Heh. After slagging off on the protesters on Burnaby Mountain for days for being "professional protesters", SunNews ran this headline banner reading "Ineffective Kinder Morgan Protests" under their friendly coverage of four huge pro-oil signs up on the mountain. But wait ... haven't we seen those counter-protest signs somewhere before?
Oh here they are! Back in May at the "No Enbridge!" protest on Sunset Beach in Vancouver, representing : CodyinCalgary'sCanada Action "Full Value for Canadian Resources - Support Northern Gateway" Just a couple of guys on a grassroots website with four counter-protest Canada Action banners big enough to block the view of the ocean.... and
The big banner guys above signed up earlier this year at the email-harvesting site, Power of Canada, part of apublic relations campaign meant to mobilize the public called the Partnership for Resource Trade. It'shosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Power of Canada Advisory Council Members include Perrin Beatty, Martha Hall Findlay, David Emerson, John Manley, Kevin Lynch, Ted Menzies, and reps from CAPP, TransCanada, Enbridge, Rio Tinto, Teck, Suncor, TransAlta, CD Howe, BMO, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Mining Association of Canada, Port Metro Vancouver,etc. etc.
From the Power of Canada P4RT mission statement (italics -mine) :
"We aim to foster a favourable environment for policy decisions that enable responsible resource development and trade.We will do that by informing, energizing and mobilizing a broad coalition of Canadian thought leaders, stakeholders, small- and medium-sized businesses and informed Canadians in a countrywide fast-to-action, grassroots public education and advocacy campaign."
In May, CCC CEO Perrin Beatty offered a $2000 student scholarship for producing a video on the merits of P4RT and its objectives. Rule # 1 :
"In order to be eligible for the contest, students must be registered as full-time students as well as like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) on Facebook, follow the CCC on Twitter, and subscribe to the CCC’s Youtube channel. In addition, students must sign themselves and five friends up on the PRT website: Power of Canada."
SunNews VP Kory Teneycke explained he canned FordNation after the very first episode because the talking points repeated numerous times throughout the 40 odd minute show that finally made it on air took 5 hours to record and "a day and a half" to edit. I'm guessing the 4 hours of outtakes were indistinguishable from the good stuff. But in case you missed it : social elite gravy train ... only human not perfect creating jobs subways ... saving Toronto billions of
dollars ... largest number of votes in
Canadian history ... lowest tax increases in North America ... can't change the
past ... best attendance record on council ...moving forward ... subways ... can't change the past ... average guy fighting for the little guy. Pretty much a repeat of the same guff Mayors Rob/Doug gave Mansbridge on Monday as well ... William Wolfe-Wylie at PostMedia:
It's time for media to call out lying liars when they hear them lie
"In the first two-and-a-half minutes of his lengthy CBC interview Monday, Rob Ford told three lies. They were uncontested by Peter Mansbridge, and it went downhill from there.
The first lie: “The people elected me with the largest mandate in Canada’s history.”
The second lie: “Having the lowest tax increase of any major city in North America.”
The third lie: “I’ve showed up every day to work for the last 13 years.”
He refutes each of those lies and then goes on to ask the hard questions.
Rob Ford was not stripped of his powers because of recreational drug use. It was because the mayor has consorted with criminal elements, lied about it, and then refused to speak to police about it on the advice of his lawyer. He was stripped of his power because council realized they can no longer trust him, that they no longer know what influences him and that he refuses to answer questions that desperately need answers.
The whole column is excellent. Thank you, Mr. Wolfe-Wylie. . "Ford family circus" coined by Cathie from Canada.
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Tell me this isn't what immediately went through your mind when you heard the *pussy* apology and the SunNews FordNation "reality show" announcement on the same day. .
“I have no reason to resign,” Ford says. Ford friend Alexander Sandro Lisi charged with extortion related to the video, police chief says
"It's safe to say the mayor does appear in the video,” Blair told reporters.
Blair said he has seen the video. His reaction? “As a citizen of the city, I am disappointed.”
In the 44 days, Lisi and Ford had 349 “points of telephone contact,” the documents said.
