Dark Money, US Think Tanks and a Canadian TV Network

A conservative Canadian broadcast news network is incorporating propaganda from U.S. dark-money-funded think tanks directly into its regular programming. The decision by federal regulators to boost its reach looks increasingly dubious as Canadian institutions — and by extension our sovereignty — are being undermined by other right-wing media and in the swamps of social media.

In November 2022, the News Forum received Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approval as a licensed national news network that must be included in Canadian television providers’ offerings to subscribers. That decision is key to the News Forum growing its audience.

The English-language network recently expanded its national operations with a new Western Canada bureau in Calgary, and plans to strengthen its online footprint with a particular focus on attracting young viewers, including via a $500,000 national youth scholarship program focused on “Canada’s energy future.”

The network’s CEO is Tore Stautland; together with his spouse, Julie Stautland, the couple hold the largest share of ownership of the News Forum but not a majority. Other investors in the network have previously been described as “like-minded” and “anonymous.” Tore Stautland is a broadcast executive with more than 25 years of experience in “Christian market” programming for television networks in Canada, in the United States and around the world. Notably, there are increasingly established links between Christian nationalism and the political right in Canada.

On its website, the News Forum describes its commitment to be “a counterbalance to the current tone of the media landscape,” one that “values the inclusion of multiple voices and viewpoints” while “modelling civility” and believes that “information must be presented with integrity.” The network goes on to say that it intends to feature “unique Canadian content.”

Such stated ambitions should be compared with its typical coverage. Consider that recent episodes of the network’s predominantly talk-show-themed lineup have included:

• A discussion labelled “Ottawa’s Spending Out of Control” on the Stephen LeDrew show, featuring guest Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
• An episode of the show Canadian Justice called “Bill C-9 Explained,” hosted by Canadian Constitution Foundation litigation director Christine Van Geyn, criticizing the proposed federal anti-hate legislation
• An episode of the show On Second Street hosted by Colin Craig, president of the pro-private-health-care advocacy group SecondStreet.org, titled “Canada’s Struggling Healthcare System,” featuring Renaud Brossard of the Montreal Economic Institute
• An episode of the show Counterpoint hosted by Tanya Granic Allen, titled “Land Ownership,” about the recent B.C. court ruling on Aboriginal treaty rights and what it means for “equal rights,” featuring an interview with Bruce Pardy, executive director of Rights Probe and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute

What the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, SecondStreet.org, the Montreal Economic Institute and the Fraser Institute all have in common are direct links to the Atlas Network, the U.S. dark-money coalition of billionaire libertarian ideologues.

The connections to U.S. dark-money groups do not end there. The News Forum is listed as a partner of the Canada Strong and Free Network, itself affiliated with the Atlas Network. Representatives of other Canadian think tanks linked to the Atlas Network also make frequent appearances on the News Forum’s shows.

For example, John Carpay, the disbarred head of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, was on the network’s news program last week to “sound the alarm” over the federal government possibly reintroducing the Online Harms Act to prevent child exploitation. Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute was recently on Boom and Bust to talk about the upcoming year in politics with host Tony Clement, the former Conservative cabinet minister.

While the News Forum is mostly a set of talk shows that repeat frequently on a loop, it does air a 60-minute nightly news show called the Forum Daily News, hosted by Theresa Skubic. The show features a regular contributor, David Clement, who has also filled in as host. Clement is the North American manager of the Consumer Choice Center, yet another dark-money advocacy organization with links to the Atlas Network. This group advocates in Canada for private health care and against social media regulation, including efforts to protect against disinformation.

Clement and the Consumer Choice Center have taken an “elbows down” approach to Donald Trump, urging Canada not to retaliate against the U.S. president’s tariffs. They have adopted some of his most extreme positions, including advocating that Canada, too, withdraw from the World Health Organization.

In a recent segment, Clement criticized what he termed the federal government’s “spending boom” over the last decade on “Indigenous priorities,” highlighting in particular the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which he falsely said “carried a price tag of $2.2 billion.” The cost has been a fraction of that. Clement went on to argue the spending is tied to the “fiscal chaos” in 2024 and contributed to the resignation of Chrystia Freeland and “ouster” of Justin Trudeau.

Another regular contributor to the Forum Daily News is Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy. The organization is listed as a partner of the Canada Strong and Free Network. McTeague and his group unabashedly support fossil fuel industry positions while casting doubt on the causes and urgency of climate change. The group’s recent misleading campaigns include stopping the net zero “scam,” approving new pipelines and ending electric vehicle “handouts.” McTeague regularly uses such messaging in his appearances on the show.

