Kady O'Malley Is Stephen Harper's New Lap Dog?

News broke today that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to once again prorogue government for a few weeks this fall and will present a new throne speech. You may recall the last time the PM prorogued government during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, opposition MPs (led by Ignatieff) went bananas and decried the move as destroying our democracy, blah, blah, blah. This in turn inspired some college kid to start a Facebook page against prorogation, which tried to organize mass protests across the country (with plenty of promotion from the CBC) where attendance fell far short of expectations. A year later we had a new election and Stephen Harper won a majority government, proving this "grassroots movement" had died off, or never really existed.

Now the PM is proroguing again in 2013, and the same day this announcement was made, CBC blogger Kady O'Malley wrote a piece titled "3 reasons not to freak out over the upcoming prorogation" where she writes in her opening paragraph "let's all take a deep breath before hauling the anti-prorogation picket signs out of storage and hitting the barricades, shall we?" She then proceeds to outline why it is perfectly reasonable for the Prime Minister to prorogue parliament, in a perfectly rational article. Kady is not well known for writing articles favourable of Prime Minister Harper, where bloggers like me have long complained about her flagrant left wing bias as a CBC employee. Ironically if you scroll down to the comment section of her latest post, it seems as though her readers have turned on her (at least for this piece), all but accusing her of being a lap dog for the PMO. Here are some of the comments:

"Posted no doubt at the request of the PMO Commissar, to try to placate the masses."
-hughy294

"The headline itself is meant to sway your opinion."
-holyhannah

"This article courtesy of The Criminal Party of Canada."
-WatsonDatelli

"Kady O'Malley...is there a senate appointment upcoming for you that we don't know about?"
-rink rat

"Kady, when did you go on the PMO payroll? CBC isn't even under direct control yet but you sound like you're reading from a Harper script."
-garbal54

"Perhaps Kady has lost her spine now that the conservatives control the CBC. We don't want to speak badly about our bosses lest we find ourselves on the street"
-againstthewind

"If you seriously believe and or support anything that Stephen Harper says, you are in need of counselling."

-Citizen Joe

Wow, these are the type of comments generally reserved for Conservative writers, and I didn't even read them all! It feels like Kady almost deserves some credit for writing this piece, judging by the animosity coming from blowhards who normally agree with her. She was among the "CBC bloggers" who went bananas in 2010 and pushed the anti-prorogation agenda as hard as anyone in the national media. Now she believes it is reasonable to prorogue parliament, or at least when the PM has a majority government.

The times sure are a changing!

Are Budget Cuts Putting Your Life At Risk?

Today's poll question; are you concerned that government budget cuts are putting your life at risk? That seems to be the running theme lately of the CBC "ballot box" questions. They even have an article about challenging the scrapping of the gun registry that includes a picture of a gun pointed at the viewer (where have we seen that before?) Basically the message is that government cutbacks are putting your life at risk. Do you agree? It should be noted that the CBC is hardly an unbiased observer, as they have been whining about their own budget cuts. They are trying to help sell the story that government budget cuts are bad; but hey, if I were receiving a hefty government salary, I'd probably be saying the same thing.

Liberal Illegal Robocalls Not As Big Of A Story

Interesting that the Liberals have been caught making illegal robocalls in the controversial riding of Guelph, but the story is noticeably absent from the CBC Politics page. The big headline is a request to investigate Julian Fantino's election finances. It would appear that confessed Liberal "dirty tricks" just isn't as interesting a news story as allegations of Tory "dirty tricks". Then again, the Liberals are in 3rd place and not promising to cut the CBC's budget by 10%, so I can see where they might get bumped down the priority list. Does anyone care about the Liberal Party anymore? Perhaps when the story broke this afternoon, the CBC online editors had already gone home for the weekend? Somehow I doubt that Evan Soloman will be leading his show with this on Monday. We'll see how many of the 31,000 "complaints" (if we can call them that) collected by Ian Chapstick and friends were actually "complaining" about robocalls ordered by the opposition parties.

Protests have been planned for this weekend in cities across the country. The Robocall protests to date have not mustered much attendance, but we'll see if this new information on Liberal dirty tricks helps boost the numbers. Will there be any signs demanding an end to Liberal dirty tricks? I won't hold my breath...

Today's poll question, should there be a byelection in Guelph, where the Liberals won handily by using dirty tricks?

