Are there Canadian equivalents to Rush Limbaugh?

In English Canada there's Charles Adler, but no one is in Limbaugh's league that I know of. 

Ezra Levant? There isn't really the base in Canada for someone like Limbaugh to really flourish.

Levant was basically a swamp creature of print.  I was looking for radio or tv.  But you raise a good point on the market size question.

In Quebec, Independent MP André Arthur, Jeff Fillion, Jean-François Plante and Richard Martineau outdo each other in RW rants against women and minorities... vile populists. Luckily, we don't have the kind of syndication that would allow threm to reach audiences throughout Quebec, as does Limbaugh.

Is there a good chance Arthur can be beaten in the next election?  It's still so weird that he even got elected, given that Independents almost never win seats in general elections in Canada(they sometimes take byelections or become independents after defecting from whatever party they were originally elected for, but they usually get knocked out when the voters are having to actually grapple with choosing a government.

What about Michael Coren or Don Cherry?  They have reach.

Cherry is the canadian Rush or at least as close as we can get. Bigot check, Xenophobe check, anti-gay check(though cherry does have a thing for men in uniform), pro war check, conservative and says so check. He also thinks no one in hockey uses ANY illegal substances "because our boys wouldn't do that" I guess all those 19 years old are having exploding hearts from their love of the game and not HGH or steroids. Useless and irrelavant 90% of the time.

Dave Rutherford in Alberta. He is a complete Conservative party stooge: anti-immigrant, "law and order"(for the poor), neoliberal, pro-America, anti-Canada, pro-war, anti-woman, fascist. He frequently has conservative MPs as guests to share with us their brilliance, such as the "coup" attempt by the NDP in December.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was on their payroll (undislosed, of course. Jouralism ethics).

edited to add: I forgot: he's also a total douchebag.

I thought Rush was the Canadian Rush.

All I know about Limbaugh is what I've read, but on this site one may listen to Charles Adler and Mike Stafford, who are Canadian rightwing bottom-feeders with radio shows.

Jingles, you are much too kind in your description of Rutherford. He is more aptly compared to what is expelled after an enema than the device employed in the enema process.

Actually, Canada's Rush LImbaugh is for the most part out of print and off the airwaves, having taken an extended engagement in the American Penitentiary system.

Hi Jingles. Please don't use the word "douchebag" on babble. Thanks.

He treats them like they're news correspondents

Have you noticed something that worked in terms of discrediting these low-life, perhaps even shooing them off the air?

In Quebec, feminists have been very effective against André Arthur and Jeff Fillion, who used to rule in Quebec City and the surrounding area.

Mirlande Demers, a Haiti-born disabled woman, challenged Jeff Fillion's daily insults against minority groups and organized press conferences, complaints to CRTC and street activism.

Linguistic teachers Diane Vincent and Olivier Turbide got their Laval University students to do discourse analysis on André Arthur and Jeff Fillion and published the results as a book: Fréquences limites : la radio de confrontation au Québec, Québec, Nota bene, 2004, 207 p.

The most effective tactic was a lawsuit by Sophie Chiasson, a TV host that Fillion had smeared with sexual accusations. She won $300,000 and the CRTC pulled CHOI-FM's licence. Fillion was sacked and now does satellite radio for minuscule audiences after having been 5 years ago the most popular radio host in Quebec City.

Any similar stories in your neck of the woods?

That's a great strategy they've got going against the hate jocks in Quebec.

Here is an example of one:

"Are there Canadian equivalents to Rush Limbaugh?"

This whackjob comes close...

