Charity Intelligence and the Tories

I still see the Trudeau government reeling from the so-called We Charity Scandal and it bugs the hell out of me. I feel personally invested in this because I believed, from Jesse Brown’s first smear piece on WE in 2019, that the story was an empty vessel. It troubles me that every media outlet came down against WE and that

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Why Your Pundits Are So Boring

I have a theory about our new King, the great and powerful Charles III.  We know too much about him. His love life, specifically his desire to be a tampon. His opinions. The fact he has his flunkies iron his shoelaces. His lousy relationship with one of his sons. The monarchy is built on mystique, and that’s gone. It could

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When The Fifth Estate Went From Journalists to Activist Defendants

When do journalists stop acting in the public interest and start working to push their own agendas? When do reporters stop covering news and start making it?That question is central to the latest twists and turns in WE Charity’s court case against the CBC, its flagship news show The Fifth Estate, and several of its journalists.After they destroyed WE Charity’s

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Staggin’ and Doughin’ with the Fords: Quack, Quack!

  A premier has a responsibility to the people, and to the government itself, not to destroy the credibility of the political system by appearing to be auctioning favours. Unlike a private citizen, a premier can’t skate up to the very edge of the legal blue line and claim he’s not offside. When Doug Ford’s lovely and talented daughter held

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Ontario Municipal Election Coverage

Here’s a good litmus test for the quality of journalism in your community, if you live in Ontario: Is the municipal election in your community getting coverage? Municipal councils now have four-year terms (up from one year in the 1960s, two-year in the 1970s, when council positions were sort of honorary spots for local business leaders). In medium and large

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What WE Lost: A Review

Tawfiq Rangwala has written a well-researched, solid account of the destruction of the WE movement in Canada. It’s remarkably clearly written. Rangwala is a lawyer who could have gone too deeply into the weeds of corporate and legal jargon, but What WE Lost is compelling and very readable. People should read this book. It is the only complete analysis of

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WE Charity Sues the CBC’s “The Fifth Estate”

We Charity issued a release last week saying it had filed a massive lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Statement of Claim can be read here.I have never seen such a detailed Statement of Claim during my years as a legal journalist or my time as a lawyer representing

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Theresa Kielburger v. Canadaland et al

Here’s the statement of claim in Theresa Kielburger’s lawsuit against Canadaland, Jesse Brown and several of his employees. The lawsuit focusses on Canadaland repeating, in its one-sided White Saviors Podcast, libels published in Saturday Night magazine in 1996. Craig Kielburger, then 13 years old, sued the magazine and writer Isabel Vincent, who now writes for the New York Post but

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Preliminary Notes on an Early Election

I hope someone writes an honest book about media coverage of this election so I can finally understand what the hell’s been happening. There hasn’t been a good book by a Parliament Hill journalist in years, and all the latest political books have been stillborn, with minimal sales, but where there’s life, there’s hope.First, I’d like to know how this

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