The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Serving Canada or Serving Islamists?

Canada’s state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) consistently supports the Islamist cause, including direct cooperation with terrorist front groups. {snip} Given that the CBC is owned by the Government of Canada and funded by taxpayers with a billion dollar a year subsidy, the question arises as to whom they serve.

The CBC deliberately removes references to ISIS and other Islamist groups when it would reflect poorly on the terrorist group’s presence and influence in Canada. On February 19, 2016, for instance, the CBC ran a story concerning events at Maisonneuve College in Montreal. The bland title was “Collège de Maisonneuve teachers’ union wants action over alleged library threats.”

In this CBC story, the teacher’s union demanded that the college management intervene after threats made to staff in the college’s library. Line Légaré, the college’s spokesperson, stated teachers had intervened and asked students to lower their voices because they were “quite loud, more than we would like for a library.” Police had reported violence in the parking lot on one evening.

By contrast, La Presse, a Montreal based French language newspaper reported the same situation in a story titled “Tensions et intimidation au collège de Maisonneuve” (“Tensions and Intimidation at Maisonneuve College”). The reporting by La Presse stated that the students causing the problems had tried to leave Canada to become ISIS fighters. Additionally, five more Maisonneuve students had succeeded in leaving to be fighters in Syria and Iraq in January 2015, while four other Maisonneuve students had also tried to leave Canada in May of 2015. These included one student who was involved in a violent confrontation that resulted in the police being called. The ISIS-supporting students had taken down the license plate numbers of the staff and had blocked non-Muslim students from using a common space.

The La Presse story also revealed that the ISIS students had tried to take over an entire floor of the library and only allow students who supported ISIS to use the space.

The CBC version excluded any mention of the students who had tried to leave the country to fight for ISIS, and no mention was made that ISIS sympathizers who had tried to leave for ISIS were the key players. The CBC story only focuses on students with “loud voices.”

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The CBC cooperates with Al Jazeera, which has a long history of being a mouthpiece for the Government of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, especially Al Jazeera in Arabic, which has little if anything to do with the English-language version.

The Muslim Brotherhood is listed as a terrorist group in number of Middle Eastern countries, while the United Kingdom says that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism. {snip}

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Al Jazeera also has a history of glorifying extremist Islamist figures such as Osama bin Landen. As the New York Times Magazine noted in November of 2001, {snip}

Journalists from Al Jazeera finally quit the organization en masse in 2013 when it leadership imposed rules requiring favoritism for the Muslim Brotherhood. {snip}

The CBC began working with Al Jazeera on a documentary in 2014, immediately after the Al Jazeera journalists had quit in protest in 2013. {snip}

The CBC, on the other hand, cooperated with Al Jazeera on projects such as a documentary on the life of Omar Khadr, who murdered US Army Sergeant Speers, spent ten years in Guantanamo Bay Prison, and then won $10.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against the Canadian government, as well as an official “apology.” The murdered soldier’s widow received nothing.

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{snip} Among the complaints were that Omar Khadr was referred to as a translator, overlooking his conviction for murder. Omar Khadr’s father and family were referred to as humanitarians, again overlooking his role as a financier of Al Qaeda. Ahmed Sayed Khadr was noted by Al Qaeda as a “martyr” and he was complimented for throwing his son Omar in the furnace of battle. Omar Khadr was never asked about how he felt about making explosives for the jihadist cause.

Further complicating the issue was that Canada at the time was using its air force to bomb ISIS, a group which Qatar was often seen to be supporting. {snip} Whether CBC should have disclosed these issues is still a question.

Of general interest, Al Jazeera America (closed April 2016) was created when it took over Current TV, major shareholders of which included Al Gore, Joel Hyatt, and Ronald Burkle. Before it was Current TV, the channel had been called News World International, whose majority holder was the CBC.

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The CBC claims that it respects religious sensibilities, a “moral signal” repeated after the jihadist murders of 12 writers and cartoonists at the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.

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In practice, however, the CBC only respects such sensibilities when it comes to Islamists such as ISIS or those who attacked Charlie Hebdo. When it comes to attacking Christians and Jews, the CBC exercises no such restraint. For instance, the CBC ran, and still displays, the “Immersion Piss Christ” story. This consists of an “award winning photo” in which a plastic crucifix is submerged in a small glass tank of the artist’s urine. {snip}

The CBC also ran multiple articles on (then) newly elected Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer in which they showcased his Christian faith. In a scathing article, a CBC reporter describes how “Religion most often involves a deep commitment to telling other people how to live their lives.” The general thrust of the article is that Scheer cannot be trusted because of his faith. {snip}

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{snip} CBC has never run an article on the value systems of an Islamist Canadian politician who believes in Sharia Law. Al Jazeera, however, did run a glowing piece on Omar Alghabra and his friendship with Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid, born in Pakistan, has written documents that openly support Salafism, Sharia Law and speak out against any form of modernization in Islam. Yet the CBC remains silent on whether her faith and writings should be put under examination. This despite the fact she proposed the anti-Islamophobia Parliamentary Motion M-103, seen by many as an anti-free speech effort.

The Minster for the Status of Women, Maryam Monsef, was born in Iran or Afghanistan, depending on which story one believes. {snip} The CBC remains silent; it has never run a critical article on whether a Minister for the Status of Women who believes in Islamic law, Sharia, is suitable for public office in Canada.

The CBC also quotes organizations such as the National Council for Canadian Muslims, formerly known as CAIR CAN. The CBC has referred to the NCCM/CAIR CAN as a civil rights group, but fails to note that it was formed to support its parent organization, CAIR USA, which is a listed terrorist group in the United Arab Emirates. {snip}

Similarly, when supporting a variety of Islamist issues, the CBC quotes as a source the Canadian Council of Imams. The CBC does not reveal, however, that the Vice President of the Council of Imams, Hakim Quick, believes that the position of Islam on homosexuality is death. It also does not state that the “Emir” of the council is also the head of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). The ICNA believes that Islam is not compatible with democracy, women are inferior and wife beating is permissible.

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The CBC appears to have a willful policy of protecting Islamists, including ISIS in Canada, from public exposure. Students who had tried to leave Canada to fight for ISIS were using violence and threats of violence to express their will to force their control over parts of a public educational institute. Yet the national broadcaster deliberately sent parts of the story down the memory hole by excluding any reference to ISIS sympathizers of any culpability for their actions.

The CBC also grants a free pass to those politicians who have been openly identified as Islamists, yet attacks Christians who have stated they will not bring their personal faith into the public realm.

CBC accepts cooperation and assistance from front groups for known terrorism entities, such as the Muslim Brotherhood{snip}

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{snip} By deliberately sheltering even ISIS supporters acting out in Canada from public scrutiny, the state broadcaster is failing the Canadian public. By granting Islamist politicians in Canada immunity from scrutiny for their beliefs, the state broadcaster is compounding its errors.

This failure appears willful, intentional, and consistent over time. v{snip} {snip}