For any Canadian who has watched, listened or read CBC News’ coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in recent years, the public broadcaster’s anti-Israel bias is nothing new.

But following Hamas’ massacres in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing Hamas-Israel war, the taxpayer-funded CBC has not only failed to correct its historical problems; it has made them incalculably worse, and Canadians are paying the price.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks more than 16 months ago, George Achi, the CBC’s former director of journalistic standards and public trust, disseminated a memorandum for editorial staff, whereby he instructed them to not call Hamas terrorists – because “the notion of terrorism remains heavily politicized.”

And even if a reporter was to quote or paraphrase someone calling Hamas fighters “terrorists,” then they would have to “add context to ensure the audience understands this is opinion, not fact.” However, that has not stopped CBC News from calling actions by the Islamic State terrorism.

This doublespeak where murdering, raping, torturing and kidnapping – textbook examples of terrorism – suddenly isn’t to be called terrorism – was just a glimpse of things to come for CBC in the ensuing months.

Five examples – among hundreds – illustrate the depth of the problem.

1. Since October 7, 2023, the broadcaster has repeatedly platformed a Gaza-based “journalist,” Aboubaker Abed, for his perspective from inside the coastal enclave, failing to tell Canadians not only that on social media, Abed is a rabid disseminator of anti-Israel hate, but that he also works for Press TV, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s official propaganda mouthpiece, which was itself sanctioned by the Canadian government in 2022.
   

2. On CBC radio programs like As It Happens, The Current, Daybreak South, All in a Day, The Weekend Morning Show, Front Burner, and many others, hosts have regularly, if not overwhelmingly, failed to offer any semblance of balance at all, providing a platform nearly all the time to anti-Israel guests normalizing their radical, if not sometimes outright extremist, worldviews with little to no challenge.

And when these anti-Israel guests are interviewed, rarely are they ever challenged to back up their accusations of “genocide” and the like, and context – the same word used by Achi in reference to his discomfort in calling Hamas terrorists – suddenly disappears, with guests given carte blanche to say what they want, without fear of pushback.

3. CBC News articles and broadcasts frequently profile fringe and radical anti-Israel movements, providing them attention far disproportionate to their tiny numbers, and are giving them free publicity, leading Canadians to have a warped picture about how marginal these efforts truly are. And when some of the most extremist activists in Canada are interviewed, this radicalism is utterly ignored. Instead, Canadians are fed fawning reports about a restaurant that has glorified Hamas, an extremist pro-Hamas organization is referred to as a “human rights group,” and no evident effort is made to make disseminators of anti-Israel disinformation have to defend their allegations.
   

4. In May, 2021, a group of Canadian journalists signed an open letter calling for more anti-Israel coverage in the Canadian news media, an incredible violation of journalistic ethics. To its credit, in response, CBC stated that any CBC journalist who signed that letter would not be able to report on issues related to Israel. But before long, that changed, and today, CBC journalists who were signatories to that letter continue to report on the Hamas-Israel war, seemingly without any limitation at all, including one who has referred to supporters of Israel as being “vile.” It is nothing short of scandalous that signatories to a radical anti-Israel letter are now freely reporting on Israel for the Canadian public. In any other circumstance, it is inconceivable that CBC would allow these reporters to remain in these roles.
   
5. CBC News has given a platform to virtually every anti-Israel allegation in existence, from accusing Israel of “genocide” to “famine” to everything in between, while overlooking to the point of completely censoring out any opposing statements. For example, claims from The Lancet, a British journal, making outlandish death toll claims in Gaza, have been widely and regularly repeated by CBC News. However, not a single time has a report from the respected Henry Jackson Society think tank which picks apart Hamas’ figures been mentioned. For CBC News, it seems that only allegations against Israel are mentioned and given the time of day.

CBC’s failure to uphold its own journalistic standards is not a concern only for those interested in journalistic ethics. In fact, CBC News coverage has real world implications here in Canada. During every time of heightened conflict in the Middle East, Jews in the West – Canada included – pay the price with dramatically increased levels of anti-Jewish hate crimes, driven by a media narrative that the Jewish State is committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other war crimes. By failing to properly challenge those who would spew such disinformation, and by providing an uncritical platform to them, CBC News is effectively complicit in the dissemination of this disinformation, which – intentional or not – is helping to put a target on the backs of Jewish Canadians and their friends.

But it is not just Canadian Jews and their allies who should be up in arms about this. The Canadian taxpayer supports CBC to the tune of some $1.4 billion dollars every year, meaning that they are helping to foot the bill for news coverage that whitewashes terrorist rallies on Canadian streets. Is this really an investment most Canadians want from their tax dollars?

To that end, HonestReporting Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) have partnered to convey our concerns to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and along with over 25,000+ Canadians, have called for an independent commission to investigate CBC’s long standing anti-Israel bias, in particular since October 7, 2023.

There are any number of steps that CBC can take to help meaningfully address its bias on this issue, including ensuring that the CBC’s ombudsman, should be hired and employed externally, can be tasked with not only recommending changes to journalistic practices, but to enforcing them. Additionally, CBC’s leadership should meet with various faith-based, as well as national and political interest groups to establish dialogue and gauge their feedback on reporting.

Many more changes can and should be adopted by CBC, but until that happens, we are calling for an independent commission to be established to provide an external review of the CBC’s reporting of Israel and the Middle East, because Canadian taxpayers deserve better than what they have been getting.