If you think Sun News Network is bad now, just wait until they've got their ruling from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that their broadcasts must be carried on basic cable television and paid for by cable subscribers.

Any listener could infer they'll be much worse after listening yesterday evening to CBC interviewer Carol Off demolish Sun News Network Vice-President Kory Teneycke's slippery attempt to defend the far-right network's commentator Ezra Levant for his racist diatribe against the Roma people six months ago.

Sun News Network, that fearless foe of state subsidies for the CBC, wants you, Dear Television Viewer, to directly subsidize it to the tune of $18 million a year.

Have no doubt, that's just the beginning, but it would nicely cover losses the company says now amount to a modest $17 million a year -- hardly a corporate killer, one would think, but apparently enough to get Sun News queuing up at the public trough.

It turns out, as others have discovered before them (Ted Byfield, c'mon down!) that there's not much of a market in Canada for the kind of market fundamentalist pap Sun News peddles -- at least when consumers have the choice not to pay for it.

The Canadian Press says Canada can't have a Rupert Murdoch-style phone hacking Gotcha! moment because Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hostility toward journalists "immunizes him against any suggestion that a similar scandal could happen in Canada."

Oh, please!

Really, I'm not making this up. Joan Bryden of the Canadian Press actually wrote this a few hours ago and it continues to be published all over the Interwebs.

The thesis of the CP drivellist's story boils down to this: You have nothing to worry about Canadians. Go back to sleep!