Limbah-humbug? Mike Stafford, John oakley, ryan Doyle, Chucky adler, bill carrol, and a plague-of-host others keep up the reactionary rightwing mantra that says 'we're being had' by overly considerate political phonies, and their sucker leftliberal support base! Mike stafford, a couple years ago, was complaing that 'due to the fact the GTA is a solid liberal red, no tory can ever get a break in elections' !....I emailed the goof to say 'please mister, can I therefore have some lefty talk radio sir?' since the damn 'market' is lefty liberal, as you so loudly complain (the tapeworm never replied!). Oakley had a guest who said it was Jimmy Carter, nyuk nyuk, who was made to look foolish during the Mariel Cuban boat lift, which actually took place when reagan was in office (Fidel intentionally empties Cuba's prisons/insane asylums, to embarass the nasty f***ker, remember!)...I tried to call 640, but it was next day before i could tell am640 that they were stupid lying punks regarding the facts etc (they hung up on me :(... !) If anyone listens to hate radio in GTA area, you notice that the biz man community gets to mouth off all the time, as they're in offices and can spend hour on a bloody phone, unlike us poor wage slaves who barely get coffee breaks! It is maddening-so i began posting 'hate radio for bush lovers' etc type flyers around the city for last couple of years, and harassing the station execs (steve kouch at 'RB, the guy Obrien?at am 640 etc) via their voice mail. Ryan Doyle, CFRB warpig,  BRAGGED that one day he DELETED 6500 emails, accidentally ooops hahaha! So Limbah-humbug is hero to them stooges, and that's enough!  (John Moore, 'RB afternoon host, says anyone who questions the official 911 story is a 'retard'!  Charles adler was telling his guest in a bit defending harper from leftlib, ie the CBC, attacks, and said that Harper never pocketed the communion wafer- indeed he never even saw the 'damned thing!')

If anyone thinks there isn't going to be mass murder in these societies of ours some day, they haven't been listening to talk radio.

That's Joe Bageant's take on it from down Appalachia way, too.  Scary, huh?

Actually, clandestiny, the Mariel Boatlift did take place in the Carter Administration, occurring between April 15th and October 31st, 1980.

Granted, it did do a lot to help elect Reagan(and led to Bill Clinton's only electoral defeat as he was voted out of the Arkansas statehouse, due largely to the fact that the Marielitos were sent to camps IN Arkansas.  This fact led to rift between Carter and Clinton that has not fully healed to this day.)

you're right. Castro was embarassing the US, not so much reagan, after protestors jammed up US embassy- Castro then declared Mariel port as free to leave. So am640 and oakley were right. But i doubt Castro despised Carter as much as regan. (I read a book by Christopher Anderson 'The day John Died' and in it Anderson claimed as adult JFK jr visted Cuba where he met Castro...Fidel told John that Lee Oswald tried to visit Cuba, but was denied a Visa- and the date was in Nov/63! LIE! No way did Castro tell John that, or if he did, he was just being gracious, but it was typical hushtory, memory hole stuff. Anyone who knows anything about the JFK murder knows it was made possible by someone in the US security/police apparatus, somebody weighty enough versus both JFK and RFK! Oswald had recently spent 2 years in the USSR; he was probably a government agent, while in Dallas, but the media stoogeocracy still re-does history ie hushtory, to firm up the lone gunman/magic bullet theory whenever they like, without any complaints...such off the cuff examples of reactionary rightwing bullshit in the record book makes crediting the Mariel boatlift to reagan less an embarassment, mistake-wise).

- a Korean airliner also was nearly 'shot down' by Soviets during Carter admin- shades of the KAL 007 shootdown in 1983, which hastened the downfall of the USSR by unleashing reagan military spending: reagan began the run up of US natdebt in interest of big biz that is still going on, the USSR ceased to exist, and terror became the moneymakers favorite demon, after drug cartels, of course!

Corus radio has a raft of right wingers the worst of which are Alder and Roy Green.  It is the constant and persistent message the causes harm - not necesarily the volume.

clandestiny,

Thanks for the reminders about the recent USA history, as its easy to forget with the right-wing fog in the msp.

Also Rob Breakenridge, who worships Terry Glavin, who likes to write his own wikipedia page. CHQR has a complete rooster of Rush Limbaugh wannabes; and an all-talk right-wing radio format.  They are living their dream man!

munroe:

"Corus radio has a raft of right wingers the worst of which are Alder and Roy Green.  It is the constant and persistent message the causes harm - not necesarily the volume."

Agreed. Chorus is a classic.

Radio is a great place for insidious businesses with idealogical axes to grind. One, radio makes money in Canada. Chorus will gladly accept the CRTC granted monopolies on "free air" then turn arond and complain endlessly about content laws and the need for "news". This while paring back their workforces and openly cheating the BBM system. With all the chatter about the death of old media, radio seems to be holding its own, and talk radio is growing. As George V quotes Baegeant, and as others like Matt Taibbi have noted, talk radio is a place for people to vent bile. Adler can whip conservative people into a frenzy on the radio in a way he could never in print or on tv.

