The idiom ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ is well understood to mean that whoever is paying someone to do something can influence how it should be done; has the power to control. A companion idiom for the recipient of such pay is to ‘never bite the hand that feeds you.’ That situation certainly applies to our establishment media receiving federal handouts, thereby, instead of holding the government accountable, the establishment press has obligingly become a mouthpiece of the state. While we have come to understand that situation to be the case when it comes to the big media players like the CBC, CTV, Global, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun, one might be inclined to think that such does not apply to our local weekly newspapers, the Cochrane Eagle and the Cochrane Times. That assumption would be wrong as they, as well, are recipients of handouts from the Trudeau government.
Cochrane Eagle and Cochrane Times – Recipients of Federal Government Handouts
In 2021, for example, the Cochrane Eagle received $27,381 in funding from Trudeau’s Canada Periodical Fund Program and a total of $304,798 was doled out to the parent company Great West Media L.P., headquartered in St. Albert, to support its chain of news outlets in Alberta, which also includes Airdrie City View (receiving $19,687), Rocky View Weekly (receiving $13,171), and Rocky Mountain Outlook (receiving $73,491).
The prior year, 2020, the Cochrane Eagle received an annual subsidy of $68,844 from the Trudeau Government and the Cochrane Eagle’s parent company, Great West Newspapers Ltd., received a total of $785,533 for its chain of news outlets.
From the same federal program, the Cochrane Times was the recipient of an annual subsidy of $19,730 in 2020 and the Airdrie Echo received $43,867 at the same time.
The most recent example of the Cochrane Eagle and the Cochrane Times receiving a bailout from the federal government occurred when they along with about 1500 other media outlets benefitted from Trudeau’s $61M pre-election “emergency relief” provided prior to the September 2021 federal election. Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s department refused to name the publishers awarded such handouts. However, such information was secured by independent media Rebel Newsand Canadaland through freedom of information requests.
The retrieved list revealed that the Cochrane Eagle was the recipient of $68,844 from Justin Trudeau’s $61-million 2021 pre-election pay-off. Other papers in the Great West Newspapers chain were also beneficiaries of Trudeau’s largesse: St Albert Gazette ($235,934), Airdrie City View ($38,792), Rocky Mountain Outlook ($213,402), and several others, thereby receiving a total of $735,218 from Trudeau’s handout. As part of the PostMedia Network family, a major recipient of government funding, the Cochrane Time’s piece of PostMedia’s pie from that pre-election funding was $26,010.
Apparent Influence of Federal Funding on the Cochrane Eagle
Prior to the fall of 2019, things were looking up as far as the Cochrane Eagle being receptive to opposing points of view in its Letters to the Editor. On December 20, 2018, then editor of the Cochrane Eagle, Chris Puglia, published an extraordinary Editorial entitled “Media ‘bailout’ is a catch-22”. I sent him a note, telling him: I appreciate your editorial, “Media ‘bailout’ is a catch-22”, and your honesty to recognize that and make your concerns public. The announcement by Trudeau to set up a $595 million slush fund for journalists in an election year cycle is very troubling, especially that it will only help “trusted” news organizations. The old adage from the classic legend, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, comes to mind, that is, ‘whoever pays the piper calls the tune’. Thus, as you say, this will contribute to an erosion of trust in the media, whereby “the optics might do more harm than good”.
Perhaps with such an understanding of the negative influence of government funding, it comes as no surprize that Mr. Puglia announced in September of 2019 that he was resigning as Editor of the Cochrane Eagle. With respect to Chris’ departure, I shared the sentiments expressed by Tex Leugner, who wrote to Mr. Puglia: Hello Chris, I’m very sorry to hear that you are leaving the Eagle. Your Editorship was, in my opinion, a breath of fresh air, because both you and the Cochrane Eagle’s management were always eager and prepared to hear and then share all sides of the story.
I wrote to Mr. Puglia: I hope that the Eagle will continue to maintain the same journalistic standards and fairness that you provided.
In the Spring of 2020, Chelsea Kemp became the Editor of the Cochrane Eagle and by November 2020 with several submissions of Letters to the Editor, disappointingly, I no longer experienced the previous fairness and a willingness to share all sides of the story, presumably, in part, as a result of the influence of Trudeau’s handouts to the media, along with the ideological bent of the editor and publisher.
