“The neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division linked to Ottawa’s “Freedom Convoy,” screams the Radio-Canada headline in French. This CBC smear-job story ran just prior to the Federal Court of Appeal releasing its January 16 denunciation of the federal government’s illegal conduct in February 2022. The court denounced former prime minister Justin Trudeau over wrongfully declaring a national emergency, illegally using violence against peaceful protesters, and violating Charter rights by freezing the bank accounts of hundreds of Canadians.
The lengthy CBC article is not about the Freedom Convoy. Rather, the story is about the trial of 27-year-old Ontarian Kristoffer Nippak, accused of involvement with a terrorist group around 2018, though not accused of any terrorist act that harmed people. The now-defunct Atomwaffen Division was declared a terrorist entity in Canada in 2021, prior to its dissolution.
So, what exactly is this “link” between neo-Nazis and Freedom Convoy, which the CBC proclaims so prominently in its headline
Apparently, one of the Crown’s witnesses testified at Kristoffer Nippak’s trial that one of the video recordings from 2018 or 2019 was shot with the same camera that was also used to film scenes from the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa in February 2022. On this basis, the CBC declares in its story that “the neo-Nazi group to which [Kristoffer Nippak] allegedly belonged, the Atomwaffen Division, had ties to the convoy of truckers that occupied downtown Ottawa four years ago.”
If it’s true that the same camera was used to record different events in different locations in 2018 and 2022, this would prove only that a camera made its rounds to different locations over the course of years, as some cameras do. Contrary to the CBC’s assertion, a travelling camera does not establish or prove that there are links between groups as such.
Perhaps the CBC’s headline about a “link” could qualify as a weak, unpersuasive editorial. But the CBC used this headline for a news story (or what was presented as a news story), not for an opinion piece.
Of interest, CBC describes the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division as “far-right,” the same adjective that CBC uses to describe conservatives like the murdered American conservative activist Charlie Kirk. For the CBC, conservatives and neo-Nazis are one and the same: “far-right.” In fact, anyone who disagrees with the CBC’s ideology is “far-right.”
Another misleading headline, another smear-job, another example of ideological advocacy, another day in the life of the CBC, paid for by another four million tax dollars taken from Canadians.
As more Canadians become aware of how biased and unprofessional the CBC is, fewer want their tax dollars used to promote an authoritarian ideology that exalts big government and despises the Charter freedoms on which our democracy depends. Yet the federal government recently boosted CBC funding by $150 million per year, bringing the broadcaster’s total annual taxpayer-funded allotment to about $1.55 billion. This amounts to over $4,000,000 per day, 365 days per year, that Canadians pay for anti-freedom propaganda dressed up as “news” by so-called “journalists” who believe, in their own minds, that they are objective truth-tellers.
John Carpay, B.A., LL.B., is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
