🇨🇦 So the press is independent until the contract is on the table

A former Postmedia chair now alleges Doug Ford’s office used a government contract tied to his son as leverage for an op-ed, as reported. And we’re supposed to gasp at the corruption of this beautiful sacred media ecosystem. Please. In Canada, the state, political class, and corporate press have been in a grubby little codependent marriage for years, trading access, subsidies, influence, and narrative management while pretending the public is too stupid to notice.

If the allegation is true, it is not some shocking rupture in an otherwise clean system. It is the system. Governments bankroll media, media launders establishment talking points, and everybody involved keeps lecturing ordinary Canadians about trust and democratic norms. Ford may wear the populist costume, but this is how managerial Canada operates: pressure, patronage, and backroom leverage. The real scandal is that our information class is so entangled with power that even its internal food fights expose a country run like a cartel, not a sovereign democracy.

🍁 Maple Chronicles