CBC's 10% Budget Cut

Today it was announced that the CBC can expect a 10% cut in its government funding in the upcoming budget, not that you would have noticed with all the hoopla over Robogate. James Moore has to be pretty choked up over this one. I can already see Pat Martin's Tweets tomorrow that the Tories are trying to suppress the CBC from investigating and reporting on Robogate while declaring war on Canadian culture; killing two birds with one stone. Though it should be mentioned that the once right leaning National Post has been hammering Robogate with as much vigour as the public broadcaster, again with no evidence of wrong doing. The first place that the CBC should be looking to cut is employee salaries. We don't know what Mansbridge, Soloman, or Strombolopulus get paid, but it's a safe bet that the number is way too big.

Will the national media and opposition parties start accusing the Tories of "suppressing" the CBC? Give it a week, though it should happen sooner than that. Turns out the CBC has a large number of employees in the top 10% of Canadian wage earners. Will the 90% revolt against the fat cats at the CBC? Don't expect any tents to pop up outside CBC HQ anytime soon.

The CBC's $7 Million Dollar Birthday

Wow, the CBC sure loves to throw a party and they certainly spare no expense! For their 75th birthday celebration the public broadcaster spent $6.6M dollars, and once again many of the details regarding those expenditures are being withheld to protect "creative practices". We do know that they spent over $300K on DVD box sets. They spent $19K on commemorative coins and "employee recognition", $37K in banners, and $40K for a former anchorman to do a series of lectures. FYI guys, with that kind of coin you could buy several fake lakes and beautification gazebos. A nice gazebo and flower garden can enhance a community for many years to come, certainly more so than the anchorman monologues.

The birthday budget dwarfs the $72K plus they spent to celebrate the renaming and shortening of the Strombo Show. Though the Strombo party was just one single event (an exclusive gathering of celebrities and CBC employees at a 5 star hotel), where the birthday celebration was a series of smaller parties held across the country where they actually invited members of the general public.

Strombo Knows How To Party!

Are you looking to host a really great Christmas or New Year's party and have $70K-$100K to spend? If so you should consider calling the CBC's George Strombolopololis. Strombo really knows how to throw an epic party! Your base cost will run you about $72K plus extra for booking a 5 star hotel and a private security team to protect Strombo. For your trouble and extravagant cost, you can expect celebrities, Twitter buzz, and a magical night you won't soon forget. Granted I cannot be more specific about what exactly you'll get for your money, because that information is tightly guarded.

Last September Strombo threw such a party at a cost to taxpayers of $72,372 (which does not include the cost of the 5 star hotel and Strombo's personal bodyguards). Most of the financial details of this party are being withheld by the CBC on grounds that their release "would harm CBC's creative, programming or journalistic activities." The party was intended to launch his new show "Strombo Tonight"; which is basically the same show he had before but 30 minutes shorter with a different name. That's a lot to spend on a party to celebrate the renaming of a television show. It's also a bit rich to claim that releasing how much you spent on booze somehow jeopardizes your creative property.

This might be the most ridiculous example yet of the CBC fighting the release of information on creative grounds, but if you want to throw a bitchin' party, call Strombo.

Stombo The Historian

Of all the people on the CBC roster that management could have chosen to host a series of historical documentaries, how they decided upon George Strombopolis boggles the mind. Seriously, the glorified disc jockey with all the piercings, that's your chosen educator on matters of world history? In his WWII doc, he kept talking about Hitler and Mussolini with frequent references to "right wing ideology". In the latest history lesson, we learn that Ronald Reagan was one of the true villains of the Cold War. Did the world really need more documentaries on WWII and the Cold War? What we needed was history according to Stombo...

I'd be very curious to know how much these Love-Hate docs cost to make, and how much they paid George to read the cue cards. Sound like an idea for an Access to Information request. They should not have cost much to make because there was no original research and they just recycled the same historical footage used in every other documentary. I'm willing to wager that they spent more than they should have. For those of you considering buying the Love, Hate, and Propaganda box set for $35 at the CBC Shop, be aware that they play these with great frequency on CBC TV. You'll probably get about 500 opportunities to watch it for free in the next year. This is not something you want to spend money on, though since your tax dollars helped pay to make it, you already have. That's sad.

Shinning A Light On The CBC's Flawed Decision Making

There are only two days remaining to vote in the webpoll for which CBC employee you think tested the worst with focus groups. As of right now Terry Milewski has a large lead over his colleagues, followed by Stombo, Mary Walsh, and Soloman. Now that the CBC has been ordered by the courts to hand over internal documents such as focus group data, we may finally get a chance to shine a light on some of the Broadcaster's inner machinations for evidence of flawed decision making at the programming level.

