PHOTOS: For sale, news truck, like new, barely used to cover news. Below: Sun News commentator Ezra Levant in Sun News mode.
I suppose this means my complaints about Sun News Network’s offensive attacks will never be resolved.
Oh well, I guess I can live with my objections being rendered moot by the disappearance of Sun News, fearless champion of the Canadian overdog, apparently the victim of, quelle horreur, a sound business decision and the fact there’s still not much of a market in Canada for far-right drivel.
Sun News was dedicated to the proposition that if only they could somehow build up sufficient numbers of listeners and viewers, they could create a Canadian equivalent to Fox News capable of deceiving Canadians into believing the neoliberal platitudes peddled by the likes of Stephen Harper, Preston Manning, Jim Prentice and their ilk.
In other words, to borrow the kind of language used regularly on the air by one of the network’s best known commentators, famous for his potty mouth, that p**p tastes like toothpaste.
For a spell, we were told, Sun News was the prime minister’s favourite TV channel, although not necessarily the one he actually watched himself.
In a strange way, I’ll miss Sun News, which will officially pass from the Canadian broadcasting scene forever tomorrow, an extraordinarily lucky Friday the 13th. It promoted me to “labour boss” in several of its hysterical broadcasts, after all, a recognition that the House o’ Labour itself never extended to me.
And every time I took a shot at Sun News for disseminating an endless stream of far-right codswallop, and occasionally outright hate, the readership of this blog soared through the roof as the Social Media Auxiliary of the Canadian Outrage Industry piled in to assail me for failing to pay suitable obeisance to Ezra Levant, Brian Lilley, Michael Coren and the rest of the dozen or so Sun News regulars.
It is unseemly to gloat, and probably unwise. The loony rightwing network, which lately has had his hand out for subsidies and favours as its cadre of enraged meat puppets waxed nearly incoherent at the thought of such funds for anyone else, will almost certainly soon resurface in an only slightly subtler form.
Moreover, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that that likes of Mr. Levant and Mr. Lilley have been engaged by the now thoroughly debased CBC, which has now been effectively integrated into the prime minister’s electoral propaganda machine. Indeed, I hear there is an opening at the Mothercorp’s “Q” for which a suitable Sun News Survivor could be enlisted.
No doubt the network’s minuscule number of fans will blame a conspiracy of the “liberal media,” or perhaps the price of oil, for the decision that caused it to perish. The reality is much more likely that someone at Quebecor Inc. used their head and realized there was very little entertainment value or moneymaking potential in enraged talking heads insulting people’s mothers.
Certainly there was precious little profitable about the business now. The Globe and Mail reported tonight that with its ratings at rock bottom, Sun News lost $14.8-million in 2013 and $46.7-million over the past three years.
Nevertheless, in its short life, Sun News Network can take credit for having permanently debased Canadian public discourse.
It was, in short, a big disgrace, and now it has mud on its face. So long, Sun News!
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
This was predictable – when the Christian fundamentalist purists started to write excellent critiques on the Harper regulatory capture, putting neocon insanity ahead of legitimate accounting in banking and investment.
When Dr. Charles McVety of the Canada Christian College points out that the 2013 Canada Economic Action Plan explicitly says that the government wants the investment business to be self regulating – and to have the right to categorize depositors’ savings as assets of the firm RATHER than liabilities owed to the clients, it becomes clear just what neoconism is. It is not conservatism. Turning accounting upside down – utterly eviscerating the security of Canadians – it is demonstrated that Harper is not a proponent of conservatism. He is a proponent of gilded-age oligarchy, period.
People who subscribe to a spiritual creed like Evangelicalism will not be too willing to lap up something that is diametrically opposed to the most core propositions of Judeo-Christian golden rule theology,
Hopefully the House o’ Labour and the full spectrum of political ideology will be able to put aside doctrinal differences, and agree that Canadians need a crash course in civics. We need a door to door campaign to get the whole country awakened to what is at stake in the coming election, and we need to ensure that candidates are questioned with the hardest hardball encounters – and these grillings videotaped, so that voters in each riding know who and what they are dealing with.
Canadians could begin by taking back health care policy and ensuring that the next accord is citizen-driven. Post your views at Facebook Canada Health Accord.
I turned on the Sun News channel this morning to confirm the demise of Sun of Fox North was true and was met with the sound of silence rather than the strident voice of some angry white guy. What a glorious change.
But for some reason the song “The sun will come out tomorrow” came to mind – mostly because the ‘Sun’ didn’t come out today (and hopefully nevermore) and the country will hopefully be better served with the silencing of this portion of the rage machine,
It is NOT unseemly to gloat in this case. Today, the world is a better place without SUN “News”.
While the demise of Sun News will be celebrated in many quarters a word of warning. I fear its disappearance may leave some individuals without purpose and adrift in life. This theme is explored in the 2001 film Conspiracy about the Jews and the “Final Solution”.
