Recently, I talked about a few states in the US that had actually taken strong steps towards fixing their own economies, even moving into surplus, by decreasing spending, entitlement reform, and tax breaks. The BBC censored all information about this, never told you. This is unfortunate, as it would have provided a useful context in which to consider the national budget situation. Ohio, Wisconsin, and South Carolina did exactly the same thing as what Mark Mardell claimed the extremist Tea Party movement forced into the national debate on how to deal with the budget crisis, and forced it on a President who wanted to spend, spend, spend, instead. Yet those states all seem to have made the correct decision. And the BBC remains silent, as it doesn’t fit the Narrative they want to tell about economic policy.
While the BBC is busily spreading blame around for the US budget fiasco and debt agreement (to everyone except the President, of course), it seems to have escaped the astute Beeboids’ notice that there’s another country in North America which seems to be doing a bit better. It’s right there in the title of the relevant section of BBC News Online: US & Canada.
Canada, as it turns out, is doing better than the US for pretty much the same reason. Has the BBC mentioned this at all? No they have not. It’s true that they didn’t have the same kind of sub-prime mortgage crisis, but as a largely resource-based export country, if others aren’t buying – particularly the US – they’re not going to do well either.
In April, the BBC had this to say about the major issues of the Canadian election:
Conservatives are seeking to make the economy the dominant issue in the election. Canada fared much better than the US during the recession, but unemployment is still high at 7.8%.
Mr Harper has promised to provide tax breaks for corporations and manufacturers and tax credits to encourage small businesses to hire new workers.
Mr Ignatieff opposes corporate tax reductions offered by Mr Harper, but Conservatives retort that eliminating the planned reduction in the corporate tax rate amounts to a tax increase, which would be harmful to the recovering economy.
Liberals want to establish a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are also seeking increased funding for social services including for poor seniors, carers and early childhood education.
Mr Ignatieff has unveiled a plan to promote affordable housing and reduce homelessness. But the proposed funding comes from a public-private partnership fund for infrastructure investment which Liberals say is unproductive, but which city governments around the country argue is an important funding stream.
Does this boilerplate sound familiar? It should, as it’s the same way the BBC always champions the farthest Left social policies. Like they did in their Q&A about the US debt agreement.
The chief sticking points have been Republicans’ resistance to tax rises and calls for much bigger spending cuts than the Democrats favour, and Democrats’ desire to shield healthcare programmes for the poor and elderly and the Social Security pension programme from cuts.
The poor and elderly. Just another version of the “poorest and most vulnerable” who are always hit hardest by the latest policy on offer from the Conservatives.
Notice, though, that in the above brief description of Harper’s plans, the BBC News Online sub-editor grants space to his opponent on the Left for a rebuttal. Yet when it’s time to outline the Liberal plans, not only do they get a lengthier, more detailed explanation, but no space is given to any objection from the Right.
Harper and the Conservatives won, obviously, so how is Canada doing now? Well, the Canadian dollar spiked a couple cents higher than the US dollar after Harper and the Conservatives won the election – funny that, eh, BBC? – and after dropping down to a more normal level, has recently come back up to dead even with the US dollar.
On a local level, the Province of Saskatchewan followed the kind of sound fiscal policy advocated by the supposedly extremist fringe Tea Party, and changed their economy. In 2007, the Saskatchewan Party won a majority, after 16 years of rule by the liberal New Democrats. They won on a platform of tax relief, entitlement reform and deregulation, along with pledges to use the cash gained on education and road infrastructure. It seems to have worked because the province has since had an increase in people moving in, more jobs. Instead of throwing the cash around as “stimulus”, they paid off their debts, and Standard & Poor’s raised their credit rating to AAA in May.
So this is yet more evidence that it can be done the way the Tea Party movement suggests. Again, the BBC is utterly silent on something that doesn’t fit the Narrative.