On November 2, 2020, I wrote to Chelsea Kemp: I have submitted several letters to The Eagle with no success to date in having them published. I hope that you will consider the following for publication in the interest of permitting an alternative point of view
I appended the following Letter to the Editor:
Dissenting Opinion Essential for Freedom and Progress
Dissenting opinion and the allowance for dissenting opinion is foundational for a free and democratic society. Similarly, dissenting opinion is a hallmark of science and progress through science. Otherwise, for example, we might still be believing that life comes from non-life, abiogenesis, a false notion that was disproven by elegant experiments conducted by French microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895), which led to the law of biogenesis, namely, that life comes from life. As Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) declared, “In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
In that context, it is refreshing that several medical doctors and medical professionals are speaking out against the seemingly only allowed politically correct narrative. In October, one such doctor, Dr. Stephen Malthouse, a physician in family medical practice in B.C. for more than 40 years, wrote an Open Letter to Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer.
In his well-argued letter, he asks Dr. Henry:
Why not simply tell the public that
- the PCR testing is not reliable and is meaningless for diagnosing COVID-19
- positive PCR test results do not represent sick patients,
- rarely are people now becoming ill from SARS-CoV-2,
- provincial hospitals are essentially empty of COVID-19 patients,
- decisions should not be based on “cases” in the news,
- the morbidity/mortality of COVID-19 has not exceeded seasonal influenza,
- the median age of death from COVID-19 in Canada was 85 years,
- the pandemic is over, and
- no second wave is coming.
His complete letter can be found by googling “Dr. Stephen Malthouse Letter”. In my view, one rule of thumb for distinguishing what is true from false is to look upon whatever big tech, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, determines to be false and censors, as most likely to be true.
Ms. Kemp wrote back that she would do her best to fit my letter in, “but priority is given to letters specifically about the Cochrane”.
I replied, especially with respect to her suggestion that my letter was not addressing a local issue: I hope that you can find some room. As far as priority to letters specifically about the Cochrane area, as you well know Town Council passed a conditional mandatory bylaw which is very much related to the issue I raise.
To make it local the following “In his well-argued letter, he asks Dr. Henry” could be edited to “In his well-argued letter, he asks Dr. Henry and could well be asking our Town council as well, which introduced conditional mandatory bylaw”. Again, I believe it important that the alternative point of view has a voice.
The relevance to the town was Cochrane Town Council’s approval of a mandatory mask bylaw in July 2020.
Failing to get that Letter to the Editor published, I tried once more to get a Letter to the Editor published in the Cochrane Eagle.
On November 23, 2020, I wrote to Chelsea Kemp: Below is a letter in response to your recent Editorial. As mentioned with respect to my previous submission on November 2nd, I hope that you are willing to consider an alternative, dissenting point of view.
I appended the following Letter to the Editor:
Emotional Toll of Fearmongering
In your recent Editorial (The emotional toll of COVID-19), you bring attention to the emotional toll of the current coronavirus crisis, which includes an increase in suicides and drug overdoses. Being another serious consequence in addition to the severe economic impact with lost jobs and closed businesses. With only one narrative by and large being tolerated, there has been little consideration been given to the roll of excessive fear mongering in contributing to this emotional toll, a lack of putting the current information and data into proper context.
Your editorial speaks of the ‘jump’ in ‘cases’ as an “alarm bell”. It is human nature when hearing an alarm bell to be alarmed, to desperately seek safety! However, is this ‘alarm bell’ warranted?
Dr. Roger Hodkinson doesn’t think so. In fact, in a recent presentation via telephone to the Community and Public Services Committee of Edmonton City Council, Dr. Hodkinson described the current coronavirus crisis as “utterly unfounded public hysteria driven by the media and politicians. It’s outrageous. This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public”. In his view, the whole situation represented “politics playing medicine, and that’s a very dangerous game.”
As someone “in the business of testing for COVID”, Dr. Hodkinson also identified the key factor driving the public hysteria and alarm, namely, the unreliability of PCR tests, noting that “positive test results do not – underlined in neon – mean a clinical infection,” and that “all testing should stop unless you’re presenting to the hospital with some respiratory problem”, because of the false numbers being generated driving the hysteria. (Given that the number of tests being conducted today in Alberta can be 4-5 times the number conducted in the spring, it is not surprising that there has been an abrupt rise in so-called ‘cases’, that is, positive PCR tests, which can include up to 90% false positives.)
