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MacDonald Laurier Institute

The (one hundred) million dollar question – What is a journalist?: Peter Menzies

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From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Peter Menzies

What the reaction to David Menzies’ arrest tells us about the profession in Canada

The best part about the RCMP’s recent street mugging of David (aka the Menzoid) Menzies was neither the uproar over the arrest nor the boost it provided to Rebel News’ bottom line.

Nope. The really giggly, wincey, cringeworthy part was the huffy offence taken by so many in the legacy media after Menzies was referred to as one of them—a journalist—and by no less an influencer than the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

“We’re going to stop arresting journalists,” said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, referring to L’affaire Menzoid. “It’s outrageous for the prime minister and his government to have journalists arrested merely for asking questions of ministers and public officials.”

Thus was the cat thrown among the pigeons. Boy, did they flutter.

Globe and Mail columnist Shannon Proudfoot described Rebel News’ (standard) response to the matter—a fundraiser—as having more in common with “busking” than journalism.

CBC and its, at times, pompous panels referred to Menzies (no relation) as either a Rebel News “employee” or “personality,” as did Global News. National Post called him a “commentator.” One CBC reference to Menzies apparently presented him as someone who “self-identified” as a journalist, as if it was an orientation.

None of those are inaccurate. But all ensured no linkage between Menzies and the J-word, a metier to which media may assign a higher social rank than the one assumed by the public.

In case you missed it, Menzies was attempting to get a quote from Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland regarding the government’s hesitance to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. He approached her on the street in standard fashion and then her security officer set a pick which resulted in a mild collision of shoulders between himself and Menzies. The officer thuggishly pushed Menzies against a wall and arrested him for assault. The pride of Rebel News was then handcuffed and driven from the scene only to be quickly released without charge.

Many were outraged. But there was also a cohort that justified it all because Menzies, they said, is not a “real journalist.”

Some went so far as to suggest the formation of some sort of accreditation body to decide who should be deemed qualified to report on current affairs. None seemed to realize the government has already appointed one, albeit to determine who qualifies for its loot.

These displays of ill-informed hubris were not well-received by many independents practicing freedom of the press without government approval as qualified Canadian journalism organizations.

“Mainstream media is arrogant enough to define who is a journalist while their audience shrinks to nothing while alternative media like Rebel and Western Standard explode,” grumbled a former newspaper colleague now enjoying success as an unaligned online reporter. “Many journalists now working with so-called alternative media have way more experience in the industry than those working now in the dying mainstream.”

Let’s be clear: journalism is not a profession. Read it again. Journalism is not a profession.

It is a trade, or a craft, requiring no more than two semesters of post-secondary study followed by years of apprenticeship.

Yes, universities may have turned it into an over-priced paper chase but a quick look at most courses makes it clear a profound intellect is not a prerequisite.

The greatest skill traditionally required (and it is one often abandoned due to its difficulty) involves the ability to set aside one’s own biases, eschew all assumptions, and produce truly objective work that explores all sides of issues and events.

These days, though, not everyone subscribes to that, which means we have two very broad classes of news organizations.

One is composed of those who aspire to tell stories through the lens of objectivity. For them, the pursuit of journalism is an end in itself. It is also the practice in greatest alignment with what most reader surveys indicate is how the public wishes to be served. I call these people journalists because they toil thanklessly to reveal truths that challenge preconceptions and leave decisions concerning what to think about matters up to the reader/viewer/listener.

The other is best described as agenda journalism. Those involved in this far more romantic sphere tend to see journalism as the means towards an end, whether it be social justice, free markets, environmentalism, or Palestine—pick a cause and there’s a crusader at the ready, laptop and camera in hand.

I call these people storytellers. They certainly have their fans, many of whom believe them to be true journalists because they show them the world through a lens they find agreeable.

Within those categories—both of which contribute to the explosion of voices now available—there are a number of roles. The BBC website contains a comprehensive overview.

For instance, in print, “A reporter writes stories on a range of topics including news, politics, sports, culture and entertainment. Some are correspondents which means they specialize in a field, such as sport, health, crime, business or education. Others are feature writers who cover topics in more depth or write human-interest stories.”

While in broadcast, “A presenter is the voice (radio) or face (TV) of the show. He or she welcomes the audience to the show, interviews guests, reads news, shares information, reads off autocues, and prompts audience participation.”

This is so straightforward that, were it not for the fact Canada’s media are currently squabbling over who gets what funds provided by the government, it would be difficult to understand why it matters who gets to be called a journalist.