Ford helped Lisi escape police surveillance at least once, letting his friend sneak into City Hall’s underground employee parking lot, according to allegations in the police’s ITO. On Wednesday, July 24, a detective sergeant with the force’s mobile support unit followed Lisi as he weaved his way through side streets near the Westway. Lisi “was followed to the downtown core where he began to circle the area of Bay Street and Queen Street West, executing U-turns on several occasions,” the police said. Lisi eventually dipped into the underground lot at City Hall. Ford, waiting at the entrance, “swiped him into the controlled access area,” the police said.
Earlier versions of the story said police obtained the vid from deleted files on a hard drive obtained in their Dixon Road sweep back in June. Recent versions now say Oct. 29.
Sun News, whose coverage of the Ford crack vid has run mostly to complaining that the Star has it in for Ford and how any idiot could have faked the vid, was still running with that slant up til an hour ago when they suddenly broke off mid rant about the media and went with :
A special afternoon 28-page edition jam-packed with startling revelations about the alleged video showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.
free of charge at select downtown locations.
The Star broke the original story and the Sun excoriated them for it week after week. Now the Sun are trying to horn in on their revenue from it. Wankers. Well done, Star reporters .
At his last Con caucus meeting and presser five months ago, Harper so disliked the grilling he got from media about Nigel Wright's cheque to Senator Mike Duffy and what Steve knew about it - see above - that today he decided to allow only cameras into his pre-throne speech caucus meeting without the accompanying annoying reporters.
The press gallery rebelled, responding that if reporters weren't to be allowed in, then cameras and photographers wouldn't attend either.
No one was surprised when Sun Media broke ranks and bravely stepped into the breach with a:
"You won’t believe what the Press Gallery just did in Ottawa.Some media decided to boycott an important speech by our Prime Minister – one where he laid out his vision for our country, before today’s Speech from the Throne."
Yes, this speech was so important Steve didn't want any reporters there.
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Former Guelph Con Party communications director Michael Sona relates how he was sitting in his Hill office on Feb. 23 2012 when he was shocked to hear Sun News reporter Brian Lilley fingering him on air for the Guelph robocalls election fraud. Sona : "I contacted a few people
at [Con] headquarters and I just said I wanna know what's going on. Like why am I
being thrown out here because Sun News is you know kind of an alternate method
of getting press releases and other stories out from the party, right? I mean
everyone knows that, right? It's just a standard comm's tactic. And I knew if
this is on Sun News, this isn't just some you know hack journalist picking up
some story that he's fabricated in his head. This is someone. Someone is
feeding him this."
Sona eventually hears back from Con Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton who tells him not to worry about anonymous sources.
"The Conservatives have someone identified already on who they think this could be. ... We've been talking to sources here for the Ottawa bureau for Sun News Network and they're pointing towards on individual in particular. His name is Michael Sona. ... We're waiting on an official statement on this but sources are saying at this point it appears it is this one individual, a Michael Sona, who has associations with the campaign, may have worked on a local campaign, but he's not, was not with the national Conservative campaign. So then it becomes a question of was this a directive from the top, was this someone acting on their own locally to try and help their candidate win? ... "
Lilley says Con lawyer Arthur Hamilton is already on it - praises him as a "no-nonsense guy"
"But it does look at this point that it was Michael Sona who was behind this ...."
A statement is then read out from Steve's political director Jenni Byrne denying Con Party headquarters involvement. Back to Lilley :
"Sources say that it does look like it was Michael Sona who was behind this but no confirmation for sure, no charges laid at this point and we'll wait and see what Mr. Sona himself has to say. We'll be reaching out to him today of course as well."
After the broadcast and a phone call from Jenni Byrne, Con MP Eve Adams asked Sona to hand in his resignation. DefMin Peter MacKay answering a question on the Guelph robocallsthree days later :
"I think they've identified the individual that was involved in this ... and that individual is no longer in the employment of the party."
Eye-bleach graffic above inspired by the cover of Brian Lilley's popular runaway! runaway! bestcellar bookCBC Exposed which accuses the CBC of being the state broadcaster :
"This book takes on the holy grail of the Canadian media landscape and lays bare the truth about CBC. Reckless reporting at the state broadcaster has ruined lives ...
"Ruined lives" indeed. Michael Sona, forced to resign his job on the Hill the day of that Sun News broadcast, is still waiting for resolution a year later.
Big City Lib blogged on Thursday that Harpercrat Action Plan ads appear to account "for well over half of the adverts on the Sun TV website."
"Does this amount to a government subsidy...the Harper Gov. throwing money to a message friendly news service? And if so, does that make Sun TV Canada's REAL state broadcaster?"