Many of us would also like to see what programs lose the most money so we can start trimming the fat. Meanwhile, there is at least one group fighting to save the CBC's tax payer subsidies. The "Friends of Canadian Broadcasting" are launching an ad campaign targeting the Tory government on the CBC issue. The objective is to protect the flow of tax money to prop up a public broadcaster notorious for putting untalented people on the air. Somebody needs to fight for the right of Mary Walsh to get paid to be on television, because otherwise no network would hire "artists" like her. Generally you have to be funny to get a gig as a comedian, unless that employer is the CBC.

Court Forces CBC To Hand Over Focus Group Results For TV Personalities

The CBC lost a court appeal forcing them to answer Access to Information requests that they had previously ignored on the grounds of protecting artistic secrets. Among the documents ordered be turned over are focus group results regarding CBC personalities, something that the CBC did not want to be made public. Many of us would love to see the results of this ATI request published in the media. Infact I hope that they have focus groups results for every single television personality, and that they become public information. If the CBC would like to keep this information private, they should stop taking money from the government.

This begs the question, which CBC personality has the most negative or damaging focus group results? On the news side it has to be Milewski or Soloman. The CBC repeatedly airs commercials for the Soloman Show with Evan pleading with viewers that he's "tough, but not unfair", over and over again. I wonder if that's what his focus group said? The most negative results probably come from their regular television programming, where they have some absolutely atrocious TV shows.

Which CBC TV personality has the most negative focus group results will be a future poll question, after a sufficient nomination period. Who do you think tested poorly, but kept their jobs anyway? The lead actor in Little Mosque is reportedly an alpha male within CBC ranks, so if he tested poorly it is plausible the results would be disregarded.

But even more than focus group results, the information I want to see the most is how much each show cost to make, and how much revenue each produced. Who made money, and who lost money? And how much?

CBC's O'Malley Mocks Government On Access To Information Diligence

It's ironic that a CBC journalist blogger would direct mocking criticism at the government for their diligence in responding to Access To Information requests; when her own public tax funded broadcaster frequently refuses to respond to ATI requests about how they spend those tax dollars. Perhaps it is as they so often say, "takes one to know one". Oh that's right I forgot, the CBC has the moral high ground because they are protecting their "artistic integrity" (I know, calling anything produced by the CBC "art" is objectionable).

Kady's original post mocking of the government on this matter came a few weeks ago after an ethics committee hearing investigating the CBC questionable practices regarding ATI requests. She was trying to deflect criticism away from the CBC by throwing mud at the Tory government under the title "OpenGovWatch", questioning the gov's sincerity on posting ATI request results online by the end of the year. Today the government announced they would do exactly that, so Kady re-posted her original negative post from a few weeks ago, scratched a few words out, and added an update at the bottom. Is that her way of printing a retraction? Or did she use the announcement as an excuse to re-post her original mocking criticism?

It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but that's something we've come to expect from the journalistic blogging world of Kady O'Malley...

Should Rob Ford Sue The CBC?

This might seem like a ridiculous question, but one I'd like to ask; if the taxpayers didn't have to foot the bill, should Rob Ford sue the CBC? I'm not a lawyer, but between trespassing and blatant character assassination, there has to be enough to get a court date. If he were to sue the CBC, the taxpayers would be on the hook for the legal bill, so this is more of a hypothetical question. Home invasions are a little extreme even for the CBC, but I would really like to read the minutes from the meeting where they decided upon this new strategy. What was the dialogue between Walsh and her producer? Maybe I'll send an Access to Information request. They pushed the envelope farther than they ever have, and I suspect it was a deliberate attempt to force the Mayor into the most uncomfortable situation, impromptu left wing sketch comedy at his home in front of his children. Then he overreacted and called the police, prompting the CBC to ridicule him and then publish a negative story about the 9/11 calls that turned out to be totally false. That's damned near slander. You can get sued for that.

Message to anyone considering a political career, the CBC is breaking new ground where you need to be on high alert 24 hours per day. You won't be safe in your homes. Why the f**k anyone would want a career in politics with this ridiculous standard is beyond me. I guess this kind of attack is perpetrated more often against right wing politicians, who are vilified at every opportunity. Every Conservative is "the worst person in the world", right?

I have to give two thumbs up to Ezra Levant for this comedy sketch. It was brilliant and made me laugh out loud.

Ambush Comedy At Politician Homes?

Today's poll question; is it appropriate for a comedy troupe to film uninvited unexpected improv sketches at the homes of politicians? A maniacal CBC character and camera crew ambushed Rob Ford at his home on his driveway with his young daughter present, and the CBC has been hammering him all day for responding to the ambush by calling the police. Was calling the police necessary? Maybe not, but he should never have been put in that position. The loonie left has been sending death threats to the Mayor, and the CBC suddenly decides to jump this guy first thing in the morning outside his house when he's driving his young child to school? Seriously??? How long did they sit waiting outside his house for him to come out?

