Login / RegisterBroadcasters air lies about Thomas Mulcair because the CRTC allows it
Whenever I turn on CKNW Radio or News 1130, I seem to hear a vicious Conservative attack ad about NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair's "carbon tax".
Nothing gets me flipping the dial more quickly than this message.
That's because the ad is a bald-faced lie and any station that airs it does not deserve my time.
Mulcair has never supported a carbon tax, much to the chagrin of some environmentalists. It's not just me saying that he opposes a carbon tax. Maclean's columnist Paul Wells has also pointed out that the Conservatives are lying when they say Mulcair backs a carbon tax.
But the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which is a private-sector-run subcontractor to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, does nothing to stop these lies from repeatedly going out over the airwaves.
And that's undermining Canadian democracy.
Another self-regulatory body, Advertising Standards Canada, also hasn't done anything about the carbon-tax message, even though its code says that ads "must not contain inaccurate, deceptive or otherwise misleading claims".
I've previously reported that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters asked the federal broadcast regulator for the right to govern broadcast standards in 1986.
Five years later, the CRTC granted this wish.
So now when a private radio station airs a bald-faced lie—such as the one about Mulcair promoting a carbon tax—the public is encouraged to go to the industry-funded organzation. The very companies that make whopping sums of money from these outrageously false ads are, in effect, the referees.
That's a conflict of interest. A regulator should never be in a position to profit from its decisions.
If the NDP wants to scare the daylights out of the private-sector broadcasters that keep running these lies, there's a simple solution: promise to return the regulation of broadcast standards to the CRTC.
Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.
Only an ignorant moron would vote for a party that tells bald-faced lies, day after day.
Lie to me and I will do everything in my power to fu*k you around. I'm not as stupid and uninformed as a member of the Conservative base.
PS - CKNW is the most ridiculous radio station in Canada. They don't employ a single host with a functioning brain. That's why we now have Christy Clark as premier - stupid, biased and useless.
Maybe former sports reporter, Bill Good, will assume the leadership.
Yes, the Cons have resorted to the strategy of a Nazi propaganda artist to win public support and please their corporate masters. Nothing new here, actually...
They run another ad for the BC Liberals which only a person who has no knowledge of their disgraceful behaviour could fall for. "We're on our way to balancing the budget in 2015". I can't forget how they were wrong on the budget by around 900% before the last election and yet no mention of HST.
They don't seem to have any other advertising which makes me think I'm listening to pure government sponsored propaganda. I would turn it off but I'm not at home.
Is the CRTC complicit to allow these fables on air?
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
Joseph Goebbels
Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
How is that not a tax? Specifically, a carbon tax?
Taking money by force is taxation, you can call it cap-and-trade, or call it a handjob, or call it gaia stimulus, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a tax.
Keep your stick on the ice and your elbows up in the corner, we're in the stands rooting for you!
Please tell the class how this differs from the NDP cap-and-trade.
If you can't do so, logically, here's an idea: Shut up.
I guess you're having reading comprehension difficulties with the first sentence of my post. I didn't say it was different. I'm not defending the Conservatives here, they're just as stupid and useless as every other party. I'm simply stating that they're all miserable liars. When the NDP acts all righteous and indignant they're being hypocritical, as they are twisting the truth just like Harper.
Here's a better idea: If you can't deal with the idea that someone isn't on board with ANY of these pathetic slop-bucket-hoarding political gangs, maybe you should stop using the word "logic" in your feeble partisan attacks.
If one repeats a lie often enough then the simple matter of frequency causes the reader/listener/watcher to believe it.
An example: "The NDP left the province in financial ruin."
The truth: Premier Dosanjh left 1.6 billion in the Treasury.
The Lie: There will be no debt left after the 2010 Olympics. Some Irish blarney.
The Truth: Debt is over 6 million or billion--I forget--please check with Chris Shaw. Thanks.
the federal Conservatives under Stevie Harper walked into the biggest economic boom in Canadian history and screwed the Canadian taxpayers royally in favor of themselves and big corporations that line their pockets. And with the temporary foreign worker program we are really going to get shafted all while corporation and politician get rich from the deal that do nothing to benefit the average Canadian taxpayer and voter.
Just sayin' ;)
Perhaps now the people might even get a prospective on both sides of an issue. God forbid!
As it is, this all just comes off as more NDP whining. Man up for a change.
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