Dear Editor:
Informed citizenry is essential to democracy. Are we as Canadians informed? Who is informing us? Steven Harper? Certainly not! MPs are gagged.Scientists andpublic servants have all been muzzled. Research libraries have been closed.
If our own government colludes to blind its own citizens, who is left to inform them? Mainstream media? TV, radio, and newspapers?
Our media has been allowed to become, with few exceptions, a privately-owned billionaires club monopoly. Today, everymajor English-language newspaper, outside the Star and the Globe, is owned by one company, Postmedia. Its largely owned by a U.S. hedge fund. Think they give a damn ifyoure informed? Theyre after profit.
Read every newspaper and watch every newscast, and you still couldnt scrape up enough information to cast an informed ballot. Thats why voter turnout is so low.And why Harper, in scandal after scandal from cheating on elections to using publicly-funded Senators as party fundraisers somehow, mysteriously, is still up in the polls!
Advertising dollars buys media loyalty. In the last federal election, Harper had the editorial support of every major Canadian newspaper.
What has cheap-tricks Harper, the man who brought you robocalls and attack-ads, got planned for our next federal election? Political Action Committees or PACs same as the U.S. super-PACs. Expect a massive propaganda blitz of third-party advertising. Prepare to be social-engineered.
Canadas democracy hangs on a thin thread: the CBC.Canadians own the CBC, at a cost of 10 cents each per day. One of its roles is to provide us with an independent news and information source. Thats why its on Harpers hit list. Massive funding cuts and a Board of Directors handpicked by Harper will kill the CBC from inside. Democracy will die with it.
Harper and previous Liberals both cut funding to the CBC. What did they want to hide? If you ask me, both are brands owned by foreign oil.
NDPs Tom Mulcair vowed to restore funding to the CBC. In our coming federal election, vote for democracy! It may be your last chance.
Bryan Stawychny
Edgewater