What the CBC did here was just stupid and wrong. If we permit this as acceptable we are setting a dangerous precedence. Who's going to want to get into politics if you are going to be harrassed in your driveway? The clowns on CBC Newsworld today were having a lot of fun with this story today, with one dude joking that he had to pour through many e-mails to find any supportive of Ford. The discussion of whether or not this home ambush was an appropriate decision was noticeably absent. Then tonight on the National, Mansbridge did a whole bit on why Rob Ford's 1st year was so terrible and the worst "mistake" they could name was him missing the Pride parade (meanwhile Christy Clark skipped the one in Vancouver and the media hardly made a whimper). Sure Ford has yet to cut the budget as promised (thanks in part to ardent left wing opposition), but nothing he's done can be classified as doing a bad job. Yet to hear some journalists talk about it, through one year he's the worst Mayor in the history of Canada. Some journalists and bloggers, like Marcus Gee at the Globe and Mail have pretty much dedicated their lives to attacking Ford.

Kelly McParland wrote a great piece on this story in the National Post which I strongly recommend reading.

"Hands Off Our CBC"

Today Bob Rae's Liberal Party announced a new campaign and online petition called "hands off our CBC" in an attempt to stop the government from reducing the billion plus dollars tax payer subsidize the state broadcaster annually. According to Jennifer Ditchburn the Liberals are "trying to tap a well of potential support". I'm not exactly sure who she thinks will make up this "well of support", unless she's talking about people who collect pay cheques from the CBC. Perhaps Bobby's plan is to try and get the folks at CBC Newsworld in their corner, as if they weren't already. The Liberals aren't picking up any support from their right by engaging in this policy, so this is likely a play for NDP votes. Most CBC jobs are unionized, so saving the subsidies should have some appeal to big labour.

Unfortunately for Bob, his announcement was overshadowed today by Mulcair entering the NDP leadership race.

Is There Room For CTV News Channel?

The Sun News Network is changing the landscape of Canadian media, and I can think of a few people that have to be really pissed off about this new reality. Don Newman and Jane Taber were probably the two most vocal opponents who tried to stomp out the idea while in its infancy. Despite losing its bid for the must carry status that CBC Newsworld and CTV enjoy and being available on millions fewer television sets, Sun News is overtaking the competition after just 4 months on the air. One thing is clear, CTV News Channel is getting its ass kicked and is a distant 3rd place. If you ask me Jane Taber drove that network into the ground, to the point where we need to ask if there is even room for Taber's network in the new Canadian media. Back when the CRTC was deliberating whether or not to give the Sun must carry license Jane was vilifying Kory Teneycke on an almost daily basis. Ironically, now that the Sun Network has been born, you don't see the same mud slinging anymore.

Ezra Levant Vs Evan Soloman

Every afternoon at the same time Sun TV's Ezra Levant's television show goes up against that of the CBC's Evan Soloman. The Soloman Show is available on nearly twice as many television sets, but to be fair Sun News is only 4 months old and not mandated by the CRTC to be included in cable packages. So what is the ratings difference between the two competing politics shows? Well according to the latest ratings, there is very little difference in their audience size. Soloman is on 10.6 million TV sets and had 59,000 viewers while Levant is on 5.5 million TV sets and had 57,000 viewers. CTV News Channel finished in a distant 3rd place, though their keynote politics show Power Play is currently on a summer vacation.

Evan Soloman had a head start when he took over the afternoon slot, inheriting Don Newman's audience. I'm not sure what size of audience Newman had prior to his departure, but it had to be better than Soloman's haul. It would be very interesting to see the historical ratings for the Soloman Show since its inception in 2009, data that the CBC is mandated to track but doesn't share publicly, among other things.

CBC Warns Government Cutbacks Can Lead To Riots

On Tuesday Rosemary Barton was on our publicly funded broadcaster discussing the riots in London, speculating that "government austerity measures" can lead to public violence. Did you hear that Canadian government? Consider yourself warned! Try to roll back the CBC's cost expenditures, and it could lead to hooligans out in the streets of Ottawa throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars. Rolling back the number of climate change jobs at Environment Canada could lead to looting and widespread civil unrest. Sure, CBC employees might have a conflict of interest when discussing government spending, but there are many historical examples where spending cuts have led to public employees gathering in large numbers to protest (with some of those deteriorating into violence).