Herein lies the inherent challenge of government intervention in the news media. If the sector was left to market forces, then consumers would decide who and what constitutes journalism. But as soon as the government established its policy regime to support the sector, it needed to set parameters to determine eligibility. It needed, in other words, to put itself directly in the business of adjudicating who is a journalist. The Menzies episode (including the mainstream media reaction) demonstrates why this is such a bad idea.

Whether the entrenched players like it or not, surely a journalist is anyone with the capability and inclination to uncover and honestly distribute the news, information, and stories the public has a right to know.

Little wonder those begging loudest for seats in the financial lifeboats are the ones most desperate to declare their virtue and lay exclusive claim to the title.

Peter Menzies is a Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former newspaper executive, and past vice chair of the CRTC.

Immigration

ISIS and its violent Central Asian chapter are threatening Canada and the West with jihad. Hussain Ehsani for Inside Policy

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From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By Hussain Ehsani

Recent terrorism-related arrests in Canada and the wider West are evidence of the resurgence of ISIS, and especially its ultra-violent Afghanistan wing… recently revealed internal memos by Canada’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) highlighted ISIS’s growing role in inspiring domestic terrorism

Ten years ago, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria waged a holy war that threatened to engulf the wider Middle East. At its peak, ISIS conquered nearly 200,000-square-kilometres of Iraq and Syria, inspiring thousands of jihadis to join its crusade against the West.

It took a global coalition of 87 nations and groups, led by the United States and including Canada, to defeat Daesh for good. By December 2017, the damage was decisive: ISIS had lost more than 95 per cent of its territory. The coalition members celebrated the defeat of ISIS and thought it could no longer pose a threat, in the Middle East or anywhere else.

The moment lasted only a short time.

Recent terrorism-related arrests in Canada and the wider West are evidence of the resurgence of ISIS, and especially its ultra-violent Afghanistan wing. At the same time, recently revealed internal memos by Canada’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) highlighted ISIS’s growing role in inspiring domestic terrorism, and in particular, potential “lone Wolf” attacks against Canada’s Jewish community.

The memos – issued on June 24 and July 10, 2024, and later obtained by media – were prescient: On July 31, Canadian police detained two alleged ISIS-affiliated men in Richmond Hill, Toronto, apparently based on a tip from French intelligence. In September, the RCMP in Quebec – working with the FBI – arrested a Pakistani national on a student visa for allegedly plotting an attack on a Jewish centre in Brooklyn, New York. These events were especially shocking since it was widely believed that ISIS was confined to Iraq and Syria. But ISIS is clearly influencing a new generation of terrorists around the world. Indeed, it’s suspected that ISIS inspired, and possibly directed, a plot to attack the Jewish community in Ottawa last February. Police arrested two Ottawa youths in relation to the alleged plot and charged them with attempted murder.

American authorities have also thwarted ISIS schemes, resulting in the arrest of ISIS-Tajiki operatives in the US earlier this year. The arrests continue: On October 7, the FBI apprehended an Afghan national and a juvenile co-conspirator for allegedly planning an attack under the Islamic State banner on November 5 – the day of the US presidential elections.

These US arrests point to a new trend: the rise and global reach of the Afghan branch of ISIS, known as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP). Some background is necessary. ISIS officially emerged in 2014, following rapid territorial gains in eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq. Rooted in the ideology of Salafi Jihadism, ISIS sought to establish a “Caliphate” governed by a strict interpretation of Sharia law. The group declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as Caliph in June 2014 after capturing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. This marked the height of ISIS’s power, controlling large swaths of Syria and Iraq.

As ISIS entrenched itself, it began expanding its influence beyond Iraq and Syria. Various affiliates, known as “provinces” or “wilayat,” emerged worldwide. Pledging allegiance to the central ISIS leadership, these groups dedicated themselves to establishing a global Islamic State.

That is one reason for the group’s resilience and recent resurgence. The ISKP was one of the most deadly branches to emerge. Founded in southeastern Afghanistan in 2015 on the border with Pakistan, ISKP immediately sought closer ties with the core ISIS group in Syria and Iraq to gain legitimacy and embolden its fighters and middle-rank commanders to conquer more territory. Those efforts came up short, and ISKP failed in its first years to win ISIS’s support.

Since then, ISKP has redoubled its efforts to impress its ISIS masters – and in many ways, it has succeeded. The group is now among the strongest of ISIS’s adherents.

Turning Point

The collapse of the former Afghan Government on August 15, 2021, was the turning point, when a host of transnational extremist fighters were released from prisons of Afghanistan. Aside from rejoicing about the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, they prepared to take up their “holy duty” to expand ISIS’s regime. ISKP initially in 2015 drew its fighters from disaffected and wayward elements of the Taliban, Haqqani network, and Pakistani Taliban. The release of an additional cohort of Salafists (Sunni fundamentalists) aided its recruitment.