Certainly the Conservative Party seems to think so. Just before the last federal election, Patrick Muttart, Harper's formerdeputy chief of staff and chief marketing strategist for the Conservative Party of Canada, forwarded what appeared to be a photo of Michael Ignatieff in Kuwait in US battle fatigues on to former Harper spokesy now founder and VP of Sun News Kory Teneycke - presumably for election news publication. Teneycke caught it in time. Muttart, who had moved to the Canada/ US practice of a US marketing firm, told reporters that at the time, he was both an unpaid advisor to Sun News to launch their TV network and "on the Con payroll as a consultant to the party's election war room."
CBC is the national public broadcaster. Sun News Network, as Michael Sona puts it, is an alternate method of getting stories out from the party.
" Sun News has been a strong voice supporting pro-life, pro-family and limited government ideals. This is what my show, Byline, has been about from the beginning," wrote Sun News host Brian Lilley to select supporters. "We are asking friends to help us out by signing our petition which will tell the CRTC that Sun News is a valued service that all Canadians should have access to."
"Our rivals are doing everything in their power to stop us from getting a new broadcast licence. We’re used to their tactics, but we can’t let them get away with this. We need your support. We need you to take action.
Right now we’re getting the short end of the stick. Many local cable providers are refusing to offer Sun News! In fact, we’re only allowed in 4 out of 10 households in Canada and that’s not fair."
Along with alerts in Sun Media Corp's 43 daily newspapers and over 250 community weekly papers across the country,the largest press group in Canada, and CanoeTV, Canoe.ca., plus the daily harangues from Spun News itself. Quite the little support group they have going there. About that constant Sun News refrain: "only available in 4 out of 10 Canadian households." Fagstein : Fact-checking the debate over Sun News
According to the latest CRTC Communications Monitoring Report, the major providers (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco and Bell) combine for 10.2 million subscribers out of 11.8 million total. According to the same report, 80% of subscribers have digital service, so that means at least 8 million of the 12 million (two thirds) could add Sun News to their service if they wanted to.
"CRTC - stop treating Canadians as ATMs for the broadcasters by dropping mandatory distribution altogether, while requiring broadcast distributors to offer all licensed channels to their subscribers in a pick-and-pay format so that at long last consumers get to decide what they want to watch and pay for."
The last time Sun News needed help with an online petition, Snuffleupagus and Homer Simpson were there to help, mysteriously adding their names to 80,000 others on a "Stop Fox News North" Avaaz petition in 2010, along with a number of real people like Kady and Stephen Maher who didn't sign it.
Sun News mastermind, Kornkob ethanol lobbyist, and Steve's former director of communications Kory Teneycke 'discovered' the fraudulent names and wrote it up in his Sun News column on Sept 3 2010 in a bid to discredit the petition .... only to get busted by Kady who pointed out the names on the petition were not published so how did he know about them then, huh?
The very same day Homer and Snuffy were helping out Sun News with their bogus petition entries, Kory went on CBC's Power and Politics :
"We are not nor
have we ever asked for mandatory carriage of this station where Canadians would
have to be obliged to pay. We are saying that we would like to have it offered
but theoretically it could be carried by no one ... these are all private
sector negotiations."
"Sun TV News is not, nor has it ever, asked for “mandatory carriage” by cable or satellite companies. As the critics correctly point out, this would be tantamount to a tax on everyone with cable or satellite service"
Well that was then; this is now. Now they are asking the CRTC for exactly that - mandatory carriage to be included in every basic cable package in Canada plus guaranteed placement on the lower end of the dial. Because it turns out the 'free market' they go on about so relentlessly turns out to be just another of the many many obstacles they have to overcome on their path to Spun News greatness, like Ezra wearing that orange wig above to mock Jack Layton's funeral.
Sun News Network is arguing its signal must be broadcast into every Canadian home if it is ever going to recover from losses that have already reached $17-million a year.
This would generate about $18-million a year for the network ...
Sun News argues that many Canadians have expressed enthusiasm for its conservative commentary-intensive programming, and would watch the channel regularly, but they don’t know it even exists. The digital cable or satellite connections currently required to see it haven’t been adopted by enough viewers in the senior citizen demographic that Quebecor concedes it is largely appealing to.
