JOHNSON – The CBC Part 2: Liberal or liberal, what it means for Mother Corp

This is the second installment of a three-part column revolving around the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  This time we discuss big and small L liberalism, the Liberal party and the CBC.  Is there collusion?  Is the CBC the ‘propaganda arm of the Liberals’ … actually?  How much is real and how much is rhetoric, or twisted misdirection for political gain?

For Part 1 of the series, which revolved around just what Conservative leader Poilievre is saying about the CBC and what he is not, what he can legally do, and what he can not. Go to JOHNSON – The CBC Part 1: Pierre Poilievre and his ‘defunding’ promise.

For Part 3 – Wait for the third installment.  It involves this writer’s Hot Take on CBC TV vs CBC Radio – is there a difference? What to do moving forward if the CBC does have to change.

And now, The CBC – Part 2 – Liberal or liberal, what it means for Mother Corp

TO DEFINE IT using the most obvious terminology from the Canadian perspective, a Big L Liberal is a member or supporter of our federal Liberal Party, and a small L liberal is a societal, sociological and ideological belief system.

Where the first is a direct and obvious link to a political party, the second is not.

To be a small L liberal person, one generally approves of social and cultural issues that allow for individual rights and expanded freedoms for individualism — LGBTQ marriage rights, gender rights, abortion rights, racial equality, civil rights, indigenous rights or the endless list of other social welfare issues.

Now, obviously. there are much deeper and tangential philosophical definitions that encapsulate liberalism … but for our purposes here, we will keep it fairly simple.

The most over-riding connection between Big L and small L liberalism is a firm, solid belief in democratic ideals and capitalism in general.

It is phonetically unfortunate that we have a federal party that uses as their brand name the word “Liberal,” while at the same time, in language we also use the word “liberal” to label and differentiate this wider cultural and societal belief concept.

Although historically the modern Liberal Party has followed many centrist/leftish qualities with a few more conservative thoughts, we have in the last 10 years seen a party that is actually far more left leaning than before in its own history.  That said, this continued left curve is not complete; the party is not completely small L liberal.

In fact, far from it.

Trudeau’s Liberals, for example, do not believe in shutting down the oil sands in Alberta for environmental reasons, or doing what many would think is nearly enough to regulate and monitor the oil business.

In fact, they bought a pipeline to keep the oil flowing and increase the flow to overseas markets … not the actions of a small L liberal who may place the rights of First Nations and its future generations’ well being, above that of business, industry and economy.

Another example is the fact that Trudeau’s Liberal party would not even be considering a federal pharmacare or dental program if not forced to in order to satisfy the hard-Left Leaning, more socialist NDP’s demands, within their Confidence and Supply Agreement.

At the end of the day, the Canadian Liberal political party and the liberal socio-cultural identity are not automatically interchangeable, even if the phrase ‘left leaning’ is a reasonable connecting descriptor of both.

This apparent connection is one that the Conservative party jumps on regularly, as they are clearly running a plan to turn liberalism and progressivism into dirty words, and programming their base to see the evil-woke-incarnate itself as responsible for the cause of the utter destruction of our country.

Sound familiar?

This isn’t new.

Rhetoric from either side of the aisle in the House of Parliament for a great many decades has attempted to paint the other as harbingers of systemic or economic doom.  This is Canadian political bombastic noise making, and always has been.

What is more prevalent today, however, is how little this rhetoric is recognized as purely political noise … but is actually believed as actual functional fact by followers and pundits.  We regularly see and hear from Conservatives online who have truly come to believe that the country has been absolutely ‘ruined by the dictatorship of F-Trudeau.’

I hate to tell those who have swallowed this … Trudeau is just a politician … absolutely no different than Poilievre himself, Harper, Mulroney, Chretien, etc … any of them.

Trudeau has done no better nor worse than any of them.  Sure, he does seem gaffe prone and at times tone deaf to whats going on around him, but:

He’s broken no actual, real Canadian laws, and has run as amok on what he wanted to do, as any other PM has, especially those with majorities.  There is no real ‘Trudeau is the worst PM in history.’  They’re all unreasonable, ignorable and atrocious, and Trudeau is on balance … whatever … about the same.

Those who hilariously believe that Trudeau has literally ‘destroyed the country’ … are sheep … and have been whole heartedly led to slaughter by a slick politician named Pierre Poilievre who has continuously injected them with what he wanted them to think, using worldwide economic realities and pandemics as opportunity to blame his opponent … for everything.

How do we know who these blind followers are?  Look for bumper stickers and convoys and online commenters that repeat this indoctrination.