There's a very conservative christian talk-radio show, too. Can't remember his name right now. Drew something, I believe.

lately the actions of the editors and publishers of the toronto star could fit in.

i remeber the good ole days of Tom Cherington and Dick Smythe they were not right wing they were just like Statler and Waldorf on the Muppets.

Every once in a while Gonzo would blow them away

Danger on the [US] Right

http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/65292

"I am reminded of similiar developments that occurred in 1919 at the beginning of the "red scare". Then too, a national movement, fueled by fears of immigration, economic dislocation and wartime anti-foreign bigotry was exploited by some, ignored by others, until it got out of control, with lethal consequences..

If we are not careful and understanding, and if we do not start now, both to address this troubling anger and alienation, and to hold accountable those who are stoking the embers of discontent, we could end up in the throes of a full fledged nativist siege that could tear apart the fabric of our nation.."

Terry Glavin?  He's just a second-rate Christopher Hitchens, who himself is a fourth-rate George Orwell if you replace all the good parts of Orwell with "acts like a cartoon character"

The Motts, Michael Coren out as CFRB retools

Wow. As much as I disliked them, these folks were the moderate middle-ground in the CFRB line-up.

Clearly, management is now aiming for "all HATE, all the time".

Bloody Mike! What a goof. He wrote a book on GK Chesterton that i bought, and ...the fact is, Coren is probably pandering to the market. Was pandering. I think Mike wanted sinecure over at CBC, and ran afoul of the same hardheads who once tried to get rid of 'Coaches Corner'  Cherry and Mclean, triggering a national reaction that caught the hardheads off guard, and they been backpeddling ever since (even using Ron and Don in a promo!) Anyway, Michael Coren's career has been a sellout of minute proportions, one tiny grain'o' sand after another, and in latest incarnation, getting showed up repeatedly by, first steve ledrew the cartoon character, then by Tarek fazeh(?) who played the straight man role! So Coren ends up hating the CBC, baby and bathwater, trying to act like a skinhead, as if the media aint soo fulla skinheads already! 

btw, the CBC (news) is now virtually unlistenable- they aim to please s.harper and that bunch, it seems. Steve Kouch is program dirrector at 'Rb....please leave him message DEMADING a left liberal voice in a LEFT LIBERAL market, ferchrissake (as if the market really posits any weight in mass media.... i wish)

Just briefly please, clandestiny, what "straight man role" did Tarek Fatah play in Michael Coren's demise?

The aft slot 3 to 4pm on CFRB was Coren/ledrew  until a few weeks ago ...ledrew got a gig on the 24hr news station, and was replaced by Tarek. It seemed that Coren was suppose to be the voice of reason, while Fateh addresed things from an Islamic pov, but i joke that it was mike who acted the crazed religio fascist and Tarek the cool calm gentleman who pooh poohed mike's less reasoned thrusts....I only listened to CFRB because Adler, over on am 640, is a voice crying 'fire' in crowded theatre (he says he's crying in 'the wilderness' but facts is facts, imo)...it'll be interesting to see who 'RB puts into the aft slot- perhaps someone here at Babble is available(!) Btw,  with the world going to heck in a breadbasket, CBC is too durn nice- something no one has to put up with listening to the rightwing hate machine

Thanks.

And where is Fatah now? Will CFRB have a "middle east audience"?

And  thanks for enlightening on the political content of Toronto radio.  Not up to Limbaugh yet but going there?

Me old dad listened to "Rawhide" on CFRB 60 years back (Max....?), very early on weekday mornings as he prepared for work.  A good giggle and music. What a corrupted outcome.

Edit.....

That was Max Ferguson (google got it with Max...Canadian radio personality...but it also said he was a creation of CBC radio.....so maybe I have the station wrong.  Was it CBL?

I can remember my father enjoying Ray Sonin's "Calling all Britons" on rides home from the cottage. I agree that CFRB has fallen sadly over the years.

Maybe what they need is a truly left-wing counterbalance to the rabid right mad-dogs currently saturating the airwaves. Lose the mushy middle ground, and offer real alternatives....

Gordon Sinclair was an early right of centre figure on CFRB wasn't  he? 

He was biased, but I can't begin to imagine the slant on news there now!

