CTV News caught splicing misleading clip of Poilievre

CTV News has since apologized for airing the doctored footage, but claimed it was the result of a ‘misunderstanding’ during the editing process. The Conservatives have since hit back saying they are ‘boycotting’ the outlet until it is admitted the footage was intentionally manipulated.

Canada’s Conservative Party is livid after one of the nation’s largest corporate media outlets, which gets funding from the Trudeau government, was caught splicing a video clip to make it appear party leader Pierre Poilievre said something he did not.

On Monday, Sebastian Skamski, media relations person for Poilievre, took to X to explain that mainstream media news outlet CTV News ran a doctored video clip of the Conservative leader on television misleading viewers, accusing the news outlet of “propagating” the “Trudeau Liberals’ narrative.”

Skamski explained, and proved, that the news outlet had spliced video of Poilievre talking to make it seem as though he was calling for an election because he opposed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s dental plan, when the real footage was about the Conservative leader’s opposition to the carbon tax.

“Today @CTVNews was caught splicing a clip of @PierrePoilievre to propagate the Liberals’ narrative. This is not only a total fabrication designed to deceive Canadians but also a major breach of journalistic ethics,” wrote Skamski on X.

Today @CTVNews was caught splicing a clip of @PierrePoilievre to propagate the Liberals’ narrative.

This is not only a total fabrication designed to deceive Canadians but also a major breach of journalistic ethics.

CTV must apologize for their flagrant use of disinformation. pic.twitter.com/vshERYeMih

— Sebastian Skamski (@Skamski) September 23, 2024

“CTV must apologize for their flagrant use of disinformation.”

Skamski then shared a clip of the original video footage, compared to the doctored CTV footage.

“Not only is @PierrePoilievre’s quote clearly about the carbon tax (cut from CTV’s broadcast), @CTVNews bizarrely manipulated it,” he wrote.

The real quote by Poilievre was, “That’s why it’s time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election.”

The incident drew immediate backlash from Conservative MPs.

“@CTVNews, you spliced three parts of different sentences together to create a new one that Pierre never said. That’s not a misunderstanding during editing, that’s fabricating disinformation. Where is your apology for that?,” wrote Conservative MP Chris Warkentin on X Monday.

Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman ripped CTV News as untrustworthy and an outlet that “pumps” out “disinformation” to protect Trudeau.

“CTV gets caught pumping disinformation to protect the Prime Minister who subsidizes them,” she wrote on X Monday.

After the backlash, CTV News issued an “apology” for the altered news clip, admitting that the clip was presented in an “out of context” manner, claiming the debacle was the result of a “misunderstanding during the editing process.”

“Last night in a report on this broadcast, we presented a comment by the Official Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre that was taken out of context,” said CTV.

“It left viewers with the impression the Conservative non confidence motion was to defeat the Liberals’ dental care program. In fact, the Conservatives have made it clear the motion is based on a long list of issues with the Liberal government including the carbon tax. A misunderstanding during the editing process resulted in this misrepresentation. We unreservedly apologize to Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada. We regret this report went to air in the manner it did.”

The Conservatives did not buy the apology, however, announcing Tuesday that the party will refuse to engage with CTV News reporters until “they explicitly acknowledge their malicious editing & omission of context to undermine” Poilievre.

Yesterday’s so called “apology” from @CTVNews doesn’t cut it. This wasn’t a simple “misunderstanding”.

Until they explicitly acknowledge their malicious editing & omission of context to undermine @PierrePoilievre, Conservative MPs won’t engage with CTV News & its reporters. pic.twitter.com/6UbfdTo1hg

— Sebastian Skamski (@Skamski) September 24, 2024

The Liberal federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pumped billions into propping up the mostly state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as well as large payouts for legacy media outlets including CTV, ahead of the 2025 federal election. In total, the subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.  

Tomorrow, the Conservatives will be voting on a motion of non-confidence in the House of Commons. If successful, it would trigger an election.

The motion is likely to fail, as even though NDP leader Singh pulled his official support for Trudeau’s Liberals two weeks ago, in recent days he has been mum on whether he will vote for or against the Liberals when a vote occurs.

As for the Trudeau Liberals, it is widely accepted that they are floundering, having lost two recent byelections, one in Quebec and the other in Ontario, in what were considered “safe” Liberal ridings.

The most recent loss suggests that Trudeau’s Liberal government is indeed hanging on by a thread, as all recent polls show that Poilievre’s Conservative Party is set to win big when the next federal election takes place.

