Editorial

The Myth of Freedom of the Press in Canada

The recent firing of veteran Winnipeg journalist Lesley Hughes as a columnist for a chain of weekly community newspapers in Winnipeg underscores the myth of freedom of the press in Canada. Hughes was previously fired from the Winnipeg Sun in 1999 because she opposed the anti-Cuba hysteria being whipped up by that newspaper during the Pan-American Games taking place in Winnipeg that year.

At that time, the Winnipeg Sun, in open collaboration with various anti-Castro elements from the Miami Cuban community, ran a constant propaganda barrage against Cuba and promoted those offering millions of dollars to Cuban athletes who agreed to "defect". Hughes countered this propaganda barrage in her column, defending the success of the Cuban revolution in providing education, health care and other social programs to the entire Cuban population, despite the enormous burden of the American economic blockade and the loss of its Eastern European allies. Hughes was promptly fired for expressing her political opinions.

As a columnist for Winnipeg's weekly community newspapers Hughes has been an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, as well as of American domination of Canada. She eloquently opposed the U.S. war against Afghanistan, as well as its more recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. Her columns were hugely popular with a broad section of the Winnipeg population, a significant majority of whom also opposed those wars. The termination of her employment by those newspapers is clearly an effort to suppress her views.

Hughes' firing is only the most recent example of the attempt by the ruling elite of Canada to stifle any and all opposition to its program of integrating Canada more closely with the United States, economically, politically, socially and ideologically. The Asper family, which owns the National Post and Global Television Network has been spearheading a campaign for several years for the elimination of the CBC as a news outlet because of the purported "pro-Palestinian" bias of its reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Canadian Alliance led the charge against the CBC for what it alleged was an "anti-American" bias in the CBC's coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. These attempts to suppress every opinion other than a slavish pro-American one demonstrate that the Canadian capitalist elite is neither interested in "freedom of the press", nor in any vestiges of an independent Canadian media. It further demonstrates the urgent necessity to build and support a genuinely independent media in Canada capable of reflecting the opinions of Canadians.