Why is the CBC running interference and cover-up for Stephen Harper?

When Harper prorogued Parliament for 8 weeks, the CBC held out to viewers that it would fill that void by allowing viewers to ask questions of politicians themselves, and was held out as:

Week One: Your Question Period: What would you ask our politicians? The top responses will be assigned to CBC reporters to chase the answers, and address during our At Issue panel.

Week Two: Your Question, week 2: What should CBC News ask our politicians? On an upcoming episode of CBC News: The National and Power & Politics with Evan Solomon, we'll seek the answer to the most-voted question.

In 8 weeks the CBC only got around to allowing two questions to be asked by viewers, in what was supposed to be a weekly exercise. In reality only one question was ever asked.

My question was the highest voted upon question for both Week 1 and Week 2 and yet everything that CBC promised to viewers would happened has yet to happen, as my question has yet to be asked (notwihtstanding the CBC’s faux exercise of this past Friday), has yet to be answered and has yet to be addressed on CBC’s At Issue Panel or Power & Politics.

The CBC is clearly engaged in a cover up of Stephen Harper’s cover up concerning Harper’s patently fasle argument about “tax leakage”, as no credible news agency could be as incompetent as what we witnessed from the CBC’s Friday broadcast could they? For that piece of trite and fundamentally misleading nonsense see: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1426049405

This conduct by the CBC and the CBC’s pathetic evasion of asking the question it committed itself to ask completely contravenes its own Journalistic Principles, specifically those on Accuracy, Integrity and Fairness. See: http://cbc-radio-canada.ca/docs/policies/journalistic/journoprincipals.shtml


My question is and remains:

Mr. Prime Minister:

During the 2006 Election you promised that you would NEVER raid seniors nest eggs by taxing income trusts. Nine months later you did that exact thing arguing that "circumstances had changed" and that, suddenly, income trusts caused tax leakage. The only proof of tax leakage that you provided Canadians for your tax leakage argument was 18 pages of blacked out documents. How does the use of blacked out documents achieve the level of transparency and accountability that your government also promised to Canadians? Why did you subsequently demand these documents be returned to you, resulting in zero transparency? What is your government trying to hide? Meanwhile reputable private sector groups like BMO Capital Markets and PricewaterhouseCoopers are saying that there is no tax leakage from income trusts, and therefore, your policy actions are WITHOUT justification.

When will your government admit to Canadians that they were misled into believing that you would never tax income trusts in exactly the same way that you are attempting to mislead them on your current hoax about tax leakage?

When will your government take off its veil of blacked out documents and release the truth about tax leakage in order that Canadians can better understand why they lost $35 billion of their retirement savings and the loss of an essential investment vehicle for retirement income for the 75% of Canadians, unlike you, who are without pensions, at a time of pension crises?

Supplemental Question: Could the Prime Minister please comment on the rash of foreign takeovers of income trusts like the $4 billion takeover of Harvest Energy Trust by state-owned Korean National Oil Company or the $5 billion takeover of Prime West Energy Income Trust by state owned Abu Dhabi Energy, to name just 2 of the 51 takeovers to date caused solely by your policy and tell Canadians how much tax revenue is being lost by ALL Canadian taxpayers as a result? Are the estimates by Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors/Taxpayers of an annual tax loss of $1.2 billion a year, rising to as much as $7.5 billion if all the trusts succumb to takeover, accurate?

Brent Fullard
(Volunteer) President and CEO
Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors/Taxpayers
www.caiti.info

647 505-2224 (cell)

Here were the CBC viewer voting results for that question:

Week one: of 372 questions submitted, mine was the top ranked with 1,563 votes for. 10 votes against. CBC failed to even go with an income trust question even though 7 of the top 10 questions were on Harper’s income trust fraud. See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/pointofview/2010/01/your-question-period.html

Week two: of 409 questions submitted, mine was top ranked with 2,201 votes for , 23 against, with 37 of the top 40 question on Harper’s income trust fraud. See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/pointofview/2010/01/your-question-period-week-2-what-should-cbc-news-ask-our-politicians.html


Bottom line: The CBC has yet to ask my question and has prevented me from asking my question and exposing Harper’s patent falsehoods about tax leakage along with Harper’s incompetence and deceit. Instead the CBC ran a segment that was a total insult to my top rated question, as voted upon by CBC viewers, that I was prevented from even asking and the CBC decided instead to devote the majority of the segment to a repeat of Harper’s litany of patent lies about income trusts and the tax leakage fear mongering on which it was based on from October 2006, except this is now February 2010. Why is that? Why is the CBC locked in a time warp? Is that how news is gathered, based on repeating government falsehoods of the past? Is this what taxpayers fund CBC to the tune of $1 billion a year for? So the CBC can help governments lie and cover up disastrous policies that are costing taxpayers another $1.5 billion a year from the 51 takeover of trusts by foreigners and other non-taxable entities?

The CBC is failing MISERABLY in its role as Canada’s public broadcaster and has turned itself into a taxpayer funded version of BNN. Complete with Amanda Lang using the public broadcaster to promulgate her lies that income trust were a “bubble” or Harvard Gould repeating Harper’s lies about the taxes that would have been lost from the conversion of BCE and Telus, and the CBC going out of its way to find people like Professor Booth who has no expertise on the matter that he is being asked to speak about as if he were an authority, when in fact he is merely a misinformed shill for the government.

Is this why taxpayers subsidize CBC with $1 billion a year, in order to have two CTV’s? None of the coverage that CBC has provided on the topic of income trusts has come anywhere close to meeting the CBC’s supposed standards for Accuracy Integrity and Fairness. Meanwhile Canadians were victims of a Government FRAUD that saw 2.5 million Canadians lose $35 billion of their retirement savings, while all those working for the CBC are able to own income trusts free of the 31.5% tax in the CBC Pension Fund and the CBC is going out of its way to air clips of Jim Flaherty saying that this policy was premised on Fairness?

Between the CBC and Jim Flaherty, neither has a clue about the concept of Fairness, Integrity or Accuracy. The CBC is in gross violation of its own Journalistic Principles. Meanwhile Canada’s Minister of Finance had NO PRINCIPLES to speak of.