EXCLUSIVE: CBC demands Ezra Levant change story on $34 million COVID bailout
Exclusive internal CBC communications obtained by Rebel News show the internal reaction after several online media outlets — none of which receive bailout money from Justin Trudeau — published a series of articles on a Liberal tabling of spending which included nearly $34 million in extra funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
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Initial Story: Trudeau Cabinet Tables $34 Million in Supplemental Funding For CBC
On Friday October 23, 2020, Blacklock's Reporter broke a story revealing new funding tabled by the Liberal cabinet:
The CBC is to receive a net 9.8 percent increase in funding this year including a $33,733,999 grant to offset the “Covid-19 impact to advertising revenues and operating costs”, according to a budget document Supplementary Estimates (B) 2020-21 tabled in the Commons. The funding raises the network’s total federal grant this year to $1.3 billion.
Several outlets, including Rebel News, followed up with news pieces pointing back to the Blacklock's article.
Our story was published in the early afternoon of October 23, and included some additional commentary on the network's loss of $175 million in Hockey Night in Canada revenue:
CBC to get $34 MILLION in COVID-19 bailout funding from Trudeau Liberals
CBC Reacts: Take That Off The Internet!
The following Monday, October 26, the CBC released a rebuttal statement:
Over the past several days, a number of Internet sites including Blacklock's Reporter, the Post Millennial, Rebel Media, and True North, have been claiming, “CBC-TV Gets A Covid Bailout” and “Trudeau Liberals give failing CBC-TV bailout”. The reports have been amplified on social media.
These claims are incorrect.
So we submitted an Access to Information request to find out more about the CBC's internal communications behind this news release.
CBC Emails Ezra Levant
On the morning of October 26, CBC's Leon Mar appears to have emailed Rebel News:
I write with a correction to your October 23 report, CBC to get $34 MILLION in COVID-19 bailout funding from Trudeau Liberals, regarding “$34 million in extra funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.”
Both this article and the Blacklock's Reporter story on which it is based are erroneous. CBC/Radio-Canada has received no additional money from government. Rather there has been a transfer within our existing funding from our capital appropriation to our operation appropriation. As is clear from the government documents quotes (Supplementary Estimates B), this is an “internal reallocation of resources” — i.e. a transfer within our existing funding.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Ezra Levant Responds
Read the whole thing.
Hi Leon.
As your reporters will likely tell you, I do not engage with anyone from Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster until they first disavow the corporation's endemic culture of bigotry, including the misogynistic culture epitomized by Jian Ghomeshi and the anti-Black culture epitomized by Wendy Mesley.
As the director of “issues management”, I suspect you were deeply involved in both of these scandals, including the outrageous and likely illegal “war room” set up to discredit Ghomeshi's accusers. You also likely knew of Mesley's racism and were part of the internal cover-up.
Because I don't like to deal with bigots, I will reply to your letter only after we clear up this old business: will you renounce and apologize for the CBC's culture of misogyny and anti-Black racism?
You can follow Ezra on Twitter @EzraLevant.
CBC Reporter Florence Ngué-No Complains: No Corrections Yet!
The next day, (@fngueno on Twitter) of Radio-Canada contacted Leon about the lack of corrections (English translation provided by Google Translate):
Bonjour Leon,
Voici une mise a jour au sujet des medias qui ont rapporte de fausses au sujet de notre financement. Aucun des 4 articles n'a ete corrige.
[Hello Leon,]
[Here is an update on the media reporting falsehoods about our funding. None of the 4 articles have been corrected.]
Insult directed at Sheila Gunn Reid cited as proof of fake news
In the same email sent on October 27, Ngué-No tagged a Rebel News tweet (available here) as an example of recidivism:
Le reportage est toujours en ligne et n'a pas ete corrige. Le 25 octobre Rebel Media a recidive avec ce tweet:
[The story is still online and has not been edited. On October 25 Rebel Media recidivated with this tweet:]
Ngué-No then adds an insulting reply from a Twitter user:
You keep calling yourself a reporter Sheila. A sloth has more energy than you for reporting REAL NEWS. Keep pushing as like you know what is going on. helps them in blaming it all on ones like you. LAZY AF REPORTERS At Rebel News ... you make CBC look like PRO's
The Twitter user attacked Sheila for not reporting “real news”, which Ngué-No interprets in her email to Leon to constitute an allegation that Rebel News is “fake news”:
L'histoire continue de faire reagir sur les reseaux sociaux. La aussi certains realisent qu'il s'agit de “fake news”.
[The story continues to react on social networks. There too some realize that this is “fake news”.]
Please note that Sheila Gunn Reid was not the author of the original piece.
Current Status Of Article
Unchanged. Read it here.
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