Roasting the Press Episode 45 for Sunday, October 27th, 2024
The CRA and the Courts Define Canadian Journalism Badly, The Children’s Aid Society of Peel vs. Maria Hosannah + RFK Jr. & Russell Brand Talk “Critical Thinking.”
The CRA and the Courts Define Canadian Journalism Badly
As noted in the October 18th, 2024 Freedom Forum post, “Canada's Government Media Funding Strategy is a Total Failure,” the Justin Trudeau Liberal government has set up a complicated series of tax credits and grants which essentially covers most of the journalism related activities for legacy media content creators in Canada, even when those content creators are foreign based.
The tax credits and grants provide hundreds of millions of dollars annually to mostly legacy media outlets.
It covers 1/2 to 2/3 the salary of pretty much every legacy media journalist in the country but depends on working for an organization certified as a “qualified Canadian journalism organization (QCJO) under Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) rules.
The CRA designation allows accredited news outlets to receive salary support for journalists plus allows the news outlets subscribers to receive tax credits up to $500 CDN for taking out subscriptions to the news service.
But not all media outlets are allowed to claim the funding.
The September 19th, 2024 Canadian Press post, “Rebel News Not Eligible for Journalism Tax Credits, Canadian Court Rules,” notes that Rebel News applied in 2021 to be designated as a “Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO) under Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) rules, but was rejected.
According to the Canadian Press story:
A Federal Court judge has upheld the federal government's decision that far-right media outlet Rebel News doesn't qualify for journalism tax credits because it doesn't produce enough original news content.
The decision is the latest installment in a long-running battle between Rebel News and the federal government. The outlet applied in May 2021 to be designated a "qualified Canadian journalism organization," but was rejected by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which found that less than one per cent of its content was original news.
Rebel appealed the decision. The Canadian Press post noted that:
The media outlet (Rebel) then sought a judicial review in Federal Court, but in a decision Wednesday, Justice Ann Marie McDonald found the revenue agency's decision was "justified, transparent and intelligible."
Her ruling notes that the agency assessed 423 news reports from Rebel News published during the three-week period (between January 30th and February 19th, 2022, which is when a trucker convoy occupied downtown Ottawa demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions.) and found that only 10 were original news items.
Of the rest, "283 of the items were not based on facts, nor were multiple perspectives actively pursued, researched, analyzed, or explained by a journalist for the organization," the judge wrote. "A further 135 of the news items were identified as being curated content or material rewritten from other sources."
Justice McDonald also rejected the argument that the Federal governments “qualified journalism” designation “violates the principles of a free press” by pushing media companies to become "reliant on and incentivized by government to conform to their standards:"
… McDonald rejected that argument, finding that the media outlet failed to "explain or offer any evidence on how the refusal of status to allow it to receive tax credits impedes its ability to work or impedes its freedom of the press."
So, since Rebel News can function financially without the tax credit, its ability to act as a news organization is “unimpeded,” at least according to the court decision.
Perhaps the courts, Justice McDonald and the CRA simply want to save the money for the Globe, the Star, the National Post and the rest of the evidently unprofitable legacy media.
The Canadian Press piece, structured as it was for the unwashed masses did seem to ignore the core of the Rebel News court case, which revolved around the concept of holding a perspective.
It’s what the court called “advocacy journalism,” and they didn’t seem to like it.
The September 20th, 2024 The Deep Dive post, “Court Finds Rebel News Failed to Prove It’s Real Journalism” understands this perspective. According to the post:
In a significant ruling, the Federal Court of Canada dismissed a challenge brought by Rebel News Network, rejecting their application for Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization (QCJO) status.
The decision, which highlights the distinction between journalism and activism, upheld the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) finding that Rebel News does not produce sufficient original news content to qualify as a legitimate news outlet under the Income Tax Act.
The story references CRA regulations much like the Canadian Press story and also notes the CRA internal analysis of Rebel news content:
In its analysis, the CRA found that of the 423 news reports submitted by Rebel, 283 were not based on facts or multiple perspectives, while 135 were identified as curated or rewritten from other sources. Only 10 reports were considered original news content.
The court essentially concluded that 283 news reports Rebel produced during the trucker convoy protests were “not based on facts or multiple perspectives,” but were instead “advocacy pieces” lacking “sufficient” alternative perspectives.
80% of Rebel News reporting during the period between January 30th and February 19th, 2022, when a trucker convoy occupied downtown Ottawa and other locations across Canada demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions, was about the protests.
It was a reasonable story for a news outlet to focus on during that period.
The imposition of the Emergencies Act in February 14th, 2022, essentially a Canadian government declaration of martial law in the midst of the already almost total lockdown of much of Canada via government healthcare edicts during the great pandemic of 2020 - 2022, was also a responsible choice for any respectable news outlet to cover.
An anecdotal, mostly personal perusal of Canadian news coverage during that period suggests that the only real difference between Rebel News and the coverage of its legacy media competitors was that Rebel generally filed coverage supportive of the protesters and their aims but critical of government actions.
Legacy media outlets who received CRA accreditation as QCJOs generally filed coverage critical of protestors and supportive of government actions during that period.
Canadian government position papers were also highly supportive of the Emergencies Act during that period.
As noted in the May 26th, 2024 Freedom Forum post, “The Historic Concept of "Judicial Notice" Has Been Twisted by Canadian Courts,” the courts can, at any time, invoke the judicial concept of “judicial notice” to dismiss viewpoints critical of government policies as being “not based on facts.”
This seems to be what happened with the CRA and Justice McDonald.