To all my left wing friends dancing on the grave of Sun News – consider this:
The situation only reveals the truth: cronyism galore within Canadian broadcasting. The CRTC is effectively controlled by the CBC, CTV, and Global. CTV is owned by Bell / Rogers, and Global is owned by Shaw. The CRTC refused to grant mandatory carriage to Sun, to give you an idea Al-Jazeera is on more Canadian TVs than Sun. Sun was the first independent station to appear in almost 20 years…
I think it is fair to say that if someone opened up an independent left-wing news station in Canada, they would probably suffer the same fate.
If you are truely against:
-croney capitalism
-conglomerates controlling government regulators
-corporate welfare
Then, even if you didn’t like the message, you should be grieving the loss of Sun just as much as people on the other side of the spectrum.
The G&M (I think) said that the 200 Sun News employees only found out that they were out of work when other news sites/papers broke the news last night. I remember musing a few months ago that one day Ezrant would show up for work and find the door locked, the lights off and the breakers tripped. That was “aspirational”, as some current jargon puts it. Who knew?
Surely they wouldn’t want them at the CBC. Don’t they have enough trouble? Both Levant and Michael Coren used to have spots on TVO, Levant as an occasional commentator and Coren as a debater with Irshad Manji. Levant fumed and blustered on the other end of his video link from Calgary and Coren’s face got sourer and more pinched as he lost time after time on any point he argued with Manji. I think they’ve only become worse since then. Is Fox News south hiring?
“Moreover, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that that likes of Mr. Levant and Mr. Lilley have been engaged by the now thoroughly debased CBC, which has now been effectively integrated into the prime minister’s electoral propaganda machine. Indeed, I hear there is an opening at the Mothercorp’s “Q” for which a suitable Sun News Survivor could be enlisted.”
I’d wager hard-earned, after-tax dollars on that one. I shed a tear or two for the loss of my once beloved CBC. I’m not surprised, though, that it’s become a tool of the PMO.
Without Sun news, there will be no balance. The rest of the media in Canada has been taken over by the far left, especially CBC…which we are forced to pay for…undemocratic at the least.
Brian – where do you get such an absurd proposition? Could you give one example of where the CBC has been pushing a far left idea? I have not seen or heard it and I have been an avid CBC and TV and radio fan for over 45 years. This paranoia about anything state sponsored is nothing but teabag poppycock.
If Canadians had appropriate appreciation for what can be accomplished by using the state as an organizing tool to achieve goals that are in the public interest, we would be in a far better position. Look at Norway and the fact that their oil revenue was put into a genuine sovereign wealth fund – not a pretend sham such as Alberta – where the head dingbat Klein was bragging about having the lowest royalties in the world. Norway’s equivalent of the Heritage Trust Fund is now close to a $1 T. Alberta – on the other hand is estimated at present to be in the $13-15 B range. This disregard for the capacity of the state to organize resources for the public interest is a pathological failure of vision.
Brian, you troll.
You aren’t forced to pay for anything. All you have to do is move to your right-wing fundamental utopia of Texas. There you can wallow all you want with your fellow tea bagger fascists. You can pay for your healthcare and go bankrupt in the process. You can also go bankrupt paying for your kid’s university education – if they are smart enough to get accepted that is.
I wonder what planet Brian lives on, but it doesn’t resemble the Sun News I have seen. It was “Fox News North” in every meaningful way. There was no news on this network but propaganda. The sad thing is that there are people here who actually the crap that was produced from this network. Good riddance to bad rubb
I agree with Brian, and am shocked that such extreme leftist views still exist in Canada today. Centralized planning went the way of the dodoa bird when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since then, the backbone of Canada’s success has been moving to a more free-market economy and away from such centralized planning. A classic example of this is the abolition of the Wheat Board, which is bringing more economic freedom to farmers across Western Canada.
A major step forward for freedom in Canada would be to abolish taxpayer subsidies to the CBC. This wastes over $1 billion a year, or about $300.00 per person. This money would be better spent on just about any other program, or given back to taxpayers where it belongs.
Centralized planning like the CBC has no place in Canada.
Dude, the Wheat Board was a collective bargaining agency – you can’t get more capitalistic than that. BTW that “freedom” has come at a high price to farmers. Cdn farm gate prices for wheat have fallen by half while the international price has remained steady. Just as bad, our former customers are complaining about poor service and quality. Farm equipment sales are down 20% and grain companies are making record profits.
Unregulated capitalism collapsed in 2007/08 and is now on welfare.
If the wheat board was so great, why didn’t it apply to Ontario?
Unregulated capitalism is the present and future.
Look here Conrad, the farmers who participated in your wheat board were prevented from democratically deciding on the disbursement of their assets. The fact that they had paid for grain distribution facilities worth 100s of millions of dollars that were by fiat given to private interests should bother you. Why doesn’t it? Marketing boards aren’t about centralized planning any more than the Shriners are about communism. Are you opposed to groups with common cause acting collectively? Are you opposed to roads and bridges? Hospitals? Are you opposed to a democracy that produces results you don’t like? Are you as big a dolt as you seem to be?
I definitely would agree with Conrad here. Examples of centralized planning like the CBC and the Wheat Board are more in line with the Soviet-style 5 year plans which have proven not to work. The market economy that Canada has today is the secret to our success, and it is a direct correlation to the high level of economic freedom we have in Alberta to the fact that we are the most prosperous province. Centralized planning would take us back 50 or more years.