Oil and gas lobby messaging features prominently on the News Forum. A documentary that has received heavy rotation on the channel is Oil Is Not the Enemy, featuring Aspenleaf Energy CEO Bryan Gould and the message that Canadians need to “stop vilifying” the fossil fuel industry. Another documentary, Help Is on the Way, promised an examination of “energy poverty,” which the network described as “one of the most urgent and overlooked humanitarian crises of our time.”

Yet these documentaries pale in ambition compared with the 15-part, three-minute-episode history series “How Canada Became a Global Energy Player” announced last summer. The News Forum billed the series as “spotlighting pivotal moments in Canadian energy history,” from the Leduc oil discovery to the creation of Petro-Canada. Network owner and CEO Tore Stautland lauded the series as “exactly the kind of program that informs and inspires.”

The network’s announcement of the series noted it is created by historian Tammy Nemeth. What was not disclosed is that Nemeth is a denier of human-caused climate change. She’s a pro-fossil-fuel activist who wrote a conspiracy-theory-laden report in 2020 for Jason Kenney’s Alberta government public inquiry into an allegedly foreign-funded anti-energy campaign. Nemeth’s report attacked journalists and Canadian environmental non-governmental organizations and claimed a “transnational progressive movement” was seeking to replace globalism with technocratic socialism.

The News Forum further served the interests of the oil and gas industry during a recent episode of the series Canadian Innovators. The show is hosted by Jocelyn Bamford, founder and board chair of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses Canada. The coalition, which has previously received funding from the foreign-dominated Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is associated with staunch anti-climate policies.

In October, the coalition welcomed U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra for a keynote address in which the Trump ally claimed Canada had “burned the bridges” on trade negotiations with the United States. That same month, the group launched a media and billboard campaign claiming “Ottawa is more detrimental to Canadians than Washington D.C.” As evidence, the coalition blames, among other supposed causes, “reckless immigration,” “draconian restrictions during COVID,” “high taxes,” a “dishonest” media and a government that “weaponizes the court system against its citizens.”

In an episode focused on “Canada-U.S. trade,” Bamford interviewed W. Brett Wilson. The controversial fossil fuel sector entrepreneur and media personality has a history of making awful comments, suggesting in 2023 that “radical climate alarmists found their way into the undies” of then-Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek and previously calling for climate activists to be hung for treason.

In an otherwise rambling conversation about the purported “right to build a pipeline,” which included the critique that Canada has not been “very thoughtful” in dealing with Trump, there were some notable and disturbing moments, including:

• While speaking about former environment minister Steven Guilbeault’s resignation from the Liberal government caucus, Wilson called Guilbeault a “crook, a criminal and a moron,” while Bamford smiled and nodded.
• Bamford then introduced the largely debunked story of supposed widespread child-care fraud in Minnesota involving Somali American operators — a story that has led to a U.S. government assault on that community — and sought to compare it to unspecified “waste, fraud and abuse” in Canada involving green energy programs, environmental groups and public funds. Wilson responded by saying that in the United States it is “pretty clear that the Somalians have pushed the limits” while proceeding to claim climate initiatives in Canada are undermining the economy. Wilson went on to suggest that the issue with Minneapolis is “clearly criminal” but that it “has happened in Canada as well” and later added that our country must “manage immigration.”
• To the question of what advice he would give investors about investing in Canada at this time, Wilson said he was “really concerned about conversations with First Nations over who owns our land” and claimed B.C. Premier David Eby is following a United Nations resolution that Wilson said gives “people who had once walked the land incremental rights and there is something very wrong about all of that.”

The News Forum is delving into other topics as well. The series Open Source is dedicated to “the latest innovation” and “dynamic personalities” involved with artificial intelligence. Break the Needle is a show hosted by Postmedia columnist and harm reduction critic Adam Zivo. One November episode discussed the “battle” over supervised consumption sites in Toronto. The same week that aired, Toronto Public Health informed of a rise in public overdoses and substance use following site closures.

Canadians are noticing the rise of private, often U.S., interest-focused media and are taking action, including through complaints to the CRTC (in the case of Fox News’ availability in Canada) and petitions to Parliament (regarding Postmedia’s U.S. ownership).

It is worth considering whether the News Forum is meeting the conditions of its CRTC licence, including to provide updated news reports every 120 minutes and adhere to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ code of ethics, and, if not, taking action.

At this fraught moment in our national history, Canadians cannot afford to be demeaned, divided and denied truth, while wealthy industries and individuals, be they in the United States or Canada, accumulate power.

It is time to change the channel.

This article is part of The Tyee’s reader-funded Reality Check project exposing and explaining the rise of digital disinformation.