On April 11, the leader of Canada’s official opposition asked the confused American social media platform Twitter to label the CBC, our country’s public broadcaster, “government-funded media.”

Pierre Poilievre then wrote in his tweet featuring his letter, “We must protect Canadians against disinformation and manipulation by state media.”

Twitter’s Elon Musk naturally complied, having also labelled NPR in the United States “state-affiliated media” and the BBC in England government-funded, although they backed off BBC by changing it to “publicly funded.” (In a democracy, I’m not clear on exactly how this is different.)

Subsequently, Musk and Poilievre, after CBC objected, had a little fun after Musk changed the CBC’s label to “69 percent government-funded media.” To which Poilievre replied, “There. Now everyone is happy.”

Was that the end goal of all of this idiocy? To make everyone happy? I rather thought this should have been a serious conversation.

Because Poilievre is trying to make the case that the CBC is the mouthpiece of the government.

“Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news,” he tweeted.

I assume he meant that people realize it “now” because Twitter said so with its label. Well, then. I always believe everything I read on Twitter, and I’m sure you do too.

Soon afterward, Poilievre went after the prime minister in the House of Commons (and not necessarily without reason) for his recent vacation at a beach estate in the Caribbean with wealthy donors. The CBC broke that story. So do we believe CBC reporting or do we not, Mr. P?

In addition, speaking of illogical, how is it that the CBC is spouting Trudeau propaganda when it is bringing to light his perceived aberrations in ethical behaviour?

My main questions to Mr. P, the above aside, are as follows:

Are you aware that the CBC was founded on Nov. 2, 1936?

With that information in hand, has it always been a mouthpiece for the prime minister? Including, say, Stephen Harper? Or is this a new development? Has the present PM perhaps rewritten the Broadcasting Act, which protects editorial independence?

I haven’t seen anything on Twitter about it.

The last I heard, the CBC’s board of directors manages the funding, which was $1.2 billion in 2021-22, down from about $1.4 billion the previous year. It’s worth noting that the CBC also derived $651 million of its funding last year from other avenues including advertising. You know. Business. (This is where Musk’s 69 percent comes from.)

I will give you that the CBC tends to lean a little left, like in the opposite direction from Mr. P and his Conservative compatriots. This does not mean the public broadcaster is creating fake news or spouting propaganda. It means you will see more stories about the underprivileged population, health care, oppression, and so on than you would, for example, on Fox News.

I am horrified by this action and these statements by the leader of Canada’s opposition. They are not just misleading, illogical, and ill-considered but dangerous. They are, in my view, anti-democratic.

Either Mr. P does not understand how public broadcasting works, nor its attack anyway for political reasons. Either way, this disqualifies him from credible leadership.

FRIENDS, a public broadcasting advocacy group, put it well when it recently said that Poilievre’s request of Twitter, to “protect Canadians against disinformation” is a “laughable” idea.

“What’s not funny is that the person running to be the leader of one of the most democratic countries in the world has zero qualms about comparing CBC/Radio-Canada to the likes of Russia’s Sputnik TV,” said executive director Marla Boltman in a statement.

“These tactics are irresponsible, dangerous and undermine the democracy that public institutions like CBC/Radio-Canada are desperately trying to uphold.”

There are not enough credible news organizations in the world as it is. You may like CBC coverage or you may not, but it is important to the fabric of our nation, as is its very existence; largely, it covers the entire country.

In addition, several pundits have suggested that Mr. P’s true goal is to keep Canadians under- informed. As Max Fawcett, a columnist with the National Observer, pointed out on Twitter, “ . . . as recent polling shows, the less informed Canadians are, the more likely they are to support his party.”

As to Mr. Musk, Jeffrey Dvorkin, former managing editor at CBC Radio and a vice-president at NPR, now a senior fellow at Massey College, said Musk was hypocritical to label the CBC as government-funded when his own companies receive such funding. Still haven’t seen a label for that.

Days later, Mr. Musk removed the labels, saying it wasn’t his idea. So this was just a whim, then. You have to love a billionaire wielding online power who doesn’t know his own mind.

Still, I think it would be nice if Mr. Musk invited Mr. Poilievre on a little space mission aboard his SpaceX Starship (assuming it does not explode next time). I wonder if gazing at our beautiful blue world, under attack from so many quarters, portions of it at war supported by real propaganda inflicted by right-wing dictators, might give them some perspective.

Nah.

• Joanne Paulson