Does this mean that we should avoid doing the right thing because a small number of hooligans might become upset? Something feels inherently wrong about appeasement made under the threat of violence. If you believe that reducing government spending is a noble and necessary cause, then you should not compromise those values because a small number people are violently opposed to the measures. I'm not suggesting that Rosemary Barton or any of her CBC colleagues are threatening violence if their budgets are reduced. For all the things I've had to say about Milewski, Soloman, or O'Malley, I would not expect to see any of them on TV setting fire to coffee shops or smashing windows (though I wouldn't be shocked to see Terry throw a garbage can at the Prime Minister's limo). Typically when public union protests deteriorate into violence, it is the result of a small criminal element taking advantage of the public gathering and intense emotions.

We should figure out the best way to isolate and separate criminals from innocents when people gather publicly, but we should not avoid "government austerity measures" because the CBC says it could lead to violence. A lack of government austerity in the United States and Europe is why our global economy is teetering on the edge of catastrophic collapse. Two words, "sovereign debt".

Does It Matter That NDP Leader Was A Due Paying Bloc Member?

Today's poll question (borrowed from the CBC Politics Show); "does it matter to you that the interim leader of the opposition once held party membership in the Bloc Quebecois?" Normally I'm not a fan of cutting and pasting CBC poll questions, but in this instance I'd like to see how the Blogging Tory audience responds to the exact same question. The CBC audience went 50% no and 49% yes. The Soloman Show has an audience that is normally about 80% or more left wing, so clearly you have Liberals going both ways on this matter.

Does it matter to you? Who are the Liberals saying yes, and who are the Liberals saying no?

"Will Kirstine Stewart save the CBC?"

The Globe and Mail did a nice little bio piece Saturday on the latest Vice President of CBC English program services Kristine Stewart, asking whether or not she can save the network. A fortune teller once predicted she'd become Prime Minister and she has already "taken out a layer of management". Aside from that, the highlight of her bio, she once dated George Strombolopolis and later gave him a reality TV show that was cancelled after two weeks. Just like her predecessor, Kristine is engaged to be married to CBC on air talent. Her current fiancee is the "star" of Little Mosque on the Prairie, so it might be a stretch to call him "talent", but I'll bet his show isn't cancelled anytime soon. Do I think she'll save the CBC? It's unlikely, but at least we're getting some acknowledgment that the CBC is heading in the wrong direction and in need of salvation.

Kristine's predecessor Richard Stursberg is married to Carole MacNeil (she was "moved" from her Sunday Show with Soloman to the big news desk not long after saying I do). Needless to say it is quite the family affair over at the public broadcaster. Evidently if you want to "hook up" with someone on CBC television (male or female), your best bet is to try and become a CBC executive.

Evan Soloman Needs A Lesson On Crime Rates

Evan Soloman needs to learn the difference between a crime "rate" (per 100,000 people) and total volume of crimes. If you are going to have a debate about expanding prison capacity, you should not be citing crimes per 100,000 but rather total number of crimes. Why? Because our population grows by about 350,000 people every year, nearly doubling in size since 1962. Evan's big question today was if crime rates are declining, why would we spend money expanding prison capacity? First, let's disregard all the reports about how dangerously overcrowded our prisons currently are and just look at crime rates versus crime volume. I downloaded the same Statistics Canada data that Evan used (although he focused mostly on the last two years). For your viewing pleasure, I prepared two different charts comparing violent crime rates versus total number of crimes since 1991 and fit a trend line.

Oh my Lord, what kind of crazy Voodoo magic is this??? Simple answer, the violent crime rate has fallen by 15% since 1991. Great news right? Sadly, our population has grown by 19% over that same time period. You might have a smaller percentage of people committing crimes, but because our population keeps growing we actually have more criminals. What was Evan's question of the day today? You have to love how he started with "given dropping crime rates", because that's not a leading question at all...

Given dropping crime rates, should money pegged for prisons and the government's tough on crime agenda, be spent on other priorities?

yes 79%
no 19%
unsure 2%

Total Votes: 438

All that being said, the TOTAL number of violent crimes has fallen consistently every year since the Conservatives came to power in 2006, so they must be doing something right in their tough on crime agenda. It is working. If what the Tories have been doing has been working, why would we change course now?

If You Could Access CBC Information...

Assuming that the CBC even responded to access to information requests about its cost expenditures, what would you most like to know if you could access their protected secret information? Would it be Terry Milewski's expense account, the cost of making any one of its crappy shows, how much they pay Kady O'Malley to sit on her couch watching television while "live blogging", or perhaps how much they paid Scott "beer and popcorn" Reid for those "point of order" segments on the Soloman Show? I'd like to know complete and detailed ratings information which I know the CBC keeps but doesn't publish, so we can cancel the shows that nobody is watching. This will be the subject of a future poll question after we've had some time to collect some feedback.