Dear Globe: Where has investigative reporting gone?

To: Phillip Crawley, Publisher
CC: Andy Willis, Rob Carrick, Derek Decloet, Lawrence Martin. John Stackhouse, Edward Greenspon,

Sir,

I subscribed to your newspaper for 40 years. I had faith in your pronouncements. I didn't always agree with your editorial policies, but I respected the thought and effort which went into crafting them. Clearly, I had been naive.

Then came the 2006 Harper reversal on the income trust issue: the Halloween Debacle! I saw your reports, and waited in vain for your critical investigation. There was nothing beyond a casual reprinting of government press releases. $35 billion in savings evaporated (most held by retirees) and you looked the other way. Worse, your paper reprinted the government press releases, abetting the crime. My trust was shattered.

Your paper's mindless parroting of the lies about the need to destroy income trusts mouthed by our Finance Minister and Prime Minister back in 2006 caused me to terminate a 4-decade-long relationship. I could not in good conscience accept any of your opinions when I knew how little thought had gone into your acceptance of Harper's reversal on the income trust issue. If you could swallow that thin gruel, how could I trust any of your pronouncements? You had been exposed as a mere pawn; no longer a player.

For decades I had been proud to read The Globe. In the days when it was respected as the unofficial opposition to the Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien administrations you held them to account when the Official Opposition was too weak and fragmented. What value is there in a newspaper which mindlessly spews out the daily lies of the people in power? Since when does the 4th estate serve as lap dog to the PMO? What use do you serve if you don't question the tales the government tries to put over on the gullible and unsuspecting public? You become just a slave to the spin doctors and arm of the propaganda machine. If you aren't insulted by this, you are no longer worthy of consultation.

Too bad that you haven't have the interest to expose the lies which allowed the government to get away with this trust-tax travesty. Too bad that you took the easy way out. Not only did you not question their policy, you swallowed their bait eagerly. Printing their lies made you a party to the government's deceit. All governments lie. Real newspapers expose them. "Rags" reprint the daily press releases. How the mighty have fallen!

Recently The Sun had the insight to print a guest editorial from an income trust supporter. The Hill Times has printed another expose of the duplicity of the Harper Gov't in the income trust debacle. When is The Globe going to shrug off its corporate chains and actually take a serious look at the income trust CON-job foisted upon us by the Harper-Flaherty-Carney clique? When is The Globe going to become a newspaper again?

For your edification, I copy below the article from the latest number of The Hill Times. Read it, and try to remember when your "rag" had the backbone to print the truth. Halcyon Days, eh? Sadly, long gone.

William Barrowclough,
130 Roper Drive,
Peterborough, Ont.
705-745-4858