Member of Unifor’s anti-Conservative political team is a newspaper columnist

I received a great deal of positive response to my column advocating for disclosure of journalists’ union affiliations alongside political stories. The catalyst was Unifor’s commitment to the defeat of Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, conveniently timed with Justin Trudeau’s announcement of a $600 million bailout for the media industry.

I joined Danielle Smith’s show on Calgary’s 770 CHQR, where I used to guest host, to discuss my piece.

You can listen to the segment here:

After the interview concluded, I came across this tweet from Unifor:

The tweet shows a Unifor working group scheming for next year’s election. Featured in the photo are several of the union’s top brass, including its Atlantic Canada director Lana Payne.

Payne was in the infamous “resistance” photo, though I didn’t recognize her. In addition to her union duties, she’s also a regular columnist for the St. John’s Telegram in Newfoundland.

Unifor’s already succeeding in taking over the country’s newspaper pages.

Payne is an opinion columnist and not a reporter, which means impartiality isn’t required (nor should it be.) She also openly discloses her Unifor role in her columns, so this isn’t a question of her ethics as much as it’s one of her agenda.

Restrictions on third-party advertising impact what unions can say and do during elections, but Unifor and Payne seem to have found a loophole. She can publish whatever propaganda Unifor is pushing under the guise of columns written in her voice.

She isn’t just some columnist who happens to be unionized. She’s a key player on Unifor’s political action group, which has declared itself the “resistance” to Andrew Scheer and vowed to stop the Conservatives at all costs.

The Telegram has some questions to answer here. Even opinion columnists should be expected to not be water-bearers for a specific party. I’m a conservative and a former PC candidate, but I’ve still criticized both the federal and provincial conservative parties in print and on air so no one can argue my content is bought and paid for by anyone except whichever outlet publishes it.

The same can’t be said for the columns written by Unifo— I mean Payne.

Journalists covering political stories must disclose union membership, for transparency

With less than a year to go until the federal election, Canada’s largest labour union has declared war on the Conservatives. That a labour group would side with the Left isn’t noteworthy, except this one is also the biggest union in the country for journalists.

There are 12,000 journalists and other media workers in Unifor, which characterized itself as the “resistance” to Andrew Scheer just one week before Justin Trudeau’s government announced a $600 million media bailout to ‘save’ Canadian journalism.

Not only are these unionized reporters part of an organization devoted to a particular political outcome; their employers are also on the receiving end of a fat cheque from the Liberals.

In a press release thanking the government for the money, Unifor also credited the “campaigning” of its media members for the funding.

“Unifor media workers have been talking to Members of Parliament and it is refreshing to see that they got the message,” said Jake Moore, Unifor’s media chair.

Unifor is admitting that the same journalists supposedly investigating and reporting on MPs have also spent the last two years begging them for money.

How could any sane person not see a conflict here?

This all comes as the federal Liberals fret about the threat of ‘fake news’ swaying next year’s election. The bigger threat is the influence lawmakers have on the press that’s supposed to hold them accountable.

This isn’t an indictment of every journalist. I worked for a mainstream media company for several years and know of many stellar reporters and producers who will continue to do solid and fair work regardless of the bailout and union politics.

However, remember that every unionized newsroom has a steward with a role in writing or broadcasting stories that shape the national conservation. Which will win out—union propaganda or journalistic ethics?

These question marks harm media consumers and the industry itself, further eroding the already precarious public trust in the media. Readers have no way of knowing who is beholden to whom. While individual biases can’t be erased, there can be more transparency.

Every unionized reporter in the country should disclose their union affiliation and any role they have within the organization within any stories connected to issues the union has a position on. For Unifor, that would be any political story whatsoever.

This is a natural extension of the disclosures that would be required for any other potential conflicts, allowing readers to understand the context from which a reporter is approaching his or her coverage.

Were it a member of a gun rights group covering a matter of firearms policy or someone in a province’s law society writing about an issue on which the society has taken a stance, readers—and editors—would justifiably demand transparency. Why should union members get a pass?