So Sun News has put up its own petition to the CRTC, presumably appealing to the angry racist misogynist xenophobic pro-gun pro-christian anti-choice anti-environment anti-union anti-gay anti-pot anti-Quebec anti-government anti-Roma anti-FN anti-Islam anti-arts tough-on-crime "senior citizen demographic" who "don't know it even exists" to lend their support.
Sun News headline, April 20, Brian Lilley : Ignatieff linked to Iraq war planning
"As a politician in Canada, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has said that he was on the sidelines of the Iraq war, but new information reveals he was on the front lines of pre-invasion planning when he worked in the U.S."
Well, it is Sun News, aka Fox News North, after all, wot?
It was "a compelling electronic image of a man very closely resembling Michael Ignatieff in American military fatigues, brandishing a rifle in a picture purported to have been taken in Kuwait in December 2002", together with "a clip from a Pentagon press briefing in which an American colonel thanked Michael Ignatieff specifically for his work in preparation for the invasion" on the day before the invasion.
Trouble was - it wasn't Iggy in the photo, a discovery credited to Teneycke by Peladeau.
"It is my belief that this planted information was intended to first and foremost seriously damage Michael Ignatieff's campaign but in the process to damage the integrity and credibility of Sun Media and, more pointedly, that of our new television operation, Sun News."
"At no point did Muttart tell Sun Media that he had positively identified Ignatieff in the photo in question."
and went on to describe Muttart's work in helping set up the branding of Sun News :
For the record, Mercury was hired by Quebecor to assist Sun News with its pre-license branding and positioning. Muttart worked with a creative agency to develop the network's original logo (a modified version is currently in use). And he was the original source for the network's "hard news" and "straight talk" framing language."
including Muttart's pro bono work for Sun News after his contract ended!
"mostly from his Chicago home base where he has worked for an American public affairs firm since 2009, returning occasionally to Ottawa as needed. ... A source close to Muttart said the photo was found online by a U.S.-based political party researcher ."
"He has no further role in our campaign," Conservative spokesman Alykhan Velshi said from the party’s Ottawa war room. Muttart recently returned to work on the Conservative campaign as a consultant “offering advice on messaging and strategy,” according to Velshi.
So. Patrick Muttart, former Harper staffer, helps Kory Teneycke, another former Harper staffer, set up the brand for Sun News and then sends him incriminating but fake material in what looks to be an attempt to swiftboat Michael Ignatieff - and he did this while giving "advice on messaging and strategy" to Harper's re-election war room? Unbelievable!
So who is this US company Mercury Public Affairs that Muttart now works for - presumably the source of the photo found by "a US-based political party researcher" ?
Mercury - A firm specializing in "high-value public affairs," including image management, polling, and "grassroots coalition building".
Company slogan : "We know what it takes to win in difficult situations."
Mercury Public Affairs named Patrick Muttart as an MD [Managing Director] and leader of the firm's new Canada/US practice, starting May 4. Muttard is the former deputy chief of staff for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former chief marketing strategist for the Conservative Party of Canada. At Mercury Public Affairs, he will also work with the international public affairs team, which is led by partner Terry Nelson.
Here's Rachel Maddow on Terry Nelson : the race-baiting, the phonejamming dirty tricks, and, before his firm Crosslink Strategy Group became an operating unit of Mercury Public Affairs, the staffer in his employ who was previously the media advisor on the original Swiftboat Veterans For Truth ads , which used lies and doctored photos to smear John Kerry's war record.
Which pretty much brings us full circle on the apparent attempt to swiftboat Michael Ignatieff by a former Harper staffer on loan from a Republican PR company during our election.
Thursday Upperdate : Cons : No, no, no, he wasn't in our war room while simultaneously advising Sun Media.
Muttart : Yes, I was.
PostMedia : "Contrary to what some have reported, Patrick hasn't been working in the (Conservative) war room or been in Ottawa," wrote Conservative spokesman Chisholm Pothier in an email."
"Patrick Muttart, the former deputy chief of staff for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told The Canadian Press on Thursday he gave periodic unpaid advice to Sun Media in recent weeks to help it launch its new television news channel. Until this week, he was also on the Tory payroll as a consultant to the party's election war room."
We still don't know, however, what he was doing sending false and incriminating stuff on Iggy to The Sun in the middle of an election. And did he send it from the Con war room and on whose instructions?
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