To be fair to Rebel, and as noted in the January 23rd, 2024 Freedom Forum post, “Federal Court rules use of Emergencies Act was Unconstitutional and Unreasonable,” Canadian courts eventually agreed with Rebel’s perspective.
So why was Rebel News really denied its CRA journalism accreditation? The public may never know because the CRA refuses to release documents related to its internal deliberations.
The CRA report referenced in both news reports and the original court case transcript (Rebel News Network Ltd. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2024 FC 1468 (CanLII) ) isn’t available for public perusal or criticism.
So we need to take the CRA and the courts word that only ten Rebel News reports out of 423 were “original news content” during the three week period covering the Trucker Convoy protests.
Justice McDonald might consider this absence of documentation as irrelevant to her conclusion that “The CRA’s decision is reasonable, justified, and in line with the facts and the law,” but others won’t.
But Justine McDonald is wrong and her decision will hopefully be overturned by a higher court.
The court documents then noted a second disparaging claim against the Rebel News financing model in the CRA report:
The Advisory Board determined that crowdfunding requests for legal fees were contrary to the Guidelines and the Act,” the court ruling noted.
Justice McDonald affirmed this, writing, “The role of Rebel’s founder and reporters in directly soliciting funds from their audience for legal causes was deemed inconsistent with journalistic processes, further reinforcing the CRA’s assessment.”
Justice McDonald didn’t say which “journalistic processes” were inconsistent with publishers and journalist directly soliciting funds from readership.
Media publishers, self publishers/journalists and their subscription offices are typically required to develop competence in financing and accounting.
The logic behind this court finding, since its based on the internal CRA report, is also unavailable for public scrutiny.
Hopefully, her decision will be overturned by a higher court.
To be fair, Rebel isn’t the only news organization which has been denied certification as a QCJO.
The August 12th, 2024 Canadian Dimension post, “What doesn’t qualify as journalism in Canada seems a bit arbitrary,” while discussing the Rebel News application, also notes at least two other news organizations in Canada denied CRA journalism tax credits.
Narcity, which publishes blogs in major cities across North America that tell you about interesting places to visit, things to do and restaurants to try.
KelownaNow, a local news website that helps to keep residents of BC’s third-largest metropolitan area informed. It is chock full of public safety announcements, road closures, product recalls and celebrity sightings.
The Canadian Dimension post notes that the CRA doesn’t want to talk about journalism tax credits:
Because the bailout was provided as tax credits, however, a cone of silence has descended around the whole process.
The post also notes that, while there is no list of government accredited journalists, the CRA does maintain a list of 188 qualifying digital news subscriptions on its website.
There’s also a list of the dozen or so RJOs, or Registered Journalism Organizations which are both non-profit and have been granted charitable status by the CRA and can thus issue tax-deductible receipts for donations.
Overall, things seem a little bit hypocritical. CRA publishes PR pieces listing government accredited journalists but isn’t really big on substantive details and those critical of the government are most ignored.
In conclusion, Rebel News Network Ltd. v. Canada (Attorney General), 2024 FC 1468 (CanLII is a problematic Canadian court case attempting to define Canadian journalism.
It’s failed, primarily because the presiding justice depends almost entirely on internal government documents unavailable for public scrutiny.
Legacy media has also distorted and mostly misunderstands the case, which actually seems to be focused around the difference between holding a “perspective,” which is a good thing for a media outlet to do, and being an “advocate” for a certain perspective, which is a bad thing to be.
The Children’s Aid Society of Peel vs. Maria Hosannah
Our second story is the story of how the Canadian Crown sometimes grabs children in plain sight.
One of the ways they do so in Ontario is by acquiring “crown wardships,” through the Peel Children's Aid Society (CAS) by acquiring an order at family court.
Victory in court for these agencies is a CERTAINTY.
The agencies are professional court apprehenders and the Court serves the Crown and airs to bias the CAS/ CPS, giving what it wants even against rules.
The agencies drum up a narrative of the parents as criminals/unfit/incompetent both to convince the community, the family and the parents themselves. Hence, even when the court case by CAS/CPS is flimsy and evidently with holes, the bias or spell to the crowds make the parents targets that the community shuns and hates which allows for children to be taken.
Criminal proceedings are a key secondary weapon by the Crown to assist the kidnapping.
Here is a story wherein the Crown drummed up via criminal proceedings, that parents fight for their lives with a shunning from community which enabled the primary weapon the CAS taking the children for adoption, and they lost their children despite the appeal win.
Sources used for this discussion include:
The October 20th, 2020 National Post story, “Ontario couple convicted of killing their toddler through malnutrition get new trial after fresh evidence submitted,”
The October 1st, 2020 Toronto Sun Post, “MANDEL: Couple convicted in death of daughter win new trial.”
The undated Canadian Society of Wrongful Convictions “Case Summary of Maria Hosannah.”
and the October 27th, 2020 CANLII document, “Children’s Aid Society of Peel v. M.H., 2020 ONCJ 651 (CanLII).”
RFK Jr. & Russell Brand Talk “Critical Thinking.”
We finish up with a discussion between RFK Jr. and Russell Brand.
It’s the October 20th, 2024 Mongo Minds on Bitchute post “The Capacity For Critical Thinking Has Been So Overwhelmed And Subverted In My Generation.”
While it matters that the discussion is part of a campaign ad for the Trump 2024 election campaign team, what’s being said between the two principals in the conversation also matters.
We’re trying not to shoot the messengers.
“Roasting the Press,” is an open forum with new media journalists critiquing and complaining about our well funded competitors, the stories they create and the techniques they use.
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