Dr. Hodkinson, a medical specialist in pathology which includes virology, began his presentation by outlining his impressive credentials so that the audience might understand that he “might know a little bit about all this.” He received his general medical degrees from Cambridge University in the U.K. Following a residency in Vancouver, he became a Royal College certified pathologist in Canada (FRCPC) and the former chairman of a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons committee in Ottawa. More to the point, he also identified that he is currently the chairman of a biotechnology company in North Carolina selling the COVID-19 test.
His credentials as a distinguished medical doctor dwarf those of Alberta’s chief medical health officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who has been a career public health bureaucrat.
Time to put a stop to only one narrative being tolerated by the mainstream media and big tech. Noteworthy, for example, that YouTube shut down many accounts that attempted to post the ‘offending video’, which was nothing more than an audio presentation of his comments.
With respect to scale of the response being undertaken, Dr. Hodkinson concluded, “You’re being led down the garden path by the chief medical officer of health for this province. I’m absolutely outraged that this has reached this level. It should all stop tomorrow”.
Sources:
Dr. Roger Hodkinson Addresses The Edmonton Council Chambers
Dr. Roger Hodkinson, CEO & Medical Director – MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP
Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.
Once more, with no take-up of my Letter to the Editor, on December 15, 2020, I contacted Kim Smith responsible for advertising in the Cochrane Eagle to determine if I would be able to pay to have my letter, “Emotional Toll of Fearmongering” published in the Cochrane Eagle. She mentioned that she would have to go higher up to check if that was permitted. That afternoon I received a call from the publisher Shaun Jessome from Okotoks. The bottom line was that he had fact-checked my letter and was unable to accept it because in his view there were untrue claims about Dr. Hodkinson’s qualifications, which he would not tell me were untrue, and issues with the content as well about what Hodkinson said. The Cochrane Eagle clearly revealed itself to be no different from censoring by big tech, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter; not being willing to allow a dissenting point of view. He said that I could always submit a letter without citing Dr. Hodkinson. I told him that he was no different from the mainstream media, only allowing one narrative. I asked him if he was satisfied being subsidized by the federal government and thus subject to ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.
Although unable to get a Letter published on my own, I was part of a Letter, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw rocks” that was submitted in May 2021 under the name of 11 residents of Cochrane. The letter questioned the Town’s support for and participation in the Calgary Regional Metropolitan Board (CMRB. As previously reported in a Dog With a Bone blog post, “Speculation Not Okay, But Lies Okay”, after some negotiation, the Letter was eventually accepted for publication after removal of portions of the letter which the Editor, Chelsea Kemp, and Publisher, Shawn Jessome, of the Cochrane Eagle deemed to be “speculation”, including reference to the possible influence of then Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi in creating the CMRB plan and the plan’s relationship to the “the UN’s sustainable development goals, something which Calgary is committed to as an obedient member of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability)”. Noteworthy, that Letters to the Editor, which are opinion pieces, are not allowed to have certain opinions by the Cochrane Eagle. One would think that speculation or opinion would be allowed in a Letter to the Editor. It was pointed out in the blog post that while the publisher and editor objected to certain opinions or speculation, they were quite prepared to make unfounded allegations of a “mass grave” being discovered at the Kamloops Residential School, supporting such public speculation by Justin Trudeau. I asked Ms. Kemp if she would be issuing a correction in the upcoming issue of the Cochrane Eagle? I received no reply from Ms. Kemp nor was there any correction in the subsequent issue, that is, the lies were left to stand, supporting the politically correct narrative to be propagated by the government-subsidized mainstream media.
In July 2021, I was instructed by the publisher of the Cochrane Eagle, Shawn Jessome, to remove a picture from a Dog With a Bone blog post showing Mayor Genung and councillors Fedeyko and McFadden participating in Cochrane’s 2021 Pride Week flag raising ceremony, as it was copyrighted to the Cochrane Eagle and Great West Media LP. I obligingly removed the photo, asking “Will, you in turn, to protect the integrity of your paper, instruct Ms. Kemp to issue a correction with respect to referring to the finding of the unmarked graves near the Kamloops residential school as a ‘mass grave’?”