Nationally, Canada’s debt is down to 35% of GDP, and the only reason it’s that high is because Harper did throw some cash around a couple years back at the start of the recession. But now the jobless rate is the lowest it’s been in two years, since they started adding jobs again after the financial crisis. Wages rose as well. Imagine that. Canada allows certain resource extraction techniques – fracking, for example – that the US won’t because of fealty to the environmentals, and so creates more jobs, and produces more. These aren’t difficult concepts, but are anathema to the BBC ideologues.
Even the New Democrats slashed spending to reduce the deficit, which was so bad that at one point, 36% of revenue was used to pay off interest on it. Eventually, Canada reduced its deficit by a combination of economic growth – not spending, but actual growth – and spending cuts. No draconian taxes, no new crushing regulations, no massive spending increases.
Basically, Canada is on very solid footing now, while the US is in the toilet. Canada followed sound fiscal policy, very much like that advocated by the Tea Party movement, has reduced its debt substantially, and is thriving. The US tried the opposite, and tanked. The BBC tried to tell you that it was a crazy minority trying to force this stuff into the conversation for ideological purposes. Not once did Mark Mardell or Stephanie ‘Two Eds’ Flanders or any other Beeboid provide the example of Canada as something to consider while trying to understand the debate in the US. Not once were you told that there have been success stories which contradicted the President’s agenda.
They’re trying to push the White House Narrative that the downgrade and current mess is all the fault of the Tea Party, without ever acknowledging that things would be even worse had we not voted in some people with a clue and forced Congress to face reality. It wasn’t going to happen otherwise, and instead of telling you that, the BBC has spun it the other way.
In sum, the BBC has censored news of economic success caused by conservative fiscal policy because it does not suit their ideology and the Narrative they want to tell you. You’re not given the information you need to form an opinion, and in fact are at times told the opposite of what’s true.
I always say you can’t trust the BBC on US issues, but now it seems that there’s not much to trust them on for anything to do with North America.
Speaking of which, Mark Mardell’s official title is “BBC North America editor”, yet when was the last time you heard him mention anything about Canada? In fact, when was the last time you heard him talk about anything other than the President and His plans and speeches? It’s been a while. Time for a new, more appropriate title for him. I’ll leave it open to everyone else for suggestions.
By and large, CANADA does not exist for the BBC-NUJ, compared with e.g. PAKISTAN. Is it because Canada is still a predominantly white, non-Muslim country for which many white, non-Muslim British people have an affection, and some personal and cultural connection?
Incidentally, when multicultural leftist Mr. IGNATIEFF was resident in Britain a few years ago, the BBC-NUJ gave him enormous airtime and his own TV and radio series to spout his political propaganda.
Goodness, Michael Ignatieff! I read the post and saw the reference to Mr Ignatieff but never guessed that it was the same fellow who always used to be on BBC2. I had no idea that he is now a politician. He used to present The Late Show, I remember.
More importantly though seen through te eyes of the BBC collective the Canadians perpetrated the biggest crime against humanity by electing a right wing government.
This criminal act by the Canadian people means that the BBC now views the entire nation of Canada as no longer fit and worthy to report on. Canada is just another one of those nations blacklisted by the BBC for daring to elect a right wing government. Canada is now a non nation, it no longer exists until a negative story can be cooked up.
Cuba now gets 100% more BBC coverage than Canada, the BBC is spiteful and vengeful, it does not forgeet and it does not forgive. Canada could become the most successful richest nation on earth and the BBC would not report any of it. More and more nations are now on the BBCs political blacklist, their world is getting smaller by the week.
You ‘ve hit the nail directly on the head. The BBC is deeply wedded to the entire left liberal social and economic agenda.
The case you make is quite irrefutable.
They go round in circles to address ‘impartiality’, but they decide ,as an institution, what ‘open mindedness is’.
And I have to pay for it by law.
Yes, another campaign of anti-American smears and misinformation from the BBC.
S&P’s recent downgrading to AA+ appears to make little sense, especially when so many states, including the ones you just mentioned and many others, have done so much to tackle debt head on.
