The Rewrite joins forces with The Hub, including the launch of a naughty new podcast designed to keep an eye on media

There could be some tough love involved in Making Journalism Great Again (and we definitely won't get invited to parties)

Podcast launches Thursday. Check it out

This week marks the beginning of The Rewrite’s association with The Hub.

That means the usual review of media trends found here will instead be published on alternating weeks in that independent online journal - one of only a handful left in Canada principled enough to refuse to take government funding.

That makes them a good fit for me and me hopefully a good fit there.

So, look for my usual media critique in TheHub.ca tomorrow - Jan. 14.

Two days later, on Jan. 16, The Hub’s Harrison Lowman and Lean Out’s Tara Henley will put me under their wings as we launch the Full Press - The Hub’s new media criticism podcast. There will be some tough love but, as with The Rewrite, the intention is always to nudge journalism back onto the straight and narrow.

The Rewrite’s version is now scheduled to return here on Jan. 21 - and fortnightly thereafter. In the meantime, here’s an updated version of something I recently wrote about what a re-elected Liberal government has in mind for churches, synagogues, temples and mosques.

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Given the uncertainty that hangs over its leadership, it’s not hard for Canadians to imagine a country without a fully functioning government.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is resigning, but he’s still hanging around doing interviews with MSNBC and CNN and representing the country at the funeral of former US President Jimmy Carter.

This week, the Prime Minister - as lame a duck as ever quacked - will convene a meeting of premiers as the nation braces for an economic assault from incoming US President Donald Trump. That could happen as soon as next week while most Liberals are preoccupied trying to figure out who will replace Trudeau.

Our world is chaotic, markets are “correcting” and the dollar is at 69 cents US but the functions of government are in no immediate risk of failing. Opposition MPs can’t bring it down because Trudeau has prorogued Parliament until March 24, when a new Liberal prime minister will have had just over two weeks to save the franchise.

In the meantime, though, the machinery of government is not at risk.

The government’s problem isn’t technical, in other words. But it nevertheless struggles to meet the definition of “fully functioning” because it has lost something that is both ethereal and essential: faith—the public’s faith in it and its faith in itself.

It is perhaps not as obvious to some as it is to others, but it appears obvious that even a government’s life depends on more than belts and roads.

In a post-Christian society such as ours, we don’t talk about the necessity of unseen powers and beliefs much anymore, and yet one doesn’t have to be religious to realize their value. Love, for instance, is unseen but deeply felt and motivates much, both good and bad. The same goes for belief or faith, whether it’s in each other, ourselves, or a higher power.

When I was a boy, the churches in this country were well-populated. Given that a lot of those buildings have now been turned into restaurants, or in some cases, mosques, it’s obvious that a lot of those in my generation chose not to make that weekly ritual a part of their lives. As a result, many of our children and grandchildren have never darkened the door of a house of worship where the Big Questions of life get discussed. They have no idea what goes on in there and what moral instruction they receive beyond the home comes only from the education system.

Now, if this troubled government follows the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance in its pre-budget consultations, the state is poised to deliver the coup de grâce to institutions of faith currently recognized as charities. Here are the recommendations of note:

“Recommendation 429: No longer provide charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.

“Recommendation 430: Amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.”

While the first of these would effectively eliminate any discussion of the matter at hand, it’s the second that really catches the eye as it would decimate 40 percent of the nation’s charitable sector.

The motivation for this is unclear, but one suspects it may be connected to the lack of knowledge many people have these days about what actually goes on inside churches. I can only speak for the one I attend, but contentious social issues have not been mentioned from the pulpit in at least 20 years. Other than salvation and forgiveness, what is spoken of is projects to help the poor and broken within our community, along with the funding of missions to Africa and Central America to build and staff schools and health-care facilities.

But if the majority of members of the standing committee have their way, not only would that work be wiped out, institutions that perform those sorts of duties—the Salvation Army is a good example—would be obliterated. Canada would become, officially, a country without a soul.

The think tank Cardus keeps its ears pretty close to the ground in Ottawa. Perhaps in anticipation of this move, it published a report in November that estimated the value to Canadian society of work done by the institutions that the government recommends “delisting.”

Among its key points are these:

• A religious congregation’s “Halo Effect” is the dollar value of its socio-economic contribution to society.

• The Halo Effect, and the value of tax exemptions and credits, were calculated for sixty-four Christian congregations in Canada.

• The congregations’ Halo Effect is 10.47 times the value of the tax exemptions and credits, on average. Put differently, the value of the tax exemptions and credits is less than one-tenth the value of what these congregations contribute socio-economically.

• The net-positive socio-economic contribution (Halo Effect, minus the value of tax exemptions and credits) of all religious congregations in Canada is an estimated $16.5 billion.

That, for Canada, is the physical manifestation of belief that would, if Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc takes the committee up on its recommendations, disappear in this spring’s budget.

Little wonder this sort of leaderless government is struggling to keep the public’s faith in it alive.

(Thank you for subscribing and reading. The original version of this commentary appeared in Epoch Times)

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(Peter Menzies is a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, former vice chair of the CRTC, current Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a consultant and commentator on media and regulatory affairs)