Global News retracts false allegations made against Western Standard’s Hannaford

Global News has apologised and retracted errors in its reporting of a speech given by the Western Standard’s Nigel Hannaford to the Calgary Leadership Prayer Breakfast October 19th.The apology was issued on the six and 11 o’clock news Sunday night and an Editor’s Note added to the October 25 Global website, noting “a portion of [the] story has been changed from the original.”.Hannaford was the keynote speaker at the prayer breakfast, where he talked of how "God has already provided answers for the problems the church faces today."Hannaford specified the problem Christians now face is “how we can live out our faith in a society that, led by our government, has abandoned absolute truth and no longer shares our values.”Hannaford offered Canada’s euthanasia program 'MAiD' (Medical Assistance in Dying) as an example of what happens when court judgments are detached from fundamental principles. The Supreme Court of Canada disallowed it in 1993, but in a complete reversal of opinion, then declared it a constitutional right in 2015.“You can’t make the case for MAiD from Scripture,” Hannaford said, pointing out Christian doctors must make a choice between what the government has made a "right" and violating the sixth commandment that forbids murder. And they might lose their job for it. Elaborating on the concept of Biblical truth in a secular world, Hannaford talked about what is being taught to children in schools regarding gender ideology, and unproven allegations that indigenous children were murdered in residential schools. He gave several examples, including a six-year-old girl in Ontario who came home and told her parents the teacher said “girls are not real and boys are not real,” as well as the narrative circulating since 2021 that it is an “established fact that Christian priests and nuns murdered indigenous children at residential schools. “If that’s true, it’s outrageous,” Hannaford declared.Global corrected their report of Hannaford’s statements, pointing out that he had actually said, “I can’t tell you that it is not true that Christians murdered indigenous children in residential schools. How would I know? But at the moment, this is nothing more than unexamined allegations.”“No excavations, no bones, no names, just an allegation that people of God threw kids into furnaces.”In a statement not included by Global, Hannaford said “these sites need to be examined. And until these examinations are complete, teachers must not be ordered to teach children murders occurred there.” “We must seek truth and reconciliation,” he said. “But truth requires the teaching of truth.”“And without truth, there can be no reconciliation.” .“Every journalist screws up from time to time," said Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt.Fildebrandt said. “And it's our responsibility to correct it and make it right.”“Global's done that here,” Fildebrandt continued, adding that the points made about Hannaford “mischaracterized” what was said and were “wildly out of context.”“But I'm glad that his bosses at least have seen the wisdom of correcting the record and doing the right thing,” he said.

Global News retracts false allegations made against Western Standard’s Hannaford

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