ISKP moved quickly to expand its influence and operations. The first attack in this new era was devastating: it stormed the Abbey Gate of the Kabul Airport on August 26, 2021, killing 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US soldiers. The US Department of Defense later released a report that Abdul Rahman al-Logari, one of the prisoners released on the day of Kabul collapse, was behind the Abbey Gate attack.

The message was clear – ISKP was on the march.

ISKP on the International Stage

To gain “formal” admission to the ranks of ISIS’s provinces, ISKP would have to show initiative and capability, not just in Afghanistan but in the wider territory of Khorasan: Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the eastern part of Turkmenistan.

To do so, it had to find new targets. Traditionally, the Hazara community, the most persecuted ethnicity in Afghanistan, was the main target for Islamist groups, along with former Afghan security forces. They remain primary victims. However, ISKP’s range of targets and ability to strike them has grown. It added new targets in Afghanistan, attacking the Russian embassy in Kabul in September 2022, and a Chinese facility in December of the same year. Then it started reaching  beyond the borders of Afghanistan: ISKP has carried out terrorist attacks in Central Asia and plotted a number of them in Pakistan.

Targets even farther away have now been hit. In January 2024, ISKP executed a complex attack in Kerman, Iran, at an event commemorating Qasem Sulaimani, the former commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, killed by US forces in 2020. On March 22, 2024, it hit a concert hall in Moscow – an operation that took the international community by complete surprise.

These operational successes mattered, but ISIS’s core leaders in Syria and Iraq demanded signs of ideological subservience as well. Under the leadership of Sanaullah Ghafari (also known as Dr. Shahab al-Muhajir), ISKP worked hard to prove that its propaganda machine is an engine of ISIS Salafist ideology.

ISKP uses fluency in a variety of languages, including Urdu, Russian, Tajiki, Uzbeki, Turkish, English, and Pashto, to spread its message. It seeks to extend its ideology to other fighters in the region in order to recruit transnational Salafi Jihadists. It has already recruited a vast number of terrorists from the ranks of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in the north of Afghanistan. ISKP also exploited propaganda and demand from the diaspora of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to plot attacks against Western countries.

The attacks and ideological efforts seem to have worked. ISKP now appears to have become the operational wing of the core ISIS group. After the ISKP attack on Moscow, an ISIS spokesman released a 41-minute audio message praising the attack by “Mujahidin” and called on other “dormant” provinces of the “Caliphate” to rise up and follow ISKP’s example.

The terror spreads

ISIS leader Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Quraishi has more work in mind for his prized ISKP group. His priorities include freeing jihadists detained in Syria and attacking targets in Europe and North America.

In Syria, Al-Quraishi has encouraged ISIS terrorists to redouble efforts to attack the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Kurdish militia in the country’s northeast, and try to break detained comrades out of SDF-run prisons. These facilities host thousands of ISIS fighters, including women and children. Given the success of ISKP’s operations and recruitment, ISIS is likely trying to implement the same tactic of jailbreaks in Kurdish territory in Syria and Iraq, to replenish its ranks.

ISIS spokesmen have also called for all Muslims to attack Christians and Jews in the broader West.

In September 2024, Türkiye’s domestic security agency (MIT) arrested Abuzar Al Shishani, who allegedly was plotting an attack on Santa Maria Italian Church in Istanbul in early January 2025. According to MIT, ISKP recruited him in 2021. The arrests in Canada, the US, and Türkiye are proof that ISKP’s reach is growing.

How can Canada fight back?

Canada and its allies in the West must act now to counter the terrorist threat posed by ISKP and ISIS. Fortunately, the RCMP and other Canadian police forces halted the recent spate of planned domestic terror attacks. However, stringent immigration screening is also crucial to keeping Canada and its allies safe. The Canada Border Services Agency needs to be ready to deal with the ISIS/ISKP threat.

To that end, Public Safety Canada should examine ways to enhance inter-agency targeting and intelligence sharing. A task force consisting of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, Canadian Heritage, the Canadian Revenue Agency, and FINTRAC – given their respective roles in immigration processing, countering disinformation and anti-terrorist financing – could help to ensure maximum coordination against the group.

Canada must also guard against the threat ISKP/ISIS poses to religious and minority communities in the country. ISIS’s call to target Jewish and Christian communities presents a special challenge. The Jewish community is particularly vulnerable due to the rampant antisemitism seen at pro-Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran rallies across Canada. But Christian sites, like churches, are also vulnerable. ISKP/ISIS are also likely to target Muslim groups that speak against its violent ideology.

