(Ottawa) “Extremely serious”, “appalling”, “incendiary”: conservative MP Rachael Thomas has attracted the opprobrium of elected officials from all political parties by accusing CBC of being in the Hamas camp.
The spokesperson for the Canadian Heritage panel made the allegation before a committee, recalling the existence of an internal memo in which the public broadcaster asks its journalists to avoid the word “terrorist” to designate Hamas militiamen.
She did so as she returned to the charge with her request to summon executives from the crown corporation to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Thursday.
“CBC’s decision is absolutely irresponsible and involves spreading misinformation. And it’s being on the side of Hamas, it’s being on the side of the terrorists, it’s being against the Jewish population, which is bad,” she said.
Bloc MP Martin Champoux immediately objected, arguing that these “extremely serious” accusations were likely to endanger the lives of CBC/Radio-Canada journalists who cover the war between Israel and Hamas.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Martin Champoux
I invite him to be careful in his choice of words, because it can cause a lot of damage.
Martin Champoux, Bloc Québécois MP
New Democrat Peter Julian was also offended by this “extremely serious and inflammatory” charge from Rachael Thomas.
“She should apologize to all journalists. We can disagree on certain points, but the appalling allegations she has just made threaten the lives of journalists,” he criticized.
The main interested party refused to comply.
“I would like the members of this committee to be concerned about the innocent lives of Jewish individuals,” she returned to the microphone before being interrupted by the liberal Taleeb Noormohamed.
“Willingly or involuntarily, it foments discord within communities where we already feel a lot of anxiety,” he denounced.
No withdrawal
Far from retracting, MP Thomas added a layer.
“It’s simple: The CBC itself declared that calling Hamas terrorist was tantamount to taking sides,” she said, seeming to carefully weigh each word of her argument.
“If they don’t want to call Hamas a terrorist organization, doesn’t that amount to taking sides? she asked out loud.
Last week, the elected Alberta representative promised to make this committee “hell”, bristling at the procedural management of its president, the liberal Hedi Fry.
She has since apologized.
The controversial note
In the internal memo at the heart of the storm, the director of journalistic standards and practices, George Achi, asks journalists to avoid the term “terrorist” when referring to “activists and soldiers.”
The notion of terrorism “remains highly politicized and is part of history,” he adds in the message which leaked to the media.
CBC News editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon argued in a blog post that the attribution of the word terrorist has been a policy in place “for decades.”