In the interests of disclosure, my wife is a newspaper reporter with membership in Unifor. I gave her a heads-up that I was mentioning her, but she wasn’t involved in this piece in any other way. (I may be sleeping on the couch tonight.)

Outlets themselves must be transparent about how much they receive in support from the federal government once Trudeau tax credit programs are operational. Though it would be far more productive for media companies to say no to reject the funding outright.

Specific journalistic guidelines vary from outlet to outlet, but one universal theme in all the policies and practices I’ve seen is the importance of being not only free from conflict, but even the appearance of conflict.

If as the old adage suggests, he who pays the piper calls the tune, anyone expecting fairness from journalists in the coming year is in for a rude awakening.

Canadians will soon see that he who pays the paper calls the tune.

Why the Tommy Robinson case matters

In my new life as an independent journalist and commentator, no story I’ve tackled has had the reach and interest of my coverage of the Tommy Robinson trial-that-never-was in England last month.

It’s understandable given how many of today’s most pressing cultural concerns are encapsulated in the case. Judicial activism, free speech, excessive immigration, media bias, and class divide: all of them are central to what’s happened to Robinson, and how it’s been covered (or not covered, such as the case may be.)

Bob Metz and Robert Vaughan of Just Right Media have been covering many of these issues for years, and graciously invited me back to their program to discuss what I learned and uncovered in England, and how this case fits into the work I’m doing on immigration and constitutional liberties with the True North Initiative.

If you’ve followed the Robinson case extensively you’ll be a bit bored with the opening few minutes of the case, where I recap the backstory before getting into the meat. But do stick through it, as it’s an hour of great discussion about key issues facing western society.

Listen to the interview in full here.

Leave Means Leave: In conversation with Andrew Lilico, lead economist for Brexit Leave campaign

When I was in the United Kingdom last month, I was quite surprised to see how people were demonstrating daily against Brexit, despite its cemented fate.

Even so, dozens of chanters waving European Union flags took to the streets of London every day, urging the government to reconsider, or have another referendum (and keep going until they win, I suppose.)

Though it remains a certainty that the U.K. will leave the E.U., what the arrangement between the two countries will look like is still unclear. I’ve been among those advocating a hard Brexit, replaced if the parties wish with a trade deal.

Many of the Europhiles have been advocating for a role that would make it difficult to imagine that a departure from the E.U. even existed.

I sat down on behalf of the True North Initiative with Andrew Lilico to discuss all of these dynamics. Lilico is the executive director of Europe Economics, and also served as the lead economist on the official Leave campaign.

Her Excellency excels at raiding the government purse

I had no idea Adrienne Clarkson was still working for the people of Canada. Now that I know how much it’s costing, I’d rather she just retire.

I tackle the scandal of mounting expenses for former vice-regal representatives in my latest Loonie Politics column, which you can read here if you’re a subscriber.

(If you’re not, consider signing up with promo code ‘Lawton’ for a discounted subscription.)

As always, here’s an excerpt of the column:

On behalf of Canadian taxpayers, let me say on the record that I don’t think any of us were aware former governor general Adrienne Clarkson was still working for us.

The woman once styled as Her Excellency now only excels at raiding the government purse, to the tune of over $1.1 million since she left office 13 years ago.

It’s a wonder she’s not the most visible woman in Canada.  The way she describes things, she’s been on a 19-year public service binge.

I’m not saying she isn’t doing anything.  Despite turning 80 in a few months it sounds like she keeps quite the calendar.  Even so, I wonder how this robust workload justifies up to $206,000 per year in government funding for administrative support above and beyond her government pension and private sector income.

More importantly, who’s asking her to do all this for us?  I’d be content to let her rake in the money from lucrative public speaking engagements and her work with the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.  Instead, I and all Canadians are subsidizing this private sector career by bankrolling the unspecified administrative services she receives.