Team Trudeau, journalists join forces to amplify fears Pierre Poilievre will turn his back on government funding for media

Conservative leader's failure to confirm continuation of federal programs prompts wild accusations of pandering, lying and misleading. Plus! AM talk radio dies in Hamilton and always helpful tips!

Some news organizations have begun to bare their teeth and their bias in the fight to retain federal subsidy dollars.

In doing so, they are displaying a willingness to unashamedly defend Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government in order to preserve the funding regime it established to help media struggling to adapt to the digital age.

Over the past five years, Trudeau’s government has introduced hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for news organizations approved by a Canada Revenue panel. There is every reason to believe that in the year ahead and as we move closer to an election, those supports will continue to be enhanced and extended as they have been since they were introduced five years ago as temporary measures. The prospect of all that loot being ripped like a soother from an infant’s mouth by Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives has the business on edge and, over the next year, it appears likely we will see an increasing number of outbursts.

Poilievre recently visited Niagara-on-the-Lake and said some things about media funding that so enraged Niagara Now that it wrote what Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff, described on X as the longest editorial in its history.

Before we get into this, let me clear: I don’t really care that Poilievre got slapped around. What I care about is an independent news industry that can be trusted to put the public’s interests ahead of its own.

Referring to Poilievre, Editor-in-Chief Richard Harley writes early that “what he’s really the best at is pandering, lying and misleading.” About 1,500 words later, he states:

“So it’s our duty as a free press — one that isn’t going to take anything at face value from any political party — to call out Poilievre’s dangerous lies. Or his inability to comprehend the truth.

“Either he’s lying to you and knows it. Or he’s just incompetent.”

Phew. Little wonder Telford was happy to bring those words - distributed coast to coast via National Newswatch - to the attention of her 65.8k followers.

Niagara Now’s editorial works hard to explain why Poilievre is lying, pandering and misleading when he refused to endorse the Trudeau government’s approach, which has resulted in, according to some observers, close to half of newsroom salaries becoming dependent on the government in power.

It is based on a news report by Richard Wright, a Local Journalism Initiative-funded reporter for The Lake Report. The story editorializes heavily (unattributed statements of opinion presented as fact) while fussing about “the internet, where stories are “shared by people not trained in journalism and whose ethical standards or motivations may be suspect.”

It is based on an interview with Poilievre who, when asked whether he would continue to subsidize local journalism, said he was “looking into it” but that Trudeau has “tried to take it over and basically wants everyone to work for the government so that he can have regurgitated propaganda paid for by taxpayers.”

Poilievre went on to say, according to the report (which was also shared across the country and picked up by UNIFOR), that he thought the solution was for media to find new ways to rebuild traditional sources of support - subscriptions, sponsorships and advertising.

You may or may not find those statements provocative. Obviously, Niagara Now did. Its editorial repeats long discredited tropes about how Meta and Google have refused to share fantastic profits allegedly earned through the carriage of news links. Among other stretches, it states “there’s no such thing as a censorship law” when the pending Online Harms Act is very clearly all about censorship and insists Google has agreed to “pay for the privilege” of carrying news when in fact it agreed to pay what amounts to a $100 million ransom in order to be exempted from the Online News Act.

While wrong and misleading on multiple fronts, the editorial sure stoked up Telford and many of the Liberal Members of Parliament that, de facto, report to her. To their supporters, the Niagara Now polemic added fuel to a post-Olympics narrative they had established to highlight the folly of Poilievre’s vow to “defund the CBC.”

This politicization of media by the government was not expected until early next year. That’s when I thought Telford and others behind the curtains of power would begin making it clear to the press who their daddy was. And I didn’t think media panicked by the prospect of Poilievre ripping Trudeau’s financial security blankets from their grasp would begin unleashing both barrels on the Conservative leader until next spring or at least until he promised, if elected, to keep the dollars coming.

But here we are, already. I should also make clear that there increasingly few platforms that value public trust in their independence and are willing to post commentary critical of the government’s growing financial leverage in the newsrooms of the nation. That’s the main reason why The Rewrite exists.

Most media are happy, though, to reject commentary offering alternative viewpoints on media funding and take the cash. Had they been more open in their approach, perhaps their employees might have a more informed view

That may explain how Niagara Now holds its views honestly, if incorrectly. But blasting editorials stating “it’s our duty as a free press …. to call out Poilievre’s dangerous lies” next to the Government of Canada logo on its website is unlikely to convince readers its opinions are unrelated to its funding source.

As Sean Speer of The Hub put it:

“The news media tell us that the public subsidy regime won’t influence its journalism.

“Yet here’s an entire editorial dedicated to calling Pierre Poilievre a liar because he disagrees that the government should directly and indirectly subsidize the newspaper.”

Expect a lot more of this in the next 14 months. A lot.

(A version of this commentary was posted in The Hub on Monday)

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In my decade as a CRTC commissioner, I heard frequently from broadcasters concerning the inefficiency of AM radio and how it was only suitable for all-news and talk formats.

Now, it’s looking like even all day chatter won’t be enough in an online world of emailed news updates, podcasts and “hey Google, what’s the latest news from city council.”

After almost a century of service, Hamilton’s CHML 900 signed off the air last week, its death sentence delivered as part of owner Corus Entertainment’s desperate efforts to stay afloat. All things must pass, one supposes, and there are always new media births to celebrate.

But as Ecclesiates and The Byrds inform us, to every thing there is a season. Last week was a time to mourn.

As Matt Gurney wrote for TVO:

“I’ve been the guy deciding who gets downsized, and I’ve been the guy who’s gotten downsized. It is a fact of life in our world. Sometimes the cuts genuinely did reduce duplication and waste. But I think all the fat was trimmed away from Canadian legacy media companies a long time ago. Every cut now cuts into muscle and bone.”

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Veteran journalist Terry Glavin delivered a good tip to colleagues in the industry last week when commenting on a True North post that showed the Prime Minister, when asked about possible tariffs, responding with a speech (it’s not unfair to call it a rant) about his Conservative opponent.

“He keeps getting away with this routine,” Glavin posted. “A tip from a veteran: ‘Sorry to interrupt Mr. Prime Minister but we've been waiting for an answer to this question for weeks. I'm on deadline. I have to file now. Could you please just answer the question. Thanks.’”

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I recently gave a Q & A interview with Canadian Affairs’ Fin DePencier concerning the future of the CBC.

The gist of it is that, if the Conservatives are indeed planning to “defund the CBC” they have a lot of work to do unless their intention is to kill it entirely. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend that - killing it entirely, that is - although I can understand why many in English Canada harbour that desire.

This is a topic that deserves a lot more discussion and I maintain the belief that the Canadian news industry cannot find full health so long as the government is funding the CBC while allowing it to compete with the private sector for advertising - TV and digital. In the meantime, you can check out the interview and the Canadian Affairs website here.

Thanks also to The Hub and the interest of reporter Elie Cantin-Nantel, who interviewed me for a story on the shifting tides of media relevance and the Musk-Trump interview.

Next week, The Rewrite will be gauging the reaction to broadcaster and Born Again Liberal Charles Adler’s appointment to the Senate.

Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former publisher of the Calgary Herald and a previous vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).