TORONTO, Ontario, January 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An unapologetically pro-life and pro-family veteran journalist and TV show host has argued in a compelling new book that CBC should be defunded and privatized.
In “CBC Exposed”, Brian Lilley, host of Byline on Sun News Network, shines a light on the staggering price tag that the media giant costs taxpayers annually: $1.1 billion, or about $100 million every 30 days.
Lilley presents evidence and anecdotes about CBC that would outrage any hardworking Canadian taxpayer.
In story after story, Lilley showcases CBC’s “leftist bias,” including on the life and family issues. And he highlights case after case where CBC ruined people’s reputations and their lives through biased and reckless reporting. When numerous victims throughout the years took CBC to court to clear their names, taxpayers footed CBC’s legal bills, often reaching millions of dollars.
Readers at Amazon.ca give the book high praise: “If other media like CTV, Global and more can survive without government handouts and actually provide better coverage in spite, the CBC can do the same,” wrote one reader.
“I would recommend that it be in every Library in Canada,” wrote another reader.
“I stopped watching and/or listening to the CBC years ago, because of their incessant leftist preaching and financial corruption. It makes me mad that I HAVE to pay for this anyway, since it comes out of my taxes. Ridiculous! Cut them off now! All Canadians should read this book,” wrote another reader.
Lilley told LifeSiteNews in an interview that he wrote CBC Exposed, released August 2012, with the goal of motivating people to work toward defunding and privatizing CBC. He believes this will have the effect of “making the new owners responsible for the content.”
“Cutting the budget won’t fix CBC. Owners that will have to pay out the massive legal settlements would. The new owners would also then have to decide whether they want to continue to support a left-wing, anti-business, Toronto-centric network that has a very limited view of Canada despite all of us paying for it.”
(Incidentally, Lilley apologized to readers for the provocative cover of the book, saying that he had no control over the matter.)
Lilley said he was driven to write the book after working alongside CBC journalists and seeing stories getting “skewed” including anything that “touches on life issues, on religion or on social conservatives.”
In a Chapter titled “CBC Hates Conservatives” Lilley writes: “If there was one word that had to be chosen to sum up the general attitude CBC has to conservative minded Canadians it would be hostility.”
“To the CBC, conservative minded Canadians and the Conservative Party are the enemy.”
“Sometimes this has played out in subtle ways such as what CBC chooses to cover and what to ignore. Talk to anyone involved in the pro-life movement and they will have instant stories of indifference expressed by CBC news personnel in their stories and their cause.
“In the news judgment of CBC, a small protest railing against the Conservative government and the robocall controversy is deserving of extensive coverage across all platforms while the annual March for Life, which draws 15,000 to protest abortion, warrants minimal coverage.”
Lilley told LifeSiteNews that being a “good reporter is the same as it ever was” and consists in telling people “the facts.” Lilley’s book, however, suggests that at some point in its 77-year history, CBC sacrificed fact-based reporting to the agenda of liberal elites.
To highlight CBC’s agenda, Lilley gives the example of the network’s treatment of the late Jack Layton when he was caught by police visiting a massage parlour. The story broke just days before the end of the 2011 federal election in which Layton was running a strong campaign for prime minister.
A police report of the 1996 incident reveals that Layton was found lying on a bed at a suspected Chinatown bawdy house completely naked.
Layton told police at that time that he had not received any sexual services and that he was “just getting a shiatsu.” When asked why all his clothes were off, Layton was silent. Layton went on to tell police that he was unaware that sexual services were being offered at the location.
Lilley points out that when CBC covered the story, they gave Layton a “free pass,” asking him to explain if the place looked “sketchy” to him.
“Not at all,” Layton told the CBC reporter, “otherwise I wouldn’t have gone in.”
Lilley concludes: “And with that CBC had passed judgement on a story some of their own people had chased for years, declaring it a non-story because it attacked the wrong man.”
“Do you think for a minute that CBC would treat a story about Stephen Harper in a bawdy house just a little bit differently?”
Lilley told LifeSiteNews that a defunded and privatized CBC might bode well for the country’s pro-life movement since it might push the organization to “soften” its liberal mandate to be “hostile to pro-lifers.”
Instead of waiting for the CBC to change its ways, Lilley stressed that conservatives and pro-lifers should instead get more active on the media scene.
“Pro-lifers need to get in the game, like LifeSiteNews or blogs like Run With Life are doing. If you don’t like the channel, make your own. If you can’t do that then support those that are in the game,” he said.
Brian Lilley’s “CBC Exposed” is available on Amazon.ca.