Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to silence journalists who challenge his policies while giving special privileges to those who toe the line, an independent Canadian journalist told Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tuesday.
Ezra Levant, founder and CEO of Rebel News, said the Trudeau government has instituted a “Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization license” that gives licensed journalists tax subsidies and other favorable treatment.
“It’s not yet illegal to do journalism without the license,” Levant said, but he fears that “the worst is yet to come.”
Trudeau has hardly kept his disdain for independent journalism in general, and Rebel News in particular, a secret. “Last year,” noted Carlson, “Justin Trudeau tried to have Rebel News banned from covering a debate in Canada, and a judge overturned the ban and allowed a reporter inside the debate hall.” When the reporter asked Trudeau a question, the prime minister responded with insults, saying that Rebel News had “spread misinformation and disinformation” on his Covid-19 policies and that he wouldn’t even “call it a media organization.”
In keeping with that, the government panel that decides who gets a license “spent one year reviewing Rebel News, looking through more than 100 of our stories,” said Levant. “A panel of five people — we don’t even know what they said or did or what they looked at — and they claim that only one percent of our stories are news, so we don’t get the license.”
“We are not outlawed,” he added, “but there’s all sorts of sticks and carrots that come with [the license].”
“Just last week,” Levant continued, “Trudeau announced he is going to compel Facebook and Google to downrank unlicensed journalists like us and boost his trusted, friendly journalists.” It may not be an outright prohibition of unlicensed journalism; but, observed Carlson, “it’s a distinction without a difference [since] you’re banned from reaching readers.”
The government is also seeking to force the tech giants to share news revenue with the creators of the content — but only if those creators have licenses or otherwise satisfy similar criteria.
Another “carrot” for licensees comes in the form of a tax write-off. “If you have a government license, your subscribers can write off their subscription at tax time,” explained Levant. “If you’re an independent journalist like us, no dice.”
“Now you have literally 99 percent of Canadian media companies that are dependent on Justin Trudeau, and soon Google and Facebook, for a huge chunk of their revenues,” he said. “There’s no way those journalists can be free and independent.”
When Carlson asked if the rest of the Canadian media is “going along with this,” Levant replied, “Fifteen hundred Canadian news media companies are on the take. Now, they don’t all have these journalism licenses yet, but they’re all taking money from Trudeau. He made a special $61-million payment to them right before the election. None of them reported that.”
“Since they are in on it, they can’t very well report on it, and they certainly can’t very well object to it,” he averred.
That huge subsidy to favored news organizations is, of course, something of an embarrassment to both the payor and the payee, so the Trudeau government has done its utmost to keep the recipients’ names under wraps.
“It used to be that the liberals of Canada were for civil rights and free speech and separation of government and the media. Those days are done,” declared Levant. “You can count on one hand’s fingers the independent media left in the country, and Trudeau hates them.”
Levant pointed out that the independent media provided much of the coverage of the Freedom Convoy. “Trudeau hated the truckers because they were the one group that opposed him,” said Levant. “He hates us for the same reason.”
“If he has gone this far in two years, by the time he finishes his term three years from now, I am worried he is going to start to treat us like the truckers…. Will he seize our bank accounts? Will he ask Google and Facebook to delist us altogether?”
“I know that sounds paranoid,” he confessed, “but so far he’s done everything he threatened he would do.”
