Pro-tip from Olivia Chow and her CBC division: election still “pretty far away!”

“Pretty far away”!  The prescience! The time-sensing acuity! The amazing time-wariness of upcoming things! The shear audacity of her making such a nuanced philosophical time analysis! And the CBC had the scoop. And featured it as a feature news item on the front page of their taxpayer-funded website, as seen at right. Right under the four-alarm fire. Oh thank God for the CBC.

Spit.

In reality, this is of course just another very, very poor excuse for the state-owned CBC to once again blab about their gal for Toronto, the socialist MP Olivia Chow; and a chance once again to gratuitously hype her as a potential candidate in the upcoming Toronto mayoral election. No news, nothing of importance to report at all  —  just an airy thought blurted out loud while skating at a park. Actually, just a terrible editorial decision to blithely boost another far-left politician who is of their political mindset (socialist).

Here’s the core, central part of their “news” item:

And accompanying the big story, there’s even a long “news” video of the candidate skating and pondering her election moves. It’s news! Paid for by taxpayers. It’s a lengthy video, in which the reporter repeats the questions over and over. Will she declare? When will she declare?!  They even ask passers-by. It’s the most useless piece of video since the CBC’s latest 10-minute-long national weather report.

The left-wing media all do this. CBC is not alone. The CBC has, and will continue, to keep mentioning Chow’s name, for any reason or no reason whatsoever, as they did in this case. They have and will bring her name up over and over, because they know that for election-winning, name-recognition is all important to their low-information voter base. Low-info voters are both the progressives’ and the CBC’s base. Yes irony abounds here, since the CBC holds itself out as the official state explainer of important stuff for all of us dumb-ass non-reporters and non-city-dwellers. They do exactly the same kind of booster work for the NDP generally, from coast to coast. Today, the NDP and their socialists like Olivia Chow exist almost entirely because of this irrational, incessant, gratuitous, left-wing news media boosterism.

Journalistically this is unprincipled, biased, absolute junk journalism. And the CBC should feel as ashamed of themselves as most Canadians are of the ridiculous state-owned broadcaster. But the CBC never do feel shame. They’re far too arrogant. They just rationalize it and make excuses.

And here’s more on that left-wing, beyond reproach, state-owned CBC:

For a while there I’d started wondering if the new name for the state-owned broadcaster was “Duffy-gate.” The conservative-loathing CBC has been trashing Conservative senators at every turn with regard to the Senate expense scandal, or what they strive to have you think of as the Conservative Senate scandal-nado apocalypto armageddon-gate. They have been doing this breathless, alarmist Conservative senate scandal reporting almost as injudiciously as their “man-made global warming “alarmist reporting, even while they are now quietly admitting that their own CBC President and CEO has been mired in an expense scandal of his own. And it has been going on for many years. Since 2007. And they’ve known about it  —  and didn’t report it to us  —  for months.  Since June of last year.  That’s also “pretty far away!” And they’ve been hiding this while reporting on the senate scandal. And that’s “pretty scandalous.”

And I do mean they’re only quietly admitting it now. No news item at CBC.ca. No featured Olivia Chow-style hyperventilating over nothingburgers. I searched.

This admission of improper expenses wasn’t reported as news at all at the taxpayer-funded CBC.ca news website, and certainly not as a front-page-featured news item like that big caper about Olivia Chow’s grand assessment of the time between now and the next Toronto election. It was buried on their completely unknown “corporate” (“corporate?” Dear God) web site, cbc.radio-canada.ca, which nobody ever goes to or sees, ever.

Hilariously, their headline on this “non-story” is “CBC/Radio-Canada’s continued commitment to transparency.” Well not as much “hilariously” as “insultingly.”

Personally, I think the news story about the head of a taxpayer-funded, state-owned news media behemoth claiming and receiving illicit expense reimbursements for years on end without anybody noticing, is huge. It’s indicative of big, huge, out-of-control government. Olivia Chow’s prognostications on the time of day? Indicative only of pure bullcrap.

But the juxtaposition is not the main point. The main point is that it happened without even being reported as a major problem.

Here’s a snippet from their “nothing to see here” non-story at that non-news corporate web site:

Neither the President’s office nor the people who process expense claims were aware of the appendix to the bylaws .The total amount of Ottawa-related expenses dating back to November 2007 was $29, 678.11. The President and CEO claimed these expenses in accordance with the practice in effect when he came in.

Notice a couple of things: first of all, they admit that none of them even knew their own bylaws. No accountants, no secretaries, no auditors, nobody. They “weren’t aware,” they say, as if ignorance is an excuse in this case, and their ignorance means it’s not bad. It sounds like the senate expense scandal only worse.

Also notice the nuance of their smarmy “reporting.” This practice of illicitly reimbursing the CBC president and CEO has been going on not just since he was hired in 2007, but before that. The new President and CEO merely claimed expenses “in accordance with the practice in effect when he came in.” So they were doing this before he came in, too? Did they then count-up all that illicitly reimbursed cash paid-out before 2007 as well? How long has this been going on? Why stop at just 2007 when the practice merely resumed?

Apparently they don’t have the resources to investigate this, as all their reporters are busy researching Stephen Harper’s sweater choice.

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Joel Johannesen

Writer and Executive Editor for ProudToBeCanadian.ca.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.

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