Roundup: No thanks, FactsCan

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A new site launched this week called FactsCan, which aims to fact-check claims put out by political leaders and parties as we head toward an election. The organisers like to think that because they’re not filing stories to the 24-hour news cycle that they can spend the time doing this when journalists apparently can’t. It sounds like a laudable goal on the surface, but if you think about it for longer than a few seconds, I’m not exactly convinced of the merits of this programme. For one, journalists are already fact-checking and pointing out blatant falsehoods. All the time. It’s our job. The site talks about offering information “with no BS or alternate agenda.” So, the mainstream media is delivering both? Is that their implication? At least one of the names attached to the project raises a red flag with me, which is someone from Democracy Watch, seeing as that is an organisation that often deliberately distorts the way our democratic system functions and has often given massively inaccurate information about some basic civic literacy concepts in this country – and yet one of their members will be “fact checking.” Okay. What bothers me the most, however, is the funding aspect. This site appears to be trying to do the crowd funding thing, but hey, why not simply pay for your news so that journalists can continue to do this kind of work like we’re supposed to, and so that we won’t have to keep facing newsroom cuts which further impact on our time? They’re also relying on volunteers to help them out, which again impacts on journalists’ livelihoods. If they want the media to do a better job, well, then they can subscribe to a newspaper or two so that we have the resources to do our jobs – not getting others to do it for free.

Good reads:

  • While pro-life Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott hysterically thinks the government should invoke the Notwithstanding Clause on the Supreme Court’s assisted dying ruling, while Peter MacKay doesn’t sound keen to. Senator Nancy Ruth talks about how her bill on the subject fits with the ruling.
  • Aaron Wherry looks at the issues of oversight for CSIS, and the 2004 committee study on parliamentary oversight, which has yet to be adopted.
  • Canadian Special Forces are training local forces in Niger, near where the fighting with Boko Haram is happening.
  • DND is concerned about Russian spy drones in the Arctic.
  • CBSA has been trying to get their border agents at airports to be allowed to carry firearms, but considering most of our terror threats are domestic, I’m not sure of the utility.
  • My column this week looks at the bigger problems underlying the NDP’s satellite office issue.

Odds and ends:

The Mayor of Ottawa is adding his voice in opposition to the placement of the Victims of Communism memorial. One wishes that Justin Trudeau would add his own condemnation (unless that of course would just make Harper double down).

The premier of Quebec is unimpressed that unilingual Rob Nicholson was named to the post of foreign affairs.

Andrew Coyne rips into the Liberals over the Eve Adams floor-crossing. Navdeep Bains, the Liberal who Adams defeated in the last election, says she was a tough opponent and he’s glad she’s now on his team. It sounds like the former MP of Eglington–Lawrence, the possible new riding, isn’t so keen.

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