LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

‘Cheerleading’ journalists should start digging deeper

Friday’s editorial regarding the federal budget update in The Examiner is a typical propaganda piece perpetuating bad ideas about Federal budgets and economics. It concludes with a statement that “Canadians may regret their — and the Liberals’ — lack of commitment to balanced budgets,” presumably because they are supposedly a liability or “burden” on future generations.

I recognize that arguing in favour of balanced budgets is received wisdom but part of the role that newspapers should play in our society is to question received wisdom. Writers — especially editors — should challenge their own faith in it and not accept “received wisdom” as truth. And this may be part of the problem that newspapers are facing everywhere in their declining revenues and credibility with the public. Newspaper editors, as evident in Friday’s editorial, have been cheerleaders for this so-called wisdom instead of questioning it. A good journalist and editor must be an iconoclast — a smasher of sacred cows. Readers are looking for that. Which is part of the reason that “fake news” is topical and why people turn to the internet for information.

The Examiner seems to have forgotten or has chosen to ignore that deficits and debts are somebody’s ASSETS. They are NOT just liabilities for taxpayers creating a burden on future generations as Ford and Scheer would have us believe. The government pays interest to these asset-holders from our tax dollars. Remember the now-defunct Canada Savings Bonds and how parents/grandparents bought them as investments for their newborn children/grandchildren and for their birthdays? Or the Victory Bonds? The public bought them eagerly but may not have always realized that they were BOTH liabilities for taxpayers AND assets for their children/grandchildren — possibly to be used for their education.

When we think about them as assets, it is logical to ask, “whose assets?” This is where competent investigative journalism can play a role. If they are assets benefitting only the well-off then the next question should be, “How can we make them assets to benefit all the taxpayers?” Another question is, “Does allowing them to be assets of a few well-off investors (mostly Canadian), make income inequality worse?” Still another question is, “how much of these debt/deficit assets help fund pension plans — especially the CPP — thereby benefitting many older Canadians?”

Another question about budgets is, “Should budgets be used to balance the economy for corporations (which is clearly where Morneau seems to be going and for which the Examiner is a reluctant cheerleader), or should they be used to balance the economy for people, (such as combatting climate change)? Or all of that? Or should budgets be balanced to reassure the money-lenders that their money is safe which also appears to be part of the current received wisdom of the Examiner editorial staff and Smith/Ford?

We have just gone through a provincial election where Doug Ford and David

Smith won, in part, because they chose to play the balanced budget game. Debts and deficits were cynically marketed by them as liabilities totally ignoring that they are somebody’s assets. If Ford and Smith are really “for the people,” the discussion would be about how to ensure that the debt/deficit becomes a taxpayer asset. Not just liabilities to be reduced. And we are about to to reboot and play the same game in the federal election.

Are there credible economists and experts that can help journalists answer to these questions? Yes, but editors, columnists and reporters first have to question their assumptions and then look for them.

So while the Examiner editorial wonders if Canadians will regret the Liberals’ lack of commitment to balanced budgets, declining revenues and reduced circulation reveal that many of us are regretting the Examiners’ lack of commitment to challenging received economic wisdom. We regret the lack of commitment to looking deeper into stories. Thus, we look elsewhere. Hopefully, the amounts of money in the federal budget update supporting newspapers will lead to journalism that is less of the cheerleading variety and more of the investigative type. As a regular reader of newspapers for more than 60 years, I hope they survive by changing their course and that the extra funding provided them in this budget update is used to do that so I will not have to regret their demise.

Thus the newspapers can be a public asset again and not the partial liability they are today. Herb Wiseman, Peterborough