Liberal-appointed Senator Lucie Moncion (Ont.) says the federal government is within its rights to correct op-eds in the media, reports Blacklock’s Reporter.
Moncion, a former credit union CEO from North Bay, Ont., told the Senate she successfully got a weekly newspaper to edit an article written by a political opponent published in Ottawa’s Hill Times, which is subsidized by the feds.
“Inaccurate information was presented,” said the senator. “We had to remain vigilant.”
Moncion said she got the weekly to revise an Aug. 21 commentary by Senator Donald Plett (Man.), the Opposition Leader in the Senate, that complained of Senate overspending and The Hill Times complied.
The headline of the op-ed read, “Trudeau’s Experimental Senate Changes Are Turning Out To Be A Dud.”
“Once a newspaper has the facts it is free to change an article, remove it or leave it as is,” said Moncion. “I repeat: The newspaper is free to make corrections. In a democracy it is essential to ensure information that is disseminated about our institutions is true in order to avoid contributing even passively to the spread of misinformation and disinformation that characterize our media landscape.”
Moncion said the “correction” didn’t involve libel or any misstatement of fact but rather how budgeted versus actual Senate expenditures were represented.
Plett complained: “They wanted to change the meaning of the text, trying to minimize the increase in Senate expenses since Justin Trudeau took power. This is outrageous. We now have a Senate communications police that will not only ‘fact-check’ what senators say or write outside the chamber but they will also, in secret, change how you present your thoughts.”
Moncion said she asked for the editing as chair of the Senate committee on internal economy.
But Plett called it “part of a larger pattern with this Liberal government of doing anything to silence dissent and opposition.”
Records show The Hill Times has benefitted from more than $1 million in grants, subsidies and sole-sourced government contracts in the past 18 months and is Canada’s most subsidized weekly.