Eyewitness to Deceit : PM Trudeau’s Infowar on Freedom Convoy 2022 by TOM QUIGGIN & RICK GILL

Author:TOM QUIGGIN & RICK GILL [QUIGGIN, TOM & GILL, RICK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21: Assessing the Media’s Role in Deceit

Trust in the mainstream media has been in a free fall for several years. The problems that plague the media pre-date the Trudeau era and cannot be solely blamed on him. The issue of the digitalization of information has been a factor since at least the mid-1990s.

The relationship between trust in the media, trust in government, and citizens' belief in freedom and democracy is a complex situation.

The role of the media is, however, key for all of them. A well-functioning media is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy. Freedom and democracy are both required to earn the trust and support of the citizenry for the media and government.

In 2021, only 35% of Canadians said they trusted traditional media, compared to 38% in the previous year. Only 44% of people put faith in journalists to provide reliable information.[156]

The CTV, CBC, TVA, and the Globe & Mail all scored below 50% in trust ratings in 2021.

At the same time, governments in Canada saw a 10% drop in trust for 2021-2022. Currently, only 22% of Canadians saw governments of all levels as trustworthy – down from 32% the year before.[157]

Coincident with these two issues was the question of how Canadians feel about freedom in their country. In 2022, Canadians reported a striking decline of 13% when it came to how free they felt their country was. In 2020, 73% of Canadians said the country was performing well about the core value of freedom, but in 2022 that number had shrunk to 60%.

In 2020, 65% of Canadians were satisfied with its democratic values while in 2022, only 54% of respondents reported the same belief.

Buying the Press

The Government of Canada currently funds the CBC to the tune of $1.394 billion a year, according to their 2020-2021 annual report.[158]

The Government of Canada also has provided some $600 million to the mainstream press – at least those organizations selected by the government-appointed ‘independent panel’ itself.[159] These tax breaks and incentives are supposed to assist media organizations to make the transition from the analog age to the digital age.

The reality, however, is that many Canadians, including some journalists, see the $600 million program as little more than an attempt to buy off the media. The mainstream media is now becoming ‘state media’ in the eyes of many citizens.

Freedom Convoy 2022

As noted in earlier chapters, much of the reporting generated by the CBC and the rest of the mainstream media was false or at least heavily biased. Stories concerning ‘terrorist funding’ in GoFundMe or GiveSendGo were false. The idea that Russia was somehow behind the Convoy was simply manufactured with no evidence. The proposition that big American money was funding the Convoy was similarly dismissed.

The mainstream media complained about a lack of availability to the Freedom Convoy, but when invited to a presentation (Doctor’s Conference) not a single person showed up.

Assessment

Trust in the media in Canada was already low before the Convoy.

However, as one commentator in Canada stated, the media’s handling of the Freedom Convoy was “one-sided, inflammatory, (and) shameful.

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