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EDMONTON, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled that one’s vaccination status is “fundamentally private” after judging that an Edmonton radio show host violated a listener’s medical privacy by outing him as unvaccinated live on air.
In a ruling released last Wednesday, the CBSC found Edmonton announcer Lochlin Cross of 95.7 CRUZ FM (CKEA-FM) did indeed violate the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) Code of Ethics, by divulging a private individual’s “COVID-19 vaccination status” on-air without his consent.
“The choice of whether or not to be vaccinated has been hotly debated on all media, as has the subject of public and personal recriminations. However, whether one is vaccinated or not constitutes medical information that is fundamentally private,” wrote the CBSC’s seven-member English-Language Panel.
The council concluded that Cross, “having clearly identified this individual to the public at large,” went on to “discuss the fact that the complainant was not vaccinated.”
“The revelation of this private, confidential medical information was not only careless but egregious,” the Council wrote.
Cross outed the vaccine-free listener on air during a February 10, 2022 “Topic of the Day” segment of his The LockerRoom radio show.
Cross was discussing the lifting of the COVID pandemic restrictions in the province of Alberta with two co-hosts. He noted that he was hesitant to attend a Super Bowl party at which he knew his vaccine-free friend would be in attendance.
Cross mentioned his friend by his last name, and then later by his nickname, which includes his first name. The hosts joked together that the “friend” was a good one to have “because he would help you bury a body.”
Cross said he was “judgmental” about his friend and that he “avoided him” and “his phone calls,” adding he did not “want to go now” to the Super Bowl party as he still wanted to “follow the rules.”
As a result of Cross’s comments, the named acquaintance filed a complaint with the CBSC.
“Mentioning my vaccination status is the straw that broke the camel’s back – he crossed the line with this one. After that show, I had friends, family and work acquaintances call me to tell me they had heard the show on the way to work – this has caused me huge embarrassment,” Cross’s acquaintance stated.
The complainant added, “Medical information is private and confidential information.”
According to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics, “The full, fair and proper presentation of news, opinion, comment and editorial is the prime and fundamental responsibility of each broadcaster.”
Also, the Radio Television Digital News Association Code of Journalistic Ethics says that all broadcasters should “be respectful, always taking into account editorial relevance and the public interest. We will not infringe on a person’s privacy unless we believe there is overriding public interest.”
Read: Canadian Parliament votes to uphold ban on unvaccinated traveling by land, train, sea
The CBSC ruled that 95.7 CRUZ FM (CKEA-FM) breached both of these codes.
“The complainant had not contacted the station in any way prior to the broadcast and had not given his consent to broadcast his vaccination status,” concluded the Council.
“It just so happened that this individual was a friend of the host… There was absolutely no compelling or justifiable need to identify the individual… It demonstrated a serious lack of judgment.”
This time last year, Justin Trudeau and his media allies were at the forefront of falsely accusing Catholic institutions of having buried Indigenous children in mass graves at various residential schools across Canada.
There was and is no credible evidence to support these wild accusations, but many Canadians are still unaware of the facts.
SIGN to demand an apology from Justin Trudeau for promoting the "mass grave" smear
The anger generated by the media at home and abroad saw over twenty Canadian churches burned, and extensive damage done to many more, but the record has never been set straight in what amounts to a disinformation campaign.
Terry Glavin at the National Post recently wrote a masterful piece that may go down in history as the definitive “debunking” of the assertions about the mass graves that never were.
Glavin points out that “nothing new was added to the public record” concerning the history of residential schools in Canada.
“The legacy of the schools had already been exhaustively explored in the testimony of hundreds of elders and a series of inquiries, public hearings, criminal cases, settlements and federal investigations going back decades. Most important of these efforts were the widely publicized undertakings of the 2008-2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), and the content of its voluminous findings,” Glavin wrote.
“…[N]ot a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year,” he added.
“The several sites of unmarked graves that captured international headlines were either already-known cemeteries, or they remain sites of speculation even now, unverified as genuine grave sites.”
“Not a single child” accounted for during the extensively researched commission “was located in any of these places,” Glavin underscored.
“In none of these places were any human remains unearthed.”
SIGN and SHARE the petition calling on Justin Trudeau to set the record straight.
Even Trudeau's kneeling at what was reported upon as a just-discovered residential school burial ground was a lie - it was actually a well-known Catholic cemetery, but the media didn't let these details get in the way of reinforcing their narrative.
Trudeau also called on Pope Francis to come to Canada and apologize for what had happened, as outlets like Reuters, the New York Times and scores more told the world that “nearly 1000 bodies” had been found in two mass graves.
Those online articles were quietly edited from "mass graves" to "unmarked graves", but we still have the Twitter posts from major outlets like Reuters to prove the staggering level of misinformation.
SIGN: Justin Trudeau must tell Canadians the truth - there were no mass graves
According to an extensive investigation by Professor Emeritus Jacques Rouillard from the Université de Montréal: “The ‘discovery’ was first reported last May 27 (2021) by Tk’emlúps te secwépemc First Nation Chief Rosanne Casimir after an anthropologist, Sarah Beaulieu, used ground-penetrating radar in a search for the remains of children alleged by some to be buried there.”
“Her preliminary report is actually based on depressions and abnormalities in the soil of an apple orchard near the school – not on exhumed remains.”
Professor Rouillard opined that the unverifiable narrative of what could have amounted to child-murder has led to the false assertion of genocide, an assertion without any supporting evidence.
“By never pointing out that it is only a matter of speculation or potentiality, and that no remains have yet been found, governments and the media are simply granting credence to what is really a thesis: the thesis of the ‘disappearance’ of children from residential schools,” Rouillard wrote.
“And all of this is based only on soil abnormalities that could easily be caused by root movements, as the anthropologist herself cautioned in the July 15 press conference.”
The vast majority of Canadians have been misled by the media and Mr. Trudeau, believing the most incredible smears imaginable, leading to scores of attacks on churches around the country.
It's time we heard the truth.
Please sign the petition today.
We are also cc'ing Canada's Catholic bishops on this petition - they must also demand the record be corrected, lest Canadians continue believing the mainstream media's disinformation.
For More Information:
How the world's media got it wrong on residential school graves - National Post
Trudeau lied about the bogus mass grave story - LifeSiteNews
Trudeau's narrative was a hoax - LifeSiteNews
**Photo: St. Jean Baptiste Church in Morinville burned to the ground on June 30, 2021**
Cross’s employer CKEA-FM had to air the council’s ruling once during peak station listening hours and is also mandated to air it again during a broadcast of his LockerRoom show.
The violation carries no fine, and it should be noted that two out of the seven council panel members dissented from the majority opinion that Cross had violated radio ethics codes.
All Canadian provinces put in place COVID vaccine passports last year, which unfairly excluded the vaccine-free from many aspects of normal life.
Alberta was the first province to lift its COVID vaccine passport on February 8, which was only two days before Cross’s on-air outing.
While all provincial COVID vaccine passports have now been lifted, late last year, the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put in place a mandate that in effect bans those who have chosen not to get the COVID vaccines to travel ban by air, rail, or sea.
Still in place, the travel mandate bans Canadians from flying within Canada as well as out of the country. Very few exceptions are given.
Trudeau’s vaccine mandate is being challenged in court by People’s Party of Canada leader and former MP Maxime Bernier.
The travel jab mandate has been called out by Canada’s official opposition, the Conservative Party of Canada, as “vindictive.”