‘We betrayed the public. We broke their trust … We were, in fact, pushing propaganda,’
said former CBC journalist Marianne Klowak.
The CBC’s political corruption was a primary theme on the second day of the National Citizen’s Inquiry in Ottawa. The conference is described by its organizers as a citizen-led investigation into Canada’s federal and provincial governments’ COVID-19 responses.
The event’s invited speakers included several former employees of the CBC sharing their insights into the state-funded news media outlet’s dissemination of misinformation and abuse of its employees with “vaccine mandates.” The featured guests offered their remarks as sworn testimony.
Rodney Palmer, a journalist with decades of experience in the news media industry, including years with the CBC, CTV News, and the Globe and Mail, examined the CBC’s function as a propagandistic tool of the federal government.
He emphasized the CBC’s frequent invitations to so-called scientific “experts” who were paid by the federal government to combat “the spread of misinformation.”
Marianne Klowak, who worked as a CBC reporter for over 30 years, said the degree of editorial control over her work from management was aggressively magnified in the context of her reporting on matters related to COVID-19.
“It seemed to me, as a journalist who had been there 34 years, it’s like the rules have changed overnight, and it changed so quickly that it left me just dizzy and in disbelief,” she remarked on the CBC’s censorship of her story proposals. “I was blocked and prevented from doing stories that I pitched [ad] that I’d put forward. They never saw the light of day, they never made it to air or print.”
Stories she pitched that were rejected included those related to “protests against vaccine mandates,” “people’s safety concerns about the vaccines,” and also “adverse reactions” to mandated injections.
She added, “We betrayed the public. We broke their trust… We were, in fact, pushing propaganda.”
Jean-Philippe Chabot, a former analyst with CBC, testified about his refusal to disclose his “vaccination status” in the face of “vaccine mandates” imposed by the state broadcaster upon its employees. He was subsequently suspended without pay.
Chabot highlighted the arbitrary and contradictory nature of the CBC’s demand of its employees – ostensibly serving as a health measure for the work environment – given the fact that he worked from home during his time there.
David Freiheit, popularly known as Viva Frei as a political and legal analyst, reflected on what he said was his “awakening” during his livestreaming of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.
He described much of the Canadian news media landscape as “reliant or adherent or subservient to the government.”
“Legacy media,” he concluded, use the following “modus operandi” to undermine threats to its narrative: “Ignore something until you can’t ignore it. Minimize it once you can’t ignore it. Demonize it once you can’t successfully minimize it.”