Former CBC employee Tara Henley’s explosive condemnation of the corporation highlighted the ethical decay of the public broadcaster.
She detailed what goes on behind the scenes to produce the biased, woke, radical political coverage disgusted Canadians increasingly tune out.
But the $1.5-billion price tag on the CBC’s ethical breaches extend beyond what Henley exposed.
The CBC — our tax dollars at work — is funding activism and anarchists to create Yintah, a documentary about the controversial B.C. Coastal GasLink pipeline for The Passionate Eye.
Seemingly urged by hardcore anarcho-socialist Franklin Lopez – who’s listed as an editor and producer of Yintah – the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) rallied to free defiant filmmakers arrested by RCMP.
Henley’s courageous article, Speaking Freely: Why I resigned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, appeared in Substack Monday. She was a TV and radio producer and occasional on-air columnist for a decade.
Instead of reflecting on how mainstream media fails the public and the CBC’s abandonment of journalistic integrity, mainstream journalists attacked and mocked Henley. One print reporter childishly tweeted Henley’s trying to “capitalize” on making “mad dough” at Substack.
Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole weighed in. He won the federal Conservative leadership partly on promising to defund and privatize the English branch CBC, saying taxpayers shouldn’t prop up the public broadcaster with abysmal ratings.
Now he just wants to fix it.
O’Toole tweeted to Henley: “Would love to sit down with you and hear your thoughts on how to fix the CBC. It’s time to start the conversation.”
O’Toole later tweeted he’d cut some CBC funding, despite campaigning on a promise to dismantle most of it.
Henley’s media critics sarcastically poked at her for not citing specific examples of CBC’s failings.
Well, Yintah’s a stark example of CBC crossing the line from clear journalism to support radical activism in an ongoing highly charged dispute.
Michael Toledano was one of two journalists among 15 people RCMP arrested November 19 at a eco-radical to an access road used by pipeline workers at the site of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, near Smithers B.C.
Self-declared Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs oppose construction of the 670-km natural gas pipeline through remote B.C. to a shipping terminal in Kitimat.
The pipeline’s supported by all 20 elected First Nations along its route who signed agreements that engage them in the development.
Members of the Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en expressed hurt and anger for being “misrepresented and dishonoured by a small group of protesters, many of whom are neither Gidimt’en nor Wet’suwet’en, but nonetheless claim to be acting in our name to protest natural gas development,” in a December 7 article penned for the National Post.
It has been an ongoing volatile situation with masked protesters, fires set, rocks hurled at vehicles, and pipeline workers held hostage in camp.
Toledano was working on the CBC documentary at the time of his arrest.
Also arrested was freelance photographer Amber Bracken, on assignment for The Narwhal, an online hardline environmentalist magazine.
The RCMP were enforcing a court injunction, clearing the area blocked by demonstrators calling themselves “land defenders” and “water protectors”.
Toledano and Bracken – held in custody for three nights – claimed to be victimized for exercising their journalistic right to cover protests.
On his website, Tolendano describes himself a reporter and independent filmmaker. His Twitter and Facebook posts suggest he’s more than that.
Enter anarcho-socialist Franklin Lopez.
On Twitter, Lopez says he’s a producer and editor of “upcoming doc about the Wet’suwet’en resistance.”
On December 6 Lopez tweeted: “Well the cat’s out of the bag, our film Yintah is a CBC production. I have to admit that this is not quite how I envisioned of letting y’all know. But for better or worse, the RCMP’s actions further unmask Canada’s brutal colonial thrust.”
Lopez, founder of the anarcho-socialist subMedia, has a dark history in this underground world.
His Twitter feed includes comments like: “You can always count on the fearless militancy of #Montreal anarchists tabarnak!”
It’s rife with videos of civil unrest, riots, property and vehicles set ablaze — and videos of the B.C. blockade areas.
On December 23 Lopez tweeted: “What better way to celebrate the holidays with family than by making and dropping a banner with your loved ones? From so-called BC: We put up this #AllOutForWedzinKwa banner on Dec 23rd in Burnaby, BC to celebrate the re-occupation of Coyote Camp.”
His “so-called BC” quip appears to align him with those who believe British Columbia must change its shameful colonialist name.
Past Lopez films include Invasion and Chokepoint: How to Stop Oil and Gas Pipelines, both filmed on Wet’suwet’en territory.
Chokepoint is billed as a series of short films that “document the direct actions that are effective in keeping the threats of oil and gas out. Stopping the corporations physically is paramount, as they’ll stop at nothing…”
He produced Street Politics 101, a film about the six-month 2012 Montreal student uprising. “This is a story about how the arrogance of a government underestimated a dedicated group of students, who through long-term organizing laid the foundation for some of the largest mass demonstrations in Canada’s history.”
Lopez is connected to ANTIFA – a violent neo-communist – and operates under numerous domains including submedia and itsgoingdown.
Back to Toledano.
On December 24 Toledano tweeted: “Charter rights trampled, so the public couldn’t see what the theft of Wet’suwet’en land looks like.”
Hardly words of an impartial reporter.
On Facebook Toledano summons opposition to sites. In September he urged people to “get yourselves out here” to a blockade event.
Toledano posted a video of a December 21 encounter with a Mountie who arrived on a site asking if someone else was there. He didn’t answer.
RCMP: “Hey Michael, you’re here on journalistic endeavors aren’t you, sir?”
Silence.
“You’re required to answer that question, Michael. Are you here as a journalist or as a protester?”
A surly Toledano asked: “What do you think?”
The Mountie reminds him he was ordered by the court to answer.
“I’m here as a journalist,” he finally said.
Toledano’s been accused of staging activities and participating in protests, not merely observing as media.
Nonetheless, the CAJ condemned his arrest as a violation of press freedom, expressing concern over RCMP interfering with journalists ‘reporting’ from the Wet’suwet’en territory.
Did the CAJ heed a November 22 call by Lopez on the Twitter feed YINTAH (Land) Feature Doc coming 2022?
Lopez ordered people to call on Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to “protect press freedom” and “stop illegal arrests” of Toledano and Bracken “so they can continue to bear witness to the colonial violence happening now in Wet’suwet’en.”
The CAJ sent a letter that day to Mendicino claiming Bracken, Toledano and others were “illegally” arrested.
“This moment demands your involvement to immediately release journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano, and to bring about a swift resolution respecting journalists’ fundamental rights. The national police force has repeatedly acted well beyond the law when dealing with members of the media, in defiance of court rulings. We ask you to exercise your oversight responsibility to correct these serious violations forthwith.”
CAJ noted Toledano lived in the Wet’suwet’en territory for three years to create Yintah to air in 2022.
It demanded the RCMP be held accountable for “repeated violations of the rights of media in Canada” and that journalists’ rights to report be protected.
Charges against Toledano and Bracken were dropped.
Is activism now acceptable journalism?
One-sided reporting? Toledano, Lopez, and the CAJ never acknowledged indigenous supporters of the pipeline under siege by protesters.
Professor and podcaster Jordon Peterson summed it up best in response to Henley’s article.
“It’s time to stop providing ANY public money to keep this corpse animated. The CBC lost its way long ago,” tweeted Peterson.
Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard
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