Related Topics:#AnthonyMurdoch #LifeSiteNews CTVEditsMisleadingPoilievreClip CTVNewsPierrePoilievre

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Business

CBC uses tax dollars to hire more bureaucrats, fewer journalists

Published on October 27, 2025

Todayville

By Jen Hodgson

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is using taxpayer money to pad its bureaucracy, while reducing the number of journalists on staff, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“CBC defends its very existence based on its journalism, but its number of journalists are going down while its bureaucracy keeps getting bigger and taxpayer costs keeps going up,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Why does the government keep giving CBC more taxpayer money if barely anyone is watching and its number of journalists keeps going down?”

The CBC employed 745 staff with “journalist” or “reporter” in their job title in 2021. That number dropped to 649 by 2025, the records obtained by the CTF show. Of the 6,100 total employees disclosed by the records, just 11 per cent of CBC staff had “journalist” or “reporter” as their job title in 2025, according to the records.

Even journalist roles such as editors, producers and hosts declined between 2021 and 2025.

While the number of journalists employed by the state broadcaster fell, the number of other bureaucrats grew. The total number of CBC management positions increased to 949 in 2025, up from 935 in 2021.

Bureaucratic roles such as “administrators,” “advisors,” “analysts” and sales staff all increased steadily during the same period.

Management positions saw the steepest growth, with titles like “national director,” “project lead,” “senior manager” and “supervisor” leading the surge.

These trends undermine the CBC’s long-standing claim that its frontline journalism justifies its existence. Despite bureaucratic bloat and fewer journalism positions, the CBC continues to promote its news coverage as a reason it deserves more than $1 billion in annual taxpayer funding.

Separate access-to-information records obtained by the CTF show further proof of CBC’s bloated bureaucracy.

The CBC has more than 250 directors, 450 managers and 780 producers who are paid more than $100,000 per year.

The CBC also employed 130 advisers, 81 analysts, 120 hosts, 80 project leads, 30 lead architects, 25 supervisors, among other positions, who were paid more than $100,000 last year, according to access-to-information records. The CBC redacted the roles for more than 200 employees.

CBC’s CEO Marie-Philippe Bouchard insists the broadcaster is a “precious public asset” that provides “trustworthy news and information.”

CBC’s previous CEO, Catherine Tait, made similar comments throughout her 6.5-year tenure.

“A Canada without the CBC is a Canada without local news [in some places],” Tait said in 2022. If funding were withheld, there would be “fewer journalists to hold decision-makers at all levels to account.”’

“Local news is absolutely at the core of what we do,” Tait said in a 2020 interview. “Canadians are coming to the CBC in numbers like we’ve never seen before.”

However, CBC News Network only accounts for about 1.8 per cent of TV audience share, according to its own data.

Meanwhile, taxpayer funding to CBC will surpass $1.4 billion this year, according to the federal government’s Main Estimates. The broadcaster has spent about $5.4 billion of taxpayers’ money over the last five years, according to the government of Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney claimed “our public broadcaster is underfunded” during the federal election. He pledged an initial $150-million annual funding increase and said that number could rise even higher.

CBC paid out $18.4 million in bonuses in 2024 after it eliminated hundreds of jobs. Following backlash from across the political spectrum, CBC ended its bonuses and handed out record high pay raises costing $37.7 million.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for an office full of middle managers pretending to be reporters,” Terrazzano said. “The CBC’s own records prove it has fat to cut and if Carney is serious about saving money, he would force CBC to cut its bureaucratic bloat.

“Or better yet, Carney should defund the CBC.”

Media

Carney speech highlights how easily newsrooms are played by politicians announcing the same things over and over again

Published on October 26, 2025

Todayville

The Rewrite

Peter Menzies

Plus! Global’s oops on Trump in the crosshairs and assuming what Stephen Harper thinks may not be the best idea!

It has never been easier, thanks to the internet, for journalists to check if they are being played for fools. But due either to sloth, neglect, habit or servility – pick one – way too many lack the motivation to use a search engine.

Instead, they frequently accept the role of featherheads manipulated by politicians staging one of the oldest scams in the Machiavellian playbook, the recycled “news” announcement. I say “featherheads” (patsies was another option) because, for instance, Prime Minister Mark Carney can book news network time for a full half hour speech that is nothing more than a rehash of everything he’s been saying for the past 10 months and still lead newscasts and make the front pages.

