Mediagate: Sun Media and CanWest Global in a Mockery of Democracy

Sun Media tries to block distribution of The Canadian while CanWest Global elites are Big Conservative Party Donors.

by Pierre Lemieux

Elections Canada has strict rules regarding political campaign expenses. These rules are supposedly designed to protect the integrity of the Canadian democratic process. However, it appears that the Conservative Party of Canada interests, have found a way of circumventing the integrity of Elections Canada-related democratic legislated safeguards.

How? It appears from the last federal election, that CanWest Global including its National Post and other chain of newspapers, and the Sun Media chain of newspapers have transformed media entities from the appearance of being nominally objective, to outright extensions of a Conservative Party of Canada propaganda machine. Indeed, the CanWest Global's newspapers together with Sun Media newspapers could be viewed to little more that huge Conservative Party pamphlets, that always dissemble, and create political spin for the Conservatives.

Elections Canada regulations regarding Elections Finances in the last federal election was entirely distorted by 'de facto' Conservative Party 'pamphleteering' via CanWest Global and Sun Media outlets. Thus, while these outlets criticized the Liberal Party's Sponsorship Scandal, they were also engaged in their own corresponding unethical conduct.

Just before the Canadian federal election, The Canadian encountered this apparent mockery of democracy presented by Sun media specifically, when their very editors in the Toronto Sun blocked the timely national distribution of The Canadian. These senior editors apparently objected to a critical article about apparent support by Conservative Party of Canada elites for a fully privatized healthcare system in Canada. These senior editors also apparently objected to articles and commentary supporting the affirmation of human rights, social justice, and environmental protection in Canada. Apparently such stories are too "controversial" for the Sun Media, which begs the question about how many other vital stories from their own reporters does the Sun Media chain cover-up on a daily basis, so their apparent support for "Yankee-Doodle" Conservative Party interests?

The Hill Times reported in February 6, 2006, that David Asper, the Vice-President of CanWest Global, and Gail Asper, were in fact 'Top Donors' to the Conservative Party Election Campaign. Collectively the Aspers reportedly donated a maximum of $10,000.00. This whopping donation is on top of the quasi in-kind donations of apparent systematized pro-Conservative Party of Canada stories, designed to "manipulate the masses", and which is arguably worth many millions.

These included front page stories like 'Canadians support Privatized Healthcare', which are not factual, but are released with sensationalised conviction, in an apparent bid to unethically sway Canadians voters.

CanWest Global specific apparent mission appears to be try to persuade Canadians into selling-out our country, to a plethora of American corporate interests from privatized healthcare; to the destruction of dynamic Canadian cultural institutions like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; to our independent foreign policy traditions.

It is perhaps thanks to the critical scepticism of Canadians, relative to Americans, that the Conservatives did not get a majority, after Canadians were bombarded hourly, and daily, by apparent Sun Media and Global CanWest pro-Conservative Party of Canada 'pamphleteering'. Indeed less sceptical Americans, are well coerced by their corporate mass-media. Such pamphleteering in Canada, arguably circumvents the integrity of Elections Canada regulations.

That scepticism has somewhat been graphically and symbolically revealed by Sun Media and National Post newspaper boxes. Their boxes are frequently strewn with graffiti like 'Lies, Lies, Lies', among other forms of less graphic, but critical healthy Canadian scepticism.

CanWest Global's David Asper got involved with the Conservative campaign in Toronto, on Jan. 12, 2006 when he reportedly wrote a letter of support for Conservative candidate Peter Kent, a former Global news anchor who is running for a seat in Toronto against Liberal cabinet minister Carolyn Bennett. In the letter, Asper rebuked the Liberal party for its "botched campaign attack ad alleging the Conservatives would put armed soldiers on the streets of Canadian cities." The "big splash" so-to-speak, came Jan. 17, when Asper appeared in person at a jammed Toronto Conservative campaign rally to introduce Kent.

Canada's news media has suffered from slow rot for decades. As a result of cross-ownership, corporate censorship and marginalized diversity, our entire country has been "dumbed-down" first by Conrad Black who calls himself a "Darwinian capitalist", and now, David Asper.

The result? Vancouver, for example, has become the most media monopolized city in North America.

In Vancouver, news that isn't from CanWest is scarce. The company controls both daily newspapers, a popular news weekly, two available TV stations and a radio station. Thanks to "convergence," they simply dominate Canada's third-largest city's flow of information and news. Same goes for the entire province of Saskatchewan, where the only dailies in Saskatoon and Regina, the two main cities, are CanWest controlled.

It is vital that Elections Canada in association with the diverse Canadians public and their elected representatives, should explore an ethics review of mass media coverage in the last Federal Election. It is vital for the civic health of Canadian democracy, that the specific coverage of elections campaigns are not undermined by apparent attempts to use private corporate power to politically manipulate on behalf of a partisan interest, in a manner that violates parliamentary legislation.

The free flow of information among citizens is vital to the health of a democracy. Such free flows of information, unhindered by elite corporate interests, provides for a more informed citizenry, that can also better evaluate the range of electoral choices in elections.

A management of a socially responsible media organization is cognizant of that honourable facilitative role.

In contrast with such a role, it is apparent that the Sun Media and CanWest Global elites, collectively, seek to use their corporate media assets to deny the free flow of information to Canadians. These elites seek to politically proselytize in a manner that will benefit their pursuit of pro-Conservative partisan venality, and the sell-out of Canada.

In the last federal election, the portrayal of former Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin as leader of a completely corrupt political party, in contrast with the portrayal of the Conservative Party as being led by the most ethically outstanding and righteous individuals, that have ever graced politics in the history of humankind, is a mockery.

The Conservative Party of Canada was conceived by a mass-deception of Canadian Tories who sought to maintain the former Progressive Party of Canada (PC) that founded Canada under former Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald. This deception included what happened to former PC leadership candidate David Orchard, who was apparently chicaned out of tens of thousands of dollars, after he had been promised in writing by current Deputy Prime Minister Peter MacKay, that the PC party would not "merge" with the ultra-right Alliance Party, that had been led by current Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The extent to which this "merger" was championed by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who arguably led the most notoriously scandalized government in Canadian history, that continues to "oversee" the current Harper government, are the kind of facts that have been covered-up by mass-media political manipulation. Indeed, having achieved a Conservative minority government, Sun Media and CanWest Global confederates now look forward to use their mass-media political clout to campaign for a Conservative majority government.

How can Canadians rely on such media organizations for politically objective information, when the leadership of these media organizations fund and campaign for well-defined political party interests; and try to interfere with the ability of Canadians to access critical investigative journalism?

The greatest threat to national unity in Canada is not Quebec separatism, but mass-media organizations which in their pursuit of social control, greed, and iniquity, champion political interests that seek to destroy Canada. The national survival of Canada relies on voices in the spirit of former Prime Minister Trudeau, and Tommy Douglas, who can lead a resistance to cynical attempts by those interests which seek to undermine the fulfillment of our national destiny as a socially progressive society.