I listen to hate radio because there literally nothing else available- the CBC occasionally has something, but WNED and am930 buffalo are just variance on what we already have, and anyone listens to these bastards recognises the pattern of fraud. First, the call in format plays to reactionary right office bosses, who can call in and wait 1/2 hour to get on- i've had screaming matches with both 'rb and 640 screeners because I have to get back to work- my 18 wheeler is double parked, and simply can't wait to argue with the hosts! It's utterly frustrating (perhaps that's why i'm here haranging yall!) as it's so easy to refute the psycho stupidity of warpigs and greedhog who are clearly the very monster they denounce, if the focus is JUST changed slightly! As far as CRRB goes, alot of CBC personnel, ie Andy Barry, Robert Fisher, Horseman/Lieterman (oh how I remember Horseman/Lieterman raging at the 'indians' during Winnepeg flooding in mid 90's; the two agreed that the natives 'never lifted a finger' to help with the sandbagging etc, as if they had any evidence for saying that, or perhaps that maybe the 'Indians'  were too badly messed up by being crushed by the colonization of the very land now being flooded!) and so on. The hate mongers like carrol, adler, coren, stafford, doyle, oakley, happy capitalism lou, peter shurman, john moore and to lesser degree Jim richards all use the names CBC, and the TO. Star, as codeword for libleft sillyness- though  being rightwing reactionaries they lack the intel to see the irony of the CBC being full of ex cfrb staffers yet still the epitome of hippy sloth and drug crazy greed/idiocy with 'our' taxmoney. Since coming to T.O. in '96, I've marvelled that no one on the left can see the deadly danger posed by all the very well fed, well educated, well spoken reactionary males who make up the hate radio universe- these guys would love to murder millions, just like the 'greatest generation' murdered millions. Yet no one cares.

FYI, the KAL shoot down of 1983 happened because the Soviet premier of the time, Yuri Andropov, was annoyed at sloppy enforcement of border patrol, so he instituted a new set of laws called 'Law On The State Border'. The Soviet pilots robotically enforced the law, so much so that when the flight 007 was over Soviet airspace, it was shot down (according to Colin Powell in his book My American Journey). A similar incident happened in East Germany in 1987 when an American officer was shot down by a East German solider in the same way. No conspiracies needed to be mentioned, just facts. 

Unfortunately, all of the radio frequencies in Toronto are taken, so unless one of these stations can get off of the air, nothing's happening. There is TRNN-The Real News Network which is supposed to be coming to basic cable in 2010, helped out by Vision TV ([url=http://therealnews.com/t/) You might want to give that a try when it starts.

The At Issue panel

I wouldn't put John Moore in the hatemonger category. I think you're way off on that one. He is the most liberal regular broadcaster on CFRB. While I don't always agree with him, he tries to be fact-based and even-handed - a bit too even handed in my opinion but he's no hatemonger. Moore is moving to the "drive to work slot" from the "drive home from work slot". 

I would put Bill Carroll and even Jim Richards sometimes into the Rush Limbaugh style of radio talk show hosting. Adler can be just as obnoxious. Stafford on 640 is another pompous arrogant a-hole. Ryan Doyle is another story. Former self-described lefty who went to the other side - he is very articulate (and even correct sometimes) but like the others, he's like a dog with a bone when it comes to many issues. Worse, he lauds the fact that he's not a journalist - in other words, he doesn't need to use facts - opinions will do when it suits him. Yet he's somewhat likable. I'm surprised to be saying this, but John Tory also sounds likable and tries to bring the right-wing crazies to the middle. 

they moving Moore to morning slot- part of a slight defanging of cfrb, it looks like. More honey, less viniger. I agree moore's alot less reactionary then some others, but he lies when he calls himself lib/left...for example, he believes oswald shot jfk, all by hisself, and anyone who can't accept that is a liberal dupe. Same with 911 - no conspiracy is possible; the event was too huge to wrap up in secrecy blahblah. But again, moore is playing stupid. Take the Titranic sinking- has anyone EVER said that was a conspiracy (to represent the 1st class passengers as brave/noble, while demeaning the lower classes?) Yet that's exactly what we have today (even Cameron's  1997(?) movie misrepresented the truth) ...the fact is, 600 steerage class victims on Titanic were locked in, like prisoners. There was no 'story' when the truth is horrific beyond belief! Walter Lord (a 'night to remember') was an upper class stooge who fabricated the story we have today, from bits o this and that, all which glorified the rich pigs who ruled the roost then, as they also do now. There was no band playing 'nearer my fukking god to thee' or a buncha cigar smoking jackasses playing poker as Titanic stood up on its nose- these stories were made up (even Lord admitted they were based on anecdote) The result was that a brutalised people (ie: we the people) again saw their fellows demeaned in history, to the benefit of mister pig. Well, screw mister pig.  He a goddam liar, and 911 was a staged terror op. That means, among other facts, that the 'wars' in Iraq/Afghanistan have no basis to justify them. BUT THAT in turn means the big lie will get funded even moreso- and thus john moore has agreat  job kissing the pig's arse But I agree John Tory is an improvement in the drive home slot, though the damage is long done. Most people, to continue, believe the Titanic was a story of courage under fire. But it wasn't.

