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On Thursday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, guest host David Menzies weighed in on an internal memo from the CBC that told its journalists not to call 9/11 a terrorist attack.

The memo, as first reported in the Toronto Sun, was signed by Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News, and instructed staff, “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks," directing them instead to say the hijackings led to passenger jet crashes.

It was circulated internally ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 24 Canadians. 

The facts of September 11 are not in dispute. Four commercial airliners were hijacked. Two were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center in New York, one was flown into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers. It was a deliberate attack carried out by al-Qaeda, which is not captured by the CBC’s preferred description of “passenger jet crashes.”

CBC spokeswoman Kerry Kelly defended the policy, pointing to the broadcaster’s "longstanding language guidance" and saying the CBC prefers to use “terrorist” and “terrorism” with attribution, a practice she said is shared by many of the world’s top journalistic organizations. She also told the National Post it was “wholly inaccurate” to say CBC journalists had been urged to declare that 9/11 was not a terrorist act. That is a distinction without a difference. It means the CBC can report that someone else called 9/11 a terrorist attack while avoiding using the term itself.

The definition of terrorism isn’t particularly complicated. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a terrorist as “someone who uses violent action, or threats of violent action, for political purposes.” Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda deliberately targeted the United States in a mass-casualty attack for political and ideological reasons. Even Saudi Arabia, where most of the September 11 hijackers originated, officially refers to the attacks as terrorism.

There is also a Canadian connection that should not be forgotten. Twenty-four Canadians were among those murdered on September 11, making this more than a chapter of American history. Canadian families lost loved ones that day, too.

The CBC receives roughly $1.4 billion a year from Canadian taxpayers, which makes its language policy more than an internal newsroom matter. Canadians are paying for a public broadcaster that has decided its journalists should avoid describing 9/11 as a terrorist attack, despite the overwhelming evidence establishing exactly what it was.

The CBC’s decision to avoid the word “terrorism” when describing September 11 raises serious questions about the standards being applied inside Canada’s publicly funded broadcaster, and whether Canadians should continue paying for a newsroom that refuses to use straightforward language to report the obvious.