On the morning of October 14, 2023, I received an email from David Walmsley, the Editor-In-Chief of the Globe and Mail newspaper asking me to meet with him at the Globe offices as soon as possible in response to an email I had just written him minutes earlier. My email concerned the Globe’s coverage of the Israeli war and its repeated boosterism of American/NATO demands that Canada had to massively ramp up its military spending.
That morning, I had written Walmsley that I believed that this rampant building up of arms was making the world a much more dangerous place and therefor, because of his ardent support of this policy and, at the same time, his being in a highly influential position, I wrote that I considered him to be a very dangerous man.
On first meeting him in the hallway on the way to his office, despite my criticisms of him, Walmsley came across as welcoming and cordial and that remained the tenor of our one and half hour conversation as we discussed our differences.
On Israel, Walmsley stated his paper’s editorial position emanated from the sacrosanct belief “that Israel had a right to defend itself.” I countered that that was a propaganda statement being used by various countries, particularly the United States, to justify the on-going slaughter of the Palestinian people.
Regarding his paper’s almost daily pieces on why Canada must meet NATO’s two per cent pledge for military spending, Walmsley said that he was disturbed by how Canada had become a laughingstock within NATO for its miserly ways.
As the time of our meeting was ending, I asked Walmsley what he thought about the idea of my submitting an op-ed on the Cancel the Air Show campaign I was involved in as a member of Seniors for Climate Action Now. The campaign is designed to stop the air show in Toronto since the show is used as a marketing vehicle for the sale of Lockheed Martin’s jet fighter war planes. Lockheed Martin, an American company, is the biggest arms merchant in the world.
Walmsley indicated that he was agreeable to reviewing a draft of my submitted op-ed. And with that plan in place the meeting came to an end.
I began writing the draft of the op-ed and sent Walmsley an email asking him about the suggested length. He answered me promptly but then all communication from him suddenly and completely stopped. No acknowledgement or response regarding my now submitted op-ed draft. This silence went on for the following month, until, after my complaining to him about his disappearing, I received the following email:
You are.hilarious
Been busy
Will get.to it soon. No airshows this week. Priorities isn’t it
D
That is the last correspondence I have received from David Walmsley.
On June 29, 2024, by way of follow up, I sent off an email to Walmsley pointing out that his newspaper, the Globe and Mail, still maintained, since my last contact with him, a completely imbalanced editorial policy that only promoted militarism and failed to print a word or a quote that suggested any alternatives such as non-violent conflict resolution. There has been no response.
In keeping with Chomsky’s and Herman’s propaganda model as outlined in their seminal work The Manufacture of Consent, we find in Canada an unholy incestuous relationship between media corporations, government and the military establishment. Thus, the mainstream corporate media coverage of military and foreign affairs is being presented to the Canadian public through tightly controlled pro-military propaganda filters, which do not allow for any dissenting voices.
The following is an analysis of two examples of propaganda pieces found in Canada’s two most prominent corporate media publications, The Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
“This is the ugly truth about global trade: If Canada wants more butter, we need to buy more guns”
Andrew Phillips,The Toronto Star, June 21:
“Jens Stoltenberg said Canada needs to step up its military spending because of the alarming rise in threats to the world order from the likes of Russia, China and North Korea.”
Jens Stoltenberg recently stepped down as the NATO Secretary-General, an unelected position. Based on his perceived prestige, he has had the role of publicly haranguing, on a literally daily basis, NATO members, particularly Canada, to constantly increase their military spending. Here Stoltenberg raises the specter of threat, related to countries NATO has chosen to actively antagonize, and presents no other remedy than military action that requires ever more weapons.
“It’s hardly news that Canada is seen as a laggard when it comes to spending on our military. We’ve long been accustomed to sheltering under the American umbrella.”
The use of the word “laggard” is intentionally chosen for its derogatory meaning and “sheltering under the American umbrella” is a standard trope in these military propaganda pieces. Although the phrase is meaningless from a military strategic viewpoint, it is used to highlight Canada’s shameful weakness and dependency.
“So successive governments let our military languish, especially once the Cold War was over and we lapped up the resulting “peace dividend.”