Later, on August 14, 2021, I wrote to Mr. Jessome: Given that you haven’t answered my question from two weeks ago, I can only presume that means that you are satisfied with the Cochrane Eagle having misrepresented the situation at the former Kamloops residential school.
I find it interesting that some time ago you rejected my Letter to the Editor, an opinion piece, claiming that you did so on the basis of an anonymous fact checker. However, when I fact checked the misrepresentation of the unmarked graves by the Cochrane Eagle, citing the very same band leader who had first announced the unmarked graves, you seem to have no problem with that. I guess the narrative is more important than the facts. By the way, were you or your parent company Great West Newspapers a recipient of part of that secret $61 million handout by Justin Trudeau?
Presumably when you receive funding from the federal government, then you go along with the ‘official narrative’.
My last interaction, and presumably final, interaction with the Cochrane Eagle began on February 6, 2022, when I wrote to Jessica Lee, a journalist with the Cochrane Eagle:
In your updated article, “Hundreds in Cochrane rally in support of trucker convoy”, which appeared in the recent (February 3) print edition of the Cochrane Eagle, you queried Peter Guthrie, for example, about the so-called “desecration of the…Terry Fox statue”, thus parroting the mainstream media’s narrative to discredit and demonize the Trucker Freedom Convoy.
I attached a photo of the so-called offense in question, and asked her: Is that what you consider “desecration”?
Ten days later I reminded her of my previous communication and indicated that “I would appreciate the respect of a response to my query”.
A month later on April 9, 2022, I wrote to her again, but this time I copied her publisher, Shaun Jessome. I wrote: I contacted you twice, the last time almost two months ago and still no response.
Disappointing that you choose to disrespectfully ignore my query. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that the Cochrane Eagle and the Great West Newspapers chain in general have been the recipient of bailouts from the Trudeau government. The most recent example of such was the Cochrane Eagle being the recipient of $68,844 from Justin Trudeau’s $61-million pre-election pay-off. Brings to mind the expression, ‘he who pays the piper, calls the tune’.
That communication prompted the publisher Shawn Jessome to respond as follows: I would request that you stop sending email to Jessica Lee regarding the month’s old story on the convoy rally in Cochrane. The paper will not be responding and, since Jessica has nothing to do with the business side of the newspaper, referencing grant funding available through Heritage Canada should be directed to me.
To which I responded in turn: I suspect that Ms. Lee’s reluctance to reply to my query has something to do with your counselling. It’s unfortunate that the career of this young budding journalist is being shaped by someone like you.
That exchange pretty well determines that I don’t have any hope of ever publishing a letter in the Cochrane Eagle.
Apparent Influence of Federal Funding on the Cochrane Times
Until recently, unlike the Cochrane Eagle, I have found the Cochrane Times to be quite receptive to alternate opinions. I have often thought that despite the Cochrane Times being part of the mainstream newspaper chain, PostMedia, having as part of its conglomerate besides the National Post, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Sun and the Edmonton Sun, and the Airdrie Echo, that it was more receptive because there wasn’t much to the paper after you remove the ads, housing section and flyer inserts. So, I reasoned, they welcomed content.
However, that changed when I submitted a Letter to the Editor in response to a June 15, 2022 post by Judy Stewart. As usual Ms. Stewart was espousing her support for the notion of climate change and the need to ‘fight’ such so as to avoid the planet overheating with untold catastrophes. In response, on June 16, 2022, I sent the following Letter to the Editor to the Cochrane Times editor, Mr. Joshua Chalmers:
Once More, Judy Stewart Trivially Speaking Part 2
In her recent rant about the Town’s draft Strategic Plan (Strategically Speaking Part 2, June 15, 2022), Judy speaks about the plan being “politically puke on paper”, especially in her myopic view that “it doesn’t understand sustainability, or how they will ensure Cochrane remains resilient in the face of climate change”.
