Rosie Barton’s Rebel Media Boo-boo

Will it Bring Down CBC?

By Michelle Stirling ©2025

The legacy media are often insufferable. Pompous. Virtue-signaling. Holier-than-thou. This was evident after the Election 2025 French Leaders’ Debate.

The Debate Commission had been forced by a legal ruling into allowing the independent/alternative media outlets to be part of the debate media scrums. This was not because of freedom of the press, but because they had been sued, successfully by Rebel Media, True North and others.

The Debate Commission had ended up granting five Rebel Media reporters access to the post-debate question period with leaders. MSM were horrified about this development, especially the broadcasters at CBC who claim to be impartial, objective and professional reporters.

Here’s CBC’s management meet-and-greet with Mr. Carney just prior to the French debate. Carney has promised them an additional $150 million plus that he will double their budget, if elected.

In the media scrum, Rebel Media’s Drea Humphrey took on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, asking him what he would do in light of so many Catholic and other Christian churches having been vandalized or burnt down, what was his position on the fact that no bodies had been found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School and what would his party do to stop anti-Christian hate.

He refused to answer her question – he refused to respond because she is with Rebel Media.

There was a post-debate discussion by the CBC panel who, inexplicably, were perched outside in the cold, shivering at a make-shift desk when they had their own multi-million-dollar office “Maison Radio Canada” right behind them. No room at the inn?

CBC host of The National, Adrienne Arsenault, along with Rosie Barton, CBC’s chief political correspondent and David Cochrane, host of Power & Politics were busy reviewing the night’s events.

Drea’s question of Jagmeet Singh came up.

Arsenault launched an assault on Rebel Media, which was picked up on by Rosie Barton. Barton declared (without naming) that Rebel is a hot bed of far-right misinformation. Barton explained that the (unnamed) reporter’s question of Singh had some “facts” woven in with misinformation. Barton explained that it was true that churches had been burnt down, but she went on to claim that the unnamed Drea was wrong to claim no bodies had been found. Barton confidently assured the audience that human remains of Indigenous children had been found across Canada, claiming that it was the unnamed Drea who was misrepresenting the facts!

That’s completely false. But notice that 94.5 thousand people saw this at that time and probably most of them believe Rosemary’s lie.

Meanwhile, on X (formerly Twitter), Terry Glavin did a quick Grok question and found that even advanced AI thinks that human remains of Indigenous children have been found across Canada. This is not true. No remains have been found in relation to the claims of the Kamloops First Nation, or other subsequent First Nation claims. Indeed, many of those subsequent claims were in respect of abandoned cemeteries where of course one would expect to find bodies. That’s where bodies typically are found, in graveyards. But these are known community graveyards that were not kept up; so, the markers and names have vanished with time. This does not indicate any kind of criminal activity. Most Indigenous students who passed away at Indian Residential Schools (some 423 over the course of 113 years at 139 schools) were sent home for burial. Wherever people live, they also die. Cemeteries denote respect for the living and public health, sacramental rites for the dead, and hope for the resurrection for Christians.

However, even Grok can be misled.

This begs the question – do all MSM senior reporters believe the same lie as Rosie Barton?

Legacy media reporters at CBC and online were outraged by independent media questions, like that of Drea’s, claiming these were off topic and not relevant to the leader’s debate.

In fact, some ~50% of Canadians are Catholics or Christians of other denominations. Thus, one must ask themselves, how is it that MSM media, especially CBC which is funded for ~$1.4 billion a year by taxpayers, did not put this question into the debates? Why do they so object to Rebel Media’s Drea Humphrey posing it? Why did Jagmeet Singh, a lawyer and an alleged human rights activist refuse to even respond to Drea’s respectful question about anti-Christian hate?

Source: Wikipedia

Sadly, in post-debate discussions Rebel Media and other independent media were referred to scathingly as “grifters” who make stories up just to get audience funding.

Here’s an ad for “The National” with Adrienne Arsenault, claiming that you can watch it for “free.” It’s not free. It is paid for with your taxes. Your tax dollars are used to fund them whether you like CBC’s coverage of events or not; whether you appreciate their host’s inadequate knowledge on a topic of interest to 50% of Canadians or not. You pay for them to mislead the public with lies and smear independent media reporters who ask legitimate questions, and who, like Rebel Media, True North, the Counter Signal, Western Standard, Juno News, and more are only funded by individuals who voluntarily subscribe or donate.

Rosemary Barton made a big boo boo on air. I’ve asked Brodie Fenlon, CBC’s Editor-in-Chief, for evidence to support Rosie’s claims or said that they should issue a retraction. Here are CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices.

Maybe this debacle will be the beginning of the end for state propagandist CBC. Let’s hope so.

Please read my report on the media’s irresponsibility in their coverage of the ‘mass grave’ story.

Confronting Indian Residential School Confabulation and Media Irresponsibility