Canada should collaborate with international partners to support communities and groups opposed to ISKP/ISIS. These include the Hazara, Kurdish, and Yazidi communities in Afghanistan and Kurdistan, as well as allies in the Kurdistan Regional government, and the Syrian Democratic Forces. Canada should also support initiatives led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries to strengthen the voice of moderate Islam in the Middle East and Central Asia. Such initiatives require careful diplomacy with allies and a range of partners. That is what Canada will require to counter the evolving threat of ISIS and ISKP.


Hussain Ehsani is a Middle East affairs analyst with expertise on the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently exploring the foreign policy relationship between Saudi Arabia and Canada. In addition to MLI, he also contributes to the Jerusalem Post, BBC Persian, and The Hill.

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MacDonald Laurier Institute

British Columbians have long reveled in their political uniqueness, but in 2024 they are providing a preview of the next national election.

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From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By Ken Coates

Electoral warning signs from the West Coast: Ken Coates for Inside Policy

The upcoming election in bitterly divided British Columbia, long an outlier in federal politics, has emerged as a critical test run of the intense, polarized and highly emotional national political contest that looms ahead.

When British Columbians go to the polls on Oct. 19, they can choose between an activist NDP government and the Lazarus-like Conservative Party of B.C. that now dominates the political agenda with a “common sense” platform.

As on the national scene, the B.C. vote is more than a classic “left versus right” contest, although the different approaches to the role of government, public spending, state intervention, and social and identity concerns are evident.

The NDP government shares a lot in common with the federal Liberals, including an increasingly unpopular leader in David Eby, a positive and creative approach to Indigenous affairs, an environmentally activist agenda that is seemingly blind to economic dislocations, and now a wavering position on the province’s long-standing climate change and carbon tax policies.

John Rustad revived the moribund Conservative Party of B.C. by bringing conservative fiscal values back into the mainstream and took strong and previously unpopular positions on Indigenous and environmental matters. Along the way, he dismantled the BC United Party, formerly the BC Liberal Party.

Recent polls suggest the election will be close, likely defined by a deep rift between the Vancouver and Victoria urban support for the NDP and the Interior and small-town flirtation with the Conservatives.

The NDP government has spent generously but not always wisely, running up sizeable deficits that undercut the province’s reputation for fiscal reliability. It stood strongly with the Canadian government on the “safe supply” approach to excessive drug use and has failed, like the federal Liberals, to manage the housing crisis in major cities.

Eby’s government took a cautious approach on natural gas development and pipeline construction, leaving the government several billion dollars short in revenues.

On Indigenous matters, the Eby government became a world leader, particularly in its efforts to implement and respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It walked while the federal government has mostly talked.

The recognition of Indigenous title on Haida Gwaii outside the treaty process establishes a new model for engagement with First Nations. Strong and consistent concessions to Indigenous communities on resource development (which have not, incidentally, stopped activities as critics forecast) empowered First Nations and set the groundwork for improved relationships.

Echoing the national popularity of the federal Conservatives, the B.C. Conservatives’ “common sense” platform outlines support for small-town economic development, fiscal restraint, lower taxes (including carbon pricing), expanding LNG production, promoting resource development, constraining the interventions of activists, and reforming education and health care.

Rustad offers a dramatically different approach to the regulation of hard drugs, a tough approach on crime, opposition to identity politics, a promise to eliminate tent cities and a commitment to walk back support for UNDRIP.

The Green party, once the key power broker and partner with previous premier John Horgan’s NDP government, seems to be in sharp decline.  Andrew Weaver, former Green leader, has been highly critical of Eby and the current NDP and professed his support for Rustad, based largely on his concern over the premier’s approach to governing.

The Conservatives’ positions, like their federal counterparts, can be summarized simply: government has gone much too far on many fronts, has amassed an unsustainable deficit, and has undermined the core work of government.

The B.C. NDP, like the Trudeau government, leaves the impression that “you ain’t seen nothing yet” in both government activism and spending.

British Columbians have long reveled in their political uniqueness, but in 2024 they are providing a preview of the next national election.

The resurgent B.C. Conservative party has many policy similarities to the Conservative Party of Canada, with a powerful commitment to economic development and a desire to put identity politics in the rearview mirror.

The B.C. NDP, like their federal counterparts, has turned soft on carbon taxes, leaving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as one of the few political leaders who have tied their political fortunes to this increasingly unpopular policy.

Should Eby lose or win narrowly, it would reinforce the rise of the right in the country.  Perhaps most importantly, the B.C. electorate would signal it has lost enthusiasm for an activist provincial leader with a willingness to spend freely on social programs, build large deficits, and pays little attention to building the economy. Sound familiar?


Ken Coates is a distinguished fellow and Director of Indigenous Affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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