sainthood eh? something to think about  (IF THERE'S TIME!)

hahaha

Does it really much matter? Radio is a dying medium. Video killed the radio star and the Internet is destroying what remains.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. 

For the record, Don Cherry is not anti-gay.  I saw him on one of the sports interview shows back in 2005-06 saying he supported civil gay marriage, but not in churches.  It's also hard to believe he could have stayed in the NHL for so long and been a real anti-French bigot, for example.

His politics seems to be that of a small-town Red Tory.  People like that just don't exist in the United States

Rachel Marsden rears her ugly bigoted head again

Cherry has said a lot of slanderous things and had to be put on 7 second delay...while knowing he was on TV. You know he says a lot worse when not in front of the camera...same as how he calls beers "a few pops after the game"  to keep it clean "for the children".

He mocks gays an awful lot, so while not being anti gay he sure promotes stereotypes and bigotted nature in salt of the earth type people. Which might actually be worse.

This is not quite true either.  And it's important to be clear when people on the other side of the political fence come around to supporting social justice positions.  In large part, that is how Canadian society moves forward (as opposed to the United States where change is much more confrontational).

Here's another example.  Earlier this year Cherry said he wouldn't use the term "pansification" to describe the current state of the NHL, like some other commentators were doing.

From January 2009:

Speaking of Rush, it seems his bid to be a partial NFL team owner, is not going well.

As Paul Workman noted, perhaps he is going to die by his mouth, in as much as he has lived by it.

I don't admire Don Cherry's politics or his demeanor.  But he is a far cry from Rush Limbaugh.  Limbaugh is despicable.

Cherry might be more like Canada's Lou Dobbs.

Buddy, I was trying to be sarcastic, but the symbol for that doesn't exist on this board anymore. I don't agree with you, think that you need to take a chill pill, and think things out before you type.

Best Toronto radio morning show is John Oakley! Alway interesting and entertaining. He killed Bill Carrol in the ratings, hence the CRRB shakeup.

If you live in the maritimes, you may be familiar with the angry old man rantings of disgruntled former Liberal provincial candidate, Tom Young, Host of the Afternoon News on the three Rogers radio stations in the Maritimes (Saint John, Moncton, Halifax).

His old show, "Talk of the Town" in Saint John, of course nurtured the burgeoning political career of the always-outspoken and hardly-ever rational Elsie Wayne.  A life-long Tory, Young decided he'd become a Liberal after the PC's did something to piss him off.  Despite his new allegiances, his politics remain on the right wing side of things, in a disgrunted "I'm to old to change" kind of way.

He's no Rush Limbaugh, of course, but I find him quite annoying...especially his wheeeeezing directly into the mic.

His favorite weekly (and sometimes daily) rant is against the YCJA.  As a rule, he goes out of his way to find some headline from some far flung region of the country about a youth (probably with issues of addiction, neglect, and extreme poverty) committing a violent crime, he goes on a tirade about "kids today", the "decline of civilized society" and a justice system "paralyzed by an Act with no teeth."  Any caller who calls in advocating compassion or forgiveness for any of these kids (who have been determined by society through legislation to be not responsible enough for their own decision making abilities to be allowed to drink, marry, vote, or even drive), gets completely lambasted or at least cut off by Young's sense of self-righteous moral indignation.

Other pet peeves of his are technology and often immigration in the context of unemployment.  Every time he gets a spam message to his email, he reads it aloud on air, thinking someone is actually sending him this message.  His comprehension of technology is so laughable.

The fact that he is the "Rogers Media" representative for Saint John in the Atlantic region is prohibitively embarrassing - and when I hear his show being played on News 95.7 in Halifax, I can only wonder what the hell they are thinking, listening to him.

Tomk has really mellowed since his Talk in The Town Days.