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Here, I must pause to credit the Toronto Star. It, like other news organizations, received an embargoed copy of Wednesday’s speech in advance. It read it, saw that it contained no news and did not put a report on its front page. Others such as National Post and the Globe and Mail tried desperately to find a fresh angle within the speech but put it on their front pages anyway. CBC threw everything it had into it and CTV also led with it and tried its best to make it sound like news had happened.

Now, I am a reasonable and fair-minded person, so I would not be reacting were it just this incident that captured my attention. The PM is speaking, everyone gets excited, you review and lock in your story lineup and, ya, I get it. Been there, done that. But this was part of a troubling pattern that has emerged.

For instance, the government’s “plan” to hire 1,000 more Canadian Border Services guards was first announced in the Liberal election platform last spring. It was then, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, re-announced “April 10, April 28, June 3 and August 12.”

That Blacklock’s report was published Oct. 14 and focused on Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s insistence he was “not responsible” for the promised hiring that hadn’t happened yet. Two days later, Carney announced that the previously announced and re-announced plan would be announced again in the Nov. 4 budget. And the day after that – Oct. 17 – Anandasangaree announced his ministry would be doing what he said a few days previously wasn’t his responsibility and hiring 1,000 new border guards – over the next five years. A similar pattern of announcement and reannouncements took place regarding the government’s plan to hire 1,000 more RCMP officers, also not immediately but eventually. Then, last week, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced a financial crimes agency would be up and running by next June. This, too, was reported as a new initiative even though the government first committed to that agency in 2021.

While not all news organizations rise to the bait, this widely carried Canadian Press story is an example of how easily the public can be misinformed by reporting that lacks proper context. Re-announcements are presented as “news” despite there being no news other than “politicians repeat what they said before to keep their names in the news.” Media that go along with this pattern of manipulation allow themselves to be accused of defining news as anything the government wishes to present as news, something about which – now that media are subsidized by politicians – they should be more cautious.

The nation needs journalists to tell the whole story or, as Robert Maynard, founder of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, put it:

“The first thing about journalism is about accuracy and fairness, but that’s not enough. It has to be about context, it has to be about depth.”

Speaking of headlines, Global News deserves a long stare and shake of the head for the one it slapped on its report of the “No Kings” protests held last weekend.

Seemingly oblivious to the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk and two attempts on the life of US President Donald Trump, Global initially went with the above illustrated “Trump in the crosshairs” headline before changing it to “No Kings Day rallies draw hundreds of thousands of protesters.” The updated version made no reference to the initial version.

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There was quite a stir within the punditry when Dimitri Soudas, defrocked Conservative comms guy and former pal of notorious floor-crosser Eve Adams, wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star criticizing party leader Pierre Poilievre. Rather than go with the disgruntled former employee angle, the Globe and Mail’s Larry Martin led the pack in leaping to a conclusion:

“Soudas wouldn’t have written this attack on Poilievre without Stephan (sic) Harper’s okay,” he posted. “It means the knives are out to get PP and they are big knives that could kill his leadership.”

Martin, who has had a very distinguished career, hadn’t confirmed what he assumed Harper was thinking and was quickly schooled by Anna Tomala, the former PM’s spokeswoman.

“Mr. Soudas does not speak on behalf of Mr. Harper,” she stated curtly.

Martin did not delete his original post but while to his credit he did post an update, it’s unclear his blushes were spared.

CTV, meanwhile, declined to include Tomala’s Harper statement in its report on Soudas’s op-ed.

Retired CTV reporter Alan Fryer, meanwhile, gave his past employer a blast on X after it delivered this headline: “Carney is going ‘where the puck is going to be’ in first trip to Asia as PM.”

Fryer’s world-weary response?

“My Lord, the headline. A leader couldn’t hope for a more compliant media.”

Finally, two commentators for news organizations were subjected to harm and intimidation last week and we learned that a third had been threatened in August. Terry Newman of National Post posted that she would be contacting police, Ezra Levant of Rebel News was laid out at a protest in Dublin and it was discovered that Brian Passifume of the Toronto Sun faced a death threat in August. I checked to see if the Canadian Association of Journalists (which has abandoned X) had something to say on their behalf. The CAJ’s most recent web post regarding abuse of journalists was on Sept. 25 in defence of Isaac Peltz of theindependent.ca and William Wilson, who writes for therover.ca.

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(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)