When you hear the words “sustainability” and “climate change” dear reader, think the United Nations and Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, a group of globalist organizations and oligarchs wanting to control our lives. Judy Stewart, as usual, fervently buys into the climate change scam and puts herself into the good company of others pushing the narrative of climate emergencies and combatting climate change, the likes of Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and her “climate emergency” poised to cost the residents of Calgary billions of wasteful dollars to ‘fight’ climate change, Rachel Notley and the NDP, Justin Trudeau and Liberal Party of Canada, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault, António Guterres, current Secretary-General of the United Nations who served as president of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005, Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum (WEF), Prince Charles, David Suzuki and the Suzuki Foundation, huckster Al Gore, the United Nations, Gretta Thunberg, Leonardo Di Caprio, Jane Fonda, Neil Young, Elizabeth May and the Green Party, Canada’s unions, Naomi (‘The Great Leap Forward’) Klein, U.S. President Joe Biden, socialist U.S. senator Bernie Sanders, Bill Gates, the CBC and all other mainstream media, tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter, and, not surprising, the Communist Party of Canada? As I like to say, “birds of a feather flock together’.
It’s time to open up a counter-narrative, without which the masses will continue to be fed only one message such that in the words of a slightly tipsy Catherine McKenna, then Trudeau’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, voiced in a Newfoundland pub in 2019, if repeated loudly and often enough “people will totally believe it”. It’s time to listen to Friends of Science instead of Friends of Suzuki. An example of the former is Climate Intelligence or CLINTEL, a global network of 1000 scientists and other experts from over 40 countries who are signatories to CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration. The one-page Declaration succinctly lists 6 reasons why There Is No Climate Emergency. Closer to home, we have Dr. Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Green Peace, who has spoken out against the climate change hysteria. His recent book, published in January 2021, is entitled, “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom”. Speaking on “The Power of Truth In Politics” at a Freedom Talk Conference event, “Meeting the Challenge of Western Separation”, in November 2019 in Red Deer, Dr. Moore offered up two choices, Save Canada, Quit Paris, Build Pipelines or Save Alberta, Quit Canada, Build Pipelines. Option 1 seems unlikely to come out of Ottawa.
Clearly, the only option is Save Alberta, Quit Canada, Build Pipelines.
Disappointingly, the Letter to the Editor never appeared in the subsequent issue of the Cochrane Times. I sent a note to Mr. Chalmers on June 22, 2022, expressing appreciation from past experience of the “paper’s openness to alternative points of view” and pointing out that while “Every week Judy Stewart is given nearly a whole page to express her opinion”, one would hope that the paper “would allow a few words in response to her opinion”. I ended hoping that it was just a matter of space and that my letter would appear in a subsequent issue of the paper.
Disappointed not to find the Letter the Editor published in the June 29th issue of the Cochrane Times, I once more wrote to Mr. Chalmers advising him that I considered it “very unfair that Judy Stewart can be afforded a page or more (as in the recent) for her soap box, but a dissenting view with respect to her perspective is not allowed” and asking for confirmation from him that “a criticism of climate change is not to be tolerated by Post Media or an explanation for whatever reason my letter was rejected”. No reply was received. My email and query was ignored. Apparently, climate change is a sacred cow that cannot be questioned or criticized if a media outlet hopes to keep the money flowing from the federal government.
Summary
As declared at the outset, community newspapers like the Cochrane Eagle and Cochrane Times, who also receive handouts from the federal government, are not that different from the compromised big players like the CBC, CTV, Global, Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun, responding to their benefactor, Justin Trudeau, who calls the tune.
UPDATE, April 27, 2023
Surprisingly, after a long hiatus, I was able to get a letter, Yes, CBC is ‘government-funded’, published in the Cochrane Eagle.
UPDATE, January 2, 2024
One wonders if the surprising willingness to publish a Letter to the Editor critical of the CBC and the Cochrane Eagle (above) may have led, in part, to Scott Strasser’s replacement as Editor of the Cochrane Eagle by a new Editor, Tim Kalinowski, in September 2023.
The Cochrane Eagle received $12,564 from Trudeau’s Canada Periodical Fund for the duration from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. For that same time period, the Cochrane Eagle’s parent company, Great West Media L.P., headquartered in St. Albert, received a total of $382,354 for its chain of news outlets, which includes the Airdrie City View, Rocky View Weekly and Rocky Mountain Outlook.
In response to a query, I was advised by Mr. Drew Hyndman, Executive Director, Development & Infrastructure Services, on August 23, 2023 that the cost for the Town to advertise in the Cochrane Eagle was $37,700.84 in 2022.
A request for information for the 2023 Cochrane Eagle Advertising Costs revealed the total 2023 Expenses to the Cochrane Eagle (excluding GST) was $44,980.33.