwhile the environmental NGOs remain silent about this ongoing ecological catastrophe, preferring to focus on the symptoms of immigrant-driven population growth---habitat and farmland loss---rather than offend their corporate donors by challenging it. A fact that escapes the scrutiny of both CBC journalists and those in the private media. Perhaps it would prove too traumatic for the public to learn that their white knights were in actuality the Green Collaborators, rendered mute by their quest for money from tainted sources. The environmental establishment enjoys the same immunity from media exposure that the Kennedys enjoyed during the Camelot era. David Suzuki was annointed by the CBC as a demi-god and selected as one the ten greatest Canadians of all time. But his outrageous off-camera behaviour remains the secret of frustrated onlookers who have witnessed it in a myriad of close encounters. It is amazing that our national icon can demand that politicans who dispute the theory of man-made climate change be jailed, while his foundation accepts money from the natural gas giant, Encana. Where is this vaunted tradition of investigative journalism that once graced the land? Obviously it died in the classrooms of the Carleton School of Journalism, Mother Corp's farm team. Exhuming politically incorrect facts is sacrilege in Canada, and most especially in the CBC, as witness its coverage of the Haitian disaster. According to them, no one ever died of overpopulation, and Canadian foreign aid has never played a role in promoting it. Poverty is the exclusive result of big bad corporations, corrupt governments and inequitable distribution. If Haitians or Ethiopians or Afghanis are having 5 children a piece, well, the answer is to send the surplus poor to Canada. Heaven forbid if we tied our aid to family planning and addressed the root cause of their misery. That might put our immigration industry out of work.

Of course, it is, our should be the duty of the media in an authentic democracy to "speak truth to power". The CBC should hold politicians "feet to the fire". But all politicians, not simply Conservative politicians. I have been cautioned, in the interests of impartiality, not to focus criticism on the NDP or the Greens for example. But the reality is this. The CBC has tilted the playing field in their favour. Should it not then by my duty to level by offsetting criticism of the sanctimonius centre-left?

Tim Murray
January 27/10
PS I still have not received a reply from the CBC regarding my previous complaint about biased coverage. Surprised?

No comments: