CBC’s pretense of soliciting questions from Canadians for Stephen Harper

The CBC is engaged in what can only be considered a pretense of asking Canadians to pose questions of their own to Stephen Harper, for the purpose of then simply not asking them.

This is unfair, not only to Canadians who submitted the questions as well as those who voted for them, but is especially unfair to the CBC’s vast listening audience, who would naturally assume that the process employed was actually the process that the CBC is ostensibly conducted. Furthermore, viewers will falsely imbue these questions with significance that they are NOT deserving of, as they came from the CBC and NOT from Canadians.

This process of soliciting questions from Canadians is also a pretense on the part of the CBC in that it is using the public airwaves to contribute to an increased participatory democracy, but it is anything but. So far, its nothing but a sham, similar to the recent game the Liberals played with their onProbation.ca exercise, in which Canadians were asked to surrender their personal email addresses for an exercise called “Ask the PM a question”, wherein none of those questions were EVER asked of the PM.

As far as the CBC is concerned, I can provide hard evidence that their process is not working as advertised, unless of course you think the following question is derived in any way from the viewers questions that were submitted and actually preferred by viewers, as opposed to the CBC.

Here is that question: “What will government do to protect the employees, pensioners and disabled workers who may be left without protection?”

This question has NOTHING whatsoever to do with income trusts or the revealing Harper’s patent lies to Canadians about tax leakage, whereas the questions submitted and voted on by viewers did. But none of those questions were allowed to be in contention. In fact, 8 of the top 10 questions submitted by viewers, suppressed by the CBC, dealt with income trusts and Harper’s tax leakage lie, as follows:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2010/01/your-question-period.html#socialcomments-submit


There is no correlation between the questions viewers submitted and the one that the CBC is asking Harper, so how can the CBC hold this question or the selection process that gave rise to it, as coming from Canadians? More like coming exclusively from those who work for the CBC? Therefore, the CBC must be held to account to deliver an honest product in keeping with their original promise. Fortunately, a second chance presents itself for the CBC to prove its independence, for all Canadians to witness online, and see what question arise for Stephen Harper, from these submissions submitted by viewers:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2010/01/your-question-period-week-2-what-should-cbc-news-ask-our-politicians.html#socialcomments


This exercise by the CBC reminds me in many respects of proroguing. Perhaps it is becoming contagious, or maybe I am thinking of that other disease, known as job black mail.

In any event, let’s see how this sham exercise in participatory democracy unfolds. I am sure the CBC has many other ways to ignore our question and thereby their duty as an independent public broadcaster, by concealing the truth about Harper tax leakage lies. However, the choice that now faces the CBC is whether they will chose to abdicate their responsibility to Canadian taxpayers-at-large who provide them with $1 billion in annual subsidies, by AGAIN not asking Canadians’ REAL questions.

This exercsie will be very telling of whether taxpayers should be funding a quasi-public broadcaster whose actions of concealment on this matter, may prove the CBC to be REDUNDANT, when compared all the other commercially biased news sources out there, which have their own commercial vested interest in ensuring the TRUTH behind this cover-up NEVER gets told to Canadians, in sufficient time to do something meaningful about it.

Conclusion: The time is NOW. Stop your endless ongoing suppression of Stephen Harper’s tax leakage lie and his unjustified expropriation of $35 billion of Canadians’ life savings. This story is demanding of a Fifth Estate type exposé, and nothing less. This exposé can be initiated by posing the following question to Stephen Harper:

“Many reputable firms such as HLB Decision Economics, RBC Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets and others are saying that income trusts do not cause tax leakage, and yet that was your main, if not sol justification for reversing your 2006 election campiagn promise to NEVER raid seniors nest eggs by taxing income trusts. Given your promise of transparency and accountability, where is your proof of tax leakage, apart from the 18 pages of blacked out documents that you gave to Canadians, that you subsequently recalled?”