Legacy media is failing Canadians for the sake of war absolutism

OTTAWA—Let’s check into how Canadian media are doing with the fact they shit the bed on one of the most important stories of the year. Again. One would think that the Canadian media establishment would take a moment, buckle down, and learn something about the history they are avenging after the colossal embarrassment that was Canadian Parliamentarians giving a standing ovation to Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka, and the subsequent resignation of now-former Speaker of the House Anthony Rota. One could only hope. Within days, Canadian legacy news outlets doubled down in their group think, which excuses everything Ukrainian in order to market the war in Ukraine effectively. Let me be clear: as someone who has lived through the media beating the war drum during the invasion of Afghanistan, and how western media effectively made the case for the invasion of Iraq on a lie, I am always skeptical when I hear those media promoting war as the only option. War is ugly and has unintended human and geopolitical consequences, yet we don’t hear the anti-war perspective from our legacy media. Instead, we are treated to historical revisionism to fit the marketing and branding of this conflict. Remember that our enthusiasm to save Afghanistan resulted in generations of trauma and destruction for the Afghan people, only to be back where we started. I also have questions about how the case for Ukraine has been marketed in the Canadian press. Let me be clearer: I think Russian President Vladimir Putin is as dangerous as you do, and no, there is no justification for invasion of self-determined peoples. So, before y’all call me a Russian spy or what I write Russian disinformation, please note that I have yet to be wrong in these pages. Canada's legacy media and political class failed to show the proper humility and regret for embarrassing every person living in this colonizer-crested country called Canada. Instead, they are sanitizing Ukrainian involvement in Nazi war crimes. For example, Canadian legacy media have dictated that we cannot call a Nazi a Nazi, instead, they’re “Nazi-linked.” The Canadian Press wrote a whole article engaging in the bothsidesism of a Nazi-linked Nazi: “Jurij Klufas says the veteran is being treated unfairly and that countries, including Canada, have cleared his division of war crimes.” Prominent voices in media have written whole Substack entries about how war is complicated, no one really knows, and the SS Galicia division was cleared by the Deschênes Commission. This political reporter does not reveal that much of that report was censored, as David Pugliese did in the Ottawa Citizen: “The federal government has withheld a second part of a 1986 government commission report about Nazis who settled in Canada. In addition, it has heavily censored another 1986 report examining how Nazis were able to get into Canada. More than 600 pages of that document, obtained by this newspaper and other organizations through the Access to Information law, have been censored.” Much of the analysis of legacy media voices are tacitly disinfecting the white supremacist genocidal acts, rather than centring their mainly Jewish victims. Politico, which should know better, ran a column that promotes the viewpoint that war is complicated, Hunka had no choice, and questioned whether we really know if the SS Galicia actually committed war crimes, and if they did, did Hunka? All of this philosophizing to excuse antisemitism is mind-boggling. Politico allowed this author to pollute its pages by equating the statements of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center with Russian disinformation, saying their statement of crimes against humanity in the Second World War “doesn’t seem to have any more substance than the accusation by Russia.” Even our public broadcaster decided to participate in the sanitization of white supremacist war criminals. CBC News wrote a sympathetic article about the Hunka family having to escape and go into hiding in North Bay, Ont., which I’m sure are better circumstances than that of his Jewish victims and he will receive a much better fate, at that. This must be what CBC bosses mean when they talks about diversity and inclusion; the inclusion of Nazis does expand the diversity of white supremacists. It is not surprising that with the weak state of Canadian news media they would sell out their democratic duties of challenging power for a buck and an extra click. And given the threats from the Conservatives to defund the CBC, it’s not surprising the institution is bending over backwards to appease the right of the political spectrum. The Guardian reminds us that Associated Press sold its soul to the Nazis for the same reason: “AP was only able to retain its access by entering into a mutually beneficial two-way co-operation with the Nazi regime.” At least AP used their own funds to promote Nazi sympathy; in Canada, CBC News is using taxpayers’ dollars to do so. Nazis are evil and should be prosecuted for their attempts at genocide. I don’t see why this should be controversial, yet in today’s Canada, this statement is up for debate as media continue to whitewash white supremacist war criminals. This is who we are. Erica Ifill is a co-host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast. The Hill Times

Legacy media is failing Canadians for the sake of war absolutism

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Legacy media is failing Canadians for the sake of war absolutism

It is not surprising that with the weak state of Canadian news media they would sell out their democratic duties of challenging power for a buck and an extra click.

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