In addition, the USA, like Canada and the UK, has not given up the right to print its own money, which has considerable advantages. In effect they only owe money to themselves, not some other bastard.
Look what happened to those European countries that did…
When you have 4 or 5 countries with no work ethic that are in effect free-riding on other countries, owing them huge sums, some adjustment has to take place.
BBC headline you seldom/never see: “Is the Euro falling apart?”
I never understood why Canada hasn’t been raised as an example even during the original economic crisis which the left always had said ‘started in America’ (c) G.Brown.
Well, there is no economy more entwined with the US, than Canada’s. The US sneezes, and Canada catches a cold. But not a single Canadian bank needed a bail-out, and as your article states, there was no sub-prime crisis. Why? Good banking regulation. So this idea that the crisis, which started in America apparently, was inevitable is utter rubbish. The BBC/Labour line of it being someone elses fault falls flat on its’ face when you hold Canada up as an example.
It just doesn’t fit the Labour/BBC narrative to say so.
But not a single Canadian bank needed a bail-out
More than that, until Darling nationalised it (fullfilling a dream he held from his days as a student Trotskyist) I heard there was a Canadian bank circling RBS with a view to buying what it could in the fire sale. That might have been inconvenient for me (my mortgage is with RBS, meaning I’m now in a council house I guess) but I suspect Candian ownership of the retail bank and the investment bank being allowed to fail would have been a much better outcome than what we have.
Great post David.
Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn discussed the Canada/US thing during a greatinterview on Levant’s show last week. At about 16 mins they talk about the weird situation of Canada now being the grown-up.
Steyn recounts: A friend of mine said to me the other day down in New York: “What happened to all the bank names like First National Bank of Dead Skunk Junction, and now all the banks are just initials?” And I said, “Well, you know why that is don’t you?” And she said “No”. “It’s because they’re all Canadian. What do you think TD – ‘America’s neighbourhood bank’ as its slogan is – what do you think TD stands for?” She goes “Gee, I don’t know.” Well as you know it’s Toronto Dominion. Well, you can’t use those words when you’re taking over the banking system in the United States.
Funny. Speaking of Ezra Levant and Canada, the BBC censored all news a couple years back of his hilarious but serious dealings with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which tried to nail him on hate speech.
They discuss the CHRC stuff too. I remember asking the BBC’s North America editor why he wasn’t interested in covering state-sponsored threats to free speach in one of the Commonwealth dominions. No reply. No coverage.
Mark Steyn is on Dennis Miller now if anybody’s interested.
I see the Democrats have decided that the words “Tea Party downgrade” are to be used as often as possible.
Like listening for the first cuckoo in spring, let’s log the first time a BBC reporter uses it. It will begin by being used in “quotes”, later it will the “so-called Tea party downgrade” and in a few months “tea party downgrade” will slip off their tongues as if it were true.
No-the nature of the BBC is to scoff at the conventional and functional.
The Beeb needs the pictures and the conflicts-adrenaline junkies with a sense of their perpetual urge to “create their own history”…and archive the results in a positive loop of self importance.
Thye feed only on their own droppings and speculative punts on making history…and when they fail, they are THAT stupid to come back to the trough like the Greeks or whoever… to fail even MORE spectacularly the next time.
The nature of their whole institutionalised stupidity is to cream us for money-spout crap in a fountain display-and bill us to let them keep trying to “create history”.
We are THAT stupid to keep a-paying!
I propose a non-telly day on Tuesdays to save energy…and 4-11.30p.m only for them to get their tired mesage across!
No ones listening-time to switch off and over to Sky!
Indeed! And Canada has always been a source of huge headlines hasn’t it?
Wonder what’s happening in Belgium these days?
That’s the whole point! In the normal run of things, you’re not going to get any headlines about Canada on the Beeboid Corporation. They don’t have a quota or a special mission to Canada. Nor to European countries either.
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