From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Liberal House leader Karina Gould told government-funded reporters to ‘scrutinize’ Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.

The Liberal House Leader told government- funded media that it is their job to the scrutinize the Conservative Party.   

In a September 16 news conference, Government House leader Karina Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals. 

“Make sure we are holding (Pierre Poilievre) to account, to ensure he faces the proper scrutiny, because as Canadians get closer and closer to an election he has to answer those tough questions,” Gould instructed.   

“Instead of answering legitimate questions from journalists – that’s his job – what does he do to journalists?” she questioned. “He attacks them. This is not something done by a responsible leader,” she asserted. 

Gould’s comments were in reference to Poilievre’s promise to defund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) if elected prime minister. Poilievre is a long-time critic of government-funded media, especially the CBC.

Gould claimed that Poilievre’s suggestion would deny Canadians access to important information, ignoring the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new legislation blocked all access to news content on Facebook and Instagram.  

“When it comes to making sure that Canadians have access to good quality information in a time of incredible disinformation, what does he propose to do?” Gould questioned.  

“Defund the CBC. And all of you as journalists have experienced firsthand how he treats people who try to ask him tough questions, who try to have him face the scrutiny of what he puts forward,” she continued.   

“How does he react?” asked Gould. “As a bully, as someone who will not stand to scrutiny, who will not respond respectfully, not just to you as journalists but on the questions you’re asking on behalf of Canadians because your job is to get that information to Canadians. There is a reason why he doesn’t want Canadians to know what his true agenda is.”

Gould did not provide any examples of Poilievre refusing to answer or being disrespectful to reporters.   

While the reporters did not respond to her demands in the moment, mainstream media in Canada relies on government subsidies to stay afloat, and is often criticized for its left-wing bias. In fact, there have been multiple instances of the CBC pushing what appears to be ideological content, including the creating of pro-LGBT material for kids, tacitly endorsing the gender mutilation of children, promoting euthanasia, and even seeming to justify the burning of mostly Catholic churches throughout the country.

Despite this, beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year, to a maximum of $13,750.   

The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not even sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running, and recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.    

Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets, payouts which coincide with the lead-up to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.      

Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC for 2024-25.    

The $42 million to the CBC is in addition to massive media payouts which already make up roughly 70 percent of its operating budget, and total more than $1 billion annually.    

 Christopher F. Rufo

Fact Checking the Fact Checkers

Monday, CBS News published a story attempting to contradict our reporting on cat-eating in Dayton, Ohio. I published a rebuttal to the story on the social media site X, which I have reproduced here.

CBS News has published a response to the “Cat Eaters of Ohio” story. It’s a supremely dishonest and completely partisan report, but let’s break it down, to show exactly how the establishment media maintains its lines of propaganda.

The CBS report hinges on two arguments. First, CBS writes: “The video shows what appears to be animal carcasses on a grill. The man filming the footage alleges, without evidence, that they are cats.” Without evidence? The eyewitness directly observed the incident and took a video recording of it—both of which are firsthand evidence. But CBS’s apparent standard, when such evidence violates the establishment narrative, is: Don’t believe your lying eyes.

The report also quotes Dayton’s Democratic mayor, who says there have been “absolutely zero reports of this type of activity.” Which is true, but does not contradict the evidence at all. Nobody filed a police report, so there would be no police report—and the absence of a police report does not mean that something did not happen. This is a convenient way of ignoring the evidence, and laundering lies through friendly media apparatus.

What did CBS not do? Journalism. The network, which has massive resources, did not send a reporter to the scene, interview the eyewitness, interview the neighbors, investigate the visual evidence, conduct background research, or provide a detailed analysis. They simply adopted “don’t believe your lying eyes” as their standard and repeated an empty, evidence-free statement from a partisan political figure. Now, I’d like to take you through exactly how we produced the story and analyzed the evidence. This is precisely the case that I made in the original piece, that the establishment media is more interested in denial and obfuscation, even when the evidence points the other way.

Sourcing

An individual in my personal social network reached out with a tip and a link to the social media post with the video. (This source neither requested, nor received, the monetary prize I had posted on social media a few days prior.) Our team then collected the timestamped social media from August 2023, which was still live. We tracked down the author, authenticated the video, matched it to his voice, and conducted an interview by phone, in which he confirmed the key details of the story.

The following day, we had the author bring us to the location and make introductions, had a team member conduct background research, and sent a reporter into the field to make observations and conduct interviews. To confirm the exact location of the video, we matched the visual elements in the picture to the visual elements on the scene, down to matching knot patterns in fence planks, which provided us with the precise address and camera position relative to the scene. For extra care, we also cross-referenced the visual evidence with street and satellite images, plus residential property records.

Eyewitness Account

Our interview with the eyewitness matched the details of the original video and was unambiguous in its conclusion: “This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill. They was barbecuing the damn cat!” The eyewitness was familiar with the African families in the housing complex (his son played with their children) and his child’s mother, who lived next door to the Africans, had observed them on at least one occasion butchering a large mammal on the street. The eyewitness had a close, unmediated look at the incident and maintained a consistent story over one year, to multiple different groups, including his own peer group. He is familiar with barbecuing and, like anyone, is familiar with cats. The source of his initial shock was that the animal on the grill was not a chicken, burger, hotdog, or other usual fare.