Severe right Conservatives funnel feed this message of utter destruction being perpetrated onto average Joe Canadian by ‘them woke, progressive Liberals … I mean liberals … ahh, whatever … they’re the same right?’  Pierre doesn’t draw any distinction, so they won’t either.

Mr. Poilievre works hard to mesh social liberal ideology tightly with Liberal Party policy … but when you’re trying to disseminate Twitter sized soundbites to your base, you narrow it down to the simplest terms:

Liberal … liberal … must be the same, dang socialists … all of ‘em.

Back to the CBC.

Generally, media news producers and where they all are on the left/right spectrum, is as wide as you can imagine.  We have severe right, libertarian media outlets in Canada, and we have full hard core left, socialist media outlets as well.

Where does the CBC actually, truthfully, exist on this spectrum.

‘AllSides Media Bias Rating’ is a media technology company that provides media bias ratings for over 1,400 media outlets across North America, their goal being to identify different perspectives.

AllSides differentiates political and cultural spectrum leanings using the terms ‘Left’ to ‘Lean Left’, ‘Center’, ‘Lean Right’ and ‘Right.’

They reported that the “news reporting by the CBC is neutral and fact-based; however, CBC programming takes a lean left stance on coverage of social issues, and shows left-leaning ‘word choice bias’ and ‘bias by omission’.” End quote.

That doesn’t mean it is in alignment with Liberal Party policy ideology, and its news coverage  does not editorialize in a way that alters the above score of ‘neutral and fact-based.’

For example, AllSides cited a CBC News published story following the Roe v. Wade decision titled “Roe v. Wade reversal leads to heartbreaking scenes at U.S. abortion clinics,” the article featuring left-leaning voices. Another article calls abortion a “constitutional right.”

This example shows the ‘Lean Left’ bias that the CBC holds, even if the actual news rating is a firm ‘neutral and fact-based.’  This is the type of mild journalistic leaning referred to in the score, where a neutral news source can still have a moderate lean rating on the political spectrum.

Another reputable source is Media Bias/Fact Check, another independent website that promotes awareness of media bias and misinformation by rating the bias, factual accuracy, and credibility of media sources.

Overall, they rate CBC as “Left-Center Biased, based on editorial positions that lean slightly left yet High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record,” and provide the CBC with a ‘country freedom rating’ of ‘excellent’ and a ‘credibility rating’ of ‘high’ and the CBC’s straight news reporting is consistently ‘low-biased, factual, and covers both sides of any issue.’

Media Bias/Fact Check basically matches AllSides Media Bias Rating regarding the CBC.

There are more ratings examples that repeat this score and, if we accept these sources, we should ask why the CBC bends its reporting spectrum in this way?

It is a simple fact that a large majority of Canadians — an overwhelming majority — consider themselves to be small L liberal philosophical and sociological adherents and believers.  A majority of Canadians, on the whole, believe in full LGBTQ gender rights, women’s rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, human rights and individual autonomy, even the vast majority of today’s modern conservatives would agree that this ideology generally blends with their personal beliefs.

Modern conservatives no longer believe in racial segregation, gender inequality, religious intolerance, LGBTQ hate or see the myriad of other lifestyles or issues as barriers to inclusion to society.

In other words, the CBC is literally preaching to the choir in which it lives. So, yes, the CBC is small L liberal, because we are small L liberal, regardless of how we vote.

So, no, Mr. Poilievre … the CBC is not the propaganda arm of the Liberal Party, they just mirror the vast majority of Canadians, those who don’t usually support your party, but even include most centrist leaning, fiscal conservative voters that do.  The problem with his severe approach is that it is possibly isolating that exact voter.

The reality, electoral soundbite wise, is the intentional Conservative mild blurring of the line between Liberal and liberal regarding the CBC as an unbiased news source.  This idea seems to be the fodder that Conservatives see as the proof of the CBC being in ‘cahoots with a Liberal government,’ exactly as spoonfed by Poilievre.

As in, ‘let’s keep it simple … Liberal is liberal and vice versa … right’?

If we have the intellectual ability to balance actual knowledge, like the CBC is not factually the purveyor of “Trudeau propaganda,” … what we end up with is the reality that Poilievre is just a politician, playing the political game, with the next election in mind, and his own future job.

So, yah … Poilievre WILL say anything:

• Liberals are a disaster
• The CBC is a Liberal propaganda tool
• Defund the CBC
• Liberal and liberal progressive woke’ism is all the same thing … and it’s all evil
• And jump on the next news bit to beat the same horse … whatever it takes,

… to be first past that post.

Next week? part 3 will dive into the differences between CBC TV vs CBC Radio.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.