By ignoring the rampant and obvious anti-Conservative bias of Unifor, the Trudeau Liberals are making it abundantly clear that their goal is to destroy the freedom of the press and use the media to crush their political opponents.
With Canadians across the country outraged by the appointment of Unifor to the Trudeau government’s corrupt media bailout panel, the Trudeau Liberals are doubling down.
During a recent radio interview, Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez continually defended the move, and kept manipulatively avoiding any direct answer on the obvious problem of appointing a biased anti-Conservative group to a supposedly ‘non-partisan’ panel.
Here’s an extended excerpt of a transcript of the interview. Notice how Rodriguez keeps trying to pretend that Unifor isn’t directly campaigning against the Conservatives and tries to change the subject (interviewer questions in bold):
“I don’t know if you had a chance to read Chris Selley at the National Post … who says that that your putting Unifor on this panel is like putting the fox in charge of the chickens. How do you respond?
We chose different organizations that represent journalists and different media across the country with different regions being represented, both official languages, the ethnic press.
We wanted to make sure that it was representative of the industry, and that’s the reason why they’re all there.
Why Unifor?
It represents thousands of employees from the news sector.
But it also represents a very, very strong bias, doesn’t it? Because Unifor has made it quite clear that they call themselves “the resistance.” They have put out publicity. I’m sure you’ve seen their publicity: “The resistance: Welcome to Andrew Scheer’s worst nightmare.” If you want to have a panel that appears to be unbiased, how does that help you?
This is Andrew Scheer’s opinion, and …
Excuse me. No, no. This is not Andrew Scheer’s opinion. I’m looking at a picture put out. This is Unifor Canada’s picture.
We’re talking about professionals, which is the case of all the groups there are on this list.
And the reason why we wanted to intervene is because professional journalism is one of the pillars of democracy. And the Conservatives may think that, “Well, you know what? We shouldn’t do anything and then let them all die.”
On the contrary, we’re saying, “No, we have to be there to support them with one clear principle — to respect the freedom and independence of the press.”
That’s not the issue here. The issue is that you said you were going to put together a panel, an advisory panel, to decide who is going to get the funds, the $600 million worth of support to the media in this country, and that you would have an unbiased and an independent panel.
Yes, which is the case.
Mr. Rodriguez, have you not seen the publicity that Unifor is putting out calling themselves “the resistance” and saying, “Welcome to Andrew Scheer’s worst nightmare.” Have you not seen that?
I know what you’re talking about.
The Conservatives are saying that Unifor, any people working or any journalists, can be bought by this program, which is not the case, and I think it’s an insult to professional journalists that build their career on integrity and on independence and on professionalism.”
Rodriguez then goes on to stunningly claim that a series of facts – Unifor campaigning against both the Harper Government and the Conservatives now – is just ‘Andrew Scheer’s opinion’:
“We’re talking about the people on the panel. We’re not talking about the journalists who might be benefiting from these funds. We saw that Unifor, it was quite partisan during the 2015 election campaign, that they put out attack ads against Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, which surely helped you get elected. So, again, we’re back to this problem of an appearance of bias. That if you have, if you are giving this position to Unifor, to the union, to decide who is going to get this funding, when it’s an organization that has clearly come out … going against your political enemies, that’s a problem, isn’t it?
This is repeating what Andrew Scheer is saying. And, again, I have to disagree with you, because if you look at the role the associations are playing, the role … the journalists are playing, they’re there to ask the tough questions — just exactly like what you’re doing.
And also, this proves my point that we need that type of journalism of tough questions. And maybe the Conservatives, they don’t want to hear those questions, but I think they’re absolutely necessary in our democracy. So that’s why the panel is in place. That’s why we’re moving forward.
But you’ve asked this panel to help decide who is a proper journalist and what’s a proper news outlet and who is worthy of these funds. And who you’ve put on the panel that gets to decide that an organization that has a very, very strong, very partisan political statement.
But you keep repeating the same thing.
Because I’m not getting a very good answer from you.”
The arrogance and contempt for the facts from the Liberals is outrageous. Clearly, they intend to ignore everybody else, and move forward with putting Unifor on the corrupt media bailout panel. This government is now a clear and active danger to freedom of the press, and must be severely punished at the polls for their attempt to subvert our nation.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – Twitter
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