Again, he witnessed the incident firsthand, recorded a video, and maintained a consistent story over a year. This is all direct evidence, contrary to CBS News’s disingenuous claim.

Field Interviews

Our field reporter spoke with a half-dozen people in the housing complex, who confirmed the following details: all of the residents of the complex were migrants from Africa, most commonly the Congo; they were familiar with the eyewitness, his child’s mother, and his son; they told us another African family had recently moved out of one of the units; this family owned and used a blue grill; the father would go out with a knife and gather meat; there were stray cats breeding on the property and some residents wanted to get rid of them.

We also made the following direct observations on the scene: we matched the visuals in the video to the location; we found an abandoned grill that matched the make, model, and color in the video and the descriptions in the interviews; we noticed that there were at least ten cats on the property, which appeared to be strays and were very comfortable with the residents, coming onto the porches and milling around the exterior of the house.

Background Research

Our research team learned that there is a tradition of cat eating in the Congo and surrounding nations. We also learned that, since at least 2021, Dayton has accommodated a relatively large number of migrants from the Congo. By chance, one of our in-house researchers had experience dissecting cats and studying their anatomy. In addition, we spoke on background with a chicken farmer, surgeon, biologist, hunter, and medical professor.

Forensic Analysis

Over the weekend, some left-wing conspiracy accounts on social media began claiming that the animals were chickens, rather than cats. We asked our experts to provide forensic analysis and their opinion.

The chicken farmer, who has processed thousands of animals per year, confirmed that it could not be a chicken in the video:

• “The most obvious evidence is that the claws on the grill are facing the wrong way for it to be an avian creature. Size-wise the only poultry [the claws] could credibly be compared to is a Cornish game hen or something small, but the carcasses are much larger than that. Literally any poultry farmer or butcher would tell you that’s not a chicken or a waterfowl.
• “A bird wouldn’t be able to rest upside down like that. Its heavy legs would cause it to flop to one side or another, or the legs would just drop down to either side … There’s no way for a bird to naturally sit that way. They’re bottom-heavy creatures.”
• “The legs are too skinny [to be a chicken]. The ‘drumstick’ even on a laying hen would be much meatier. Number two is that, even if it were a bird, the talons are facing in the wrong direction. But they are in the right direction for cat’s paws. They are basically claiming that the two legs on the left are those of a chicken, and that its butt is somehow propped in the air. First of all, why would it be propped in the air? … But more importantly, why would the drumsticks be stuck up in midair? For a quadruped like a feline this makes sense (they are the front legs) but not an avian creature which has one set of legs with a sort of folding joint in them. If the bird were face up as they are claiming, the legs would fold down onto the thighs, not project straight into the air.”
• “The feet of a chicken or a waterfowl are much larger in proportion to the carcass than what’s in the video. Whereas the proportion fits that between a cat’s leg and paw. When you shoot a cow or sheep or pig, they might fall and roll onto their back with their legs straight up in the air like the cat is. Because they’re also quadrupeds. Not possible with a chicken because it just has a totally different leg structure. Made to do different things.”

We also spoke with a surgeon, who also has practical experience with animals, explained that the proportions of the animal, particularly the “ilium-to-scapula distance,” resemble a mammal, more specifically, a cat, rather than a chicken:

• “It’s fascinating how different animal species have remarkably similar skeletal structures – the humerus is proximal to the radius, the sternum anterior to the scapula – but the relationship of those bones to each other is what largely differentiates one animal species to the next, not only in appearance but also in function.”
• “[In the video,] you can see that a cat has a greater distance between the scapula and the ilium. This provides more space for the abdominal organs (i.e. small bowel, liver) between the thoracic cavity and the pelvis. When the legs are stretched, a 90-degree angle is formed between the legs and the pelvis/abdominal cavity (as can be seen in the picture).”
• “In contrast, a chicken has a very short distance between the scapula and the ilium. The reason for this is that the abdominal organs are located more caudally (i.e. towards the tail). When a chicken’s legs are stretched, this exaggerated 90-degree angle (as is seen in the video) is absent because the thoracic cavity is so close to the pelvis – hence, short distance between the scapula and ilium.”
• “The animals in the video are cats and not chickens due to the pronounced right angle between the legs and the abdomen that occur as a result of a longer ilium-to-scapula distance.”

Conclusion

The CBS News report is not credible and does not make any attempt to investigate the facts. Rather, it simply denied the eyewitness account and firsthand video as “without evidence”—a logical contradiction—and copied a statement from the Democratic mayor, who also did not investigate the matter. There is no indication that CBS sent a reporter into the field, conducted any interviews, or provided any visual analysis. There is no indication that CBS even knows where the incident occurred, something that took our team some time on the ground.

As I wrote in my original piece about the story, the establishment media wants to maintain a line of propaganda and wish away any evidence to the contrary, appealing to authority rather than the facts. This is dishonest and does a disservice to productive debate.