Like the use of the word “laggard” in the above sentence, the word “languish”, is also chosen for its perceived derogatory quality. Astonishingly, a “peace dividend” is seen as a negative outcome in the twisted mind of the military propagandist rather than a desirable one.
“The government has budgeted to get to 1.76 per cent by 2030, but we’re the only alliance member without a plan to get to that promised level of 2 per cent.”
The author’s criticism of Canada for “not having a plan” echoes a recurring mantra as repeated by critical NATO officials, other Canadian media propaganda pieces and American politicians who believe they have the right to determine how Canadians spend their tax dollars. It is a complaint used by collection agencies trying to get debtors to commit to a payment schedule.
“At the NATO summit “the drumbeat of criticism against Canada for dragging its heels is reaching fever pitch.” “The Americans, across the board, are fed up.”
The dramatic language used by the author conveys that Canada is facing a public relations catastrophe beyond all proportion and must be avoided at all costs. Having the Americans angry with us is intolerable to the author, who concludes that it is worth paying the weapons ransom to have it stop.
“Lawrence Herman of the C.D. Howe Institute urged the government to make sure that Canada’s “”weak performance in defense and security doesn’t spill over and harm the country’s key trading relationships””.
Now at the end of his article, the author comes to what he believes is his article’s salient point. Quoting from a right wing think tank, which are the only sources used in propaganda pieces, he comes up with the completely implausible threat, without a shred of evidence, that countries will retaliate with trade against Canada for not meeting its NATO pledge.
“Canada’s NATO Commitments Are a Running Joke”
Andrew Coyne, July 17, 2024.
Andrew Coyne is a well-known Canadian national columnist.
“A farce in three acts.”
Coyne has decided he will use the technique of satiric ridicule, rather than logical argument, in an effort to demean the Canadian government for not doing what he assumes everyone knows they should do.
“Twenty-three of 32 NATO members have already met the target. Canada is one of the few that has not.”
Doing something because everyone else is doing it, i.e. group pressure, is a very poor way to make decisions. That is something we are routinely taught in childhood.
“What is more, it is the only NATO country that has no announced plan to get there.”
Coyne’s mention of the “no plan” criticism proves, as mentioned in the previous analysis of the Toronto Star article, that it is a recurring mindless mantra in these propaganda pieces.
“The patience of our NATO partners, notably the U.S., has clearly run out.”
Similarly to analysis of the Toronto Star article above, fear of the American’s anger and ridicule is seen as a valid reason to increase Canadian military spending.
“Biden administration officials warned their counterparts in the Trudeau government that Canada faced being singled out for criticism at the meeting, possibly publicly.”
Fear of public ridicule is also seen as a valid reason to increase military spending by the propagandists. Public ridicule is a primitive group technique that goes back to the early days of human civilization.
Towards the end of his article Coyne writes derisively, in order to ridicule them, about how Trudeau and his defense minister Blair are scrambling to get their pennies together to meet the NATO allotment at the end of the NATO summit.
At the end of his piece Coyne writes:
“Mind you, by then the target may be obsolete. NATO may have raised it to 2.5 or 3 per cent. Or we may be in a world war.”
From these sentences we may conclude that Coyne is no mere propagandist. He is apocalyptically irresponsible.
As we can conclude from this analysis of the media in Canada, it is urgent that we have a public commission to examine and make recommendations regarding the over concentration of corporate, government and military media and the coercive role that military propaganda plays within the Canadian media landscape. This over concentration of media is choking the much-needed diversity of thoughtful political voices that are required for a healthy, peaceful democracy.
Walmsley was initially determined to meet with me with great urgency as he claimed he was disturbed by the content of my initial email. And although the two of us spoke for over an hour and a half, it is apparent that he heard but didn’t listen to a word I said. At the end of our conversation Walmsley remained a polite and amiable man, but underneath he remains the same dangerous man who had concerned me in my initial email to him that started our interactions in the first place. Because he is a man who persists through the vehicle of his powerful newspaper in using propaganda, as demonstrated in the analysis of Coyne’s column, to promote militarism. Militarism is a disorder that is destroying our country and the greater world beyond.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
