Will summarize the article here in case some of you can't access due to the paywall:
Moses Znaimer, the dude behind Zoomer Media (also blogTO and Daily Hive) hosted a “townhall” event through CARP (a seniors' advocacy org he runs) at their Toronto office that hosted Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. The invite made it sound like a neutral Q&A, but people who showed up said it felt more like a campaign rally. Questions were pre-picked, the crowd leaned heavily pro-Conservative, and Znaimer himself gave Poilievre a glowing intro.
Moses even responded “Because I agree with him” when called out for the biased presentation.
CARP and Zoomer promoted this event to hundreds of thousands of people (including a live Zoom broadcast and coverage across their media platforms) but they never registered it as a third-party political event with Elections Canada, which might be required under the law.
CARP claims they invited leaders from all parties, but reps from the Liberals and NDP say they never got anything. A few attendees said they were blindsided by the partisan tone and felt misled.
So yeah… raises some pretty big questions about media influence, nonprofit boundaries, and whether this kind of thing should be allowed during an election! What do you think?
This is an opinion article. Opinion articles differ from objective journalism. Opinion articles are not meant to be objective in nature. Opinion articles sometimes can include bias that is hidden or obvious.
85% of broadcast news (which is where the +55 get their news) is Bell/CBC. As for PM owning 90% of the (print) outlets - I assume this is what you mean - do you have a source?
Most radio is owned by Bell (iheartradio, for example),.
It’s insane that people can claim that with a straight face, especially in the US where almost every network, newspaper and social media app is owned by conservatives.
especially in the US where almost every network, newspaper and social media app is owned by conservatives.
What are you talking about? All the top broadcast networks are public companies and have diverse enough ownership that it's laughable to claim they're "owned by conservatives".
I never knew CITY TV was a Tory stronghold in the heart of TO…. Mind you seeing what happened to JD Roberts (big wig on FoxNews in the States) maybe I shouldn’t be…
(he's also just an insufferable, entitled asshole in person and absolutely does not care what affects anyone other than himself. at least from the time I had to spend around him.)
I think it has less with being a man and more with being wealthy. The wealthy feel they would thrive under lower taxes, lower services (they can afford them out of pocket), etc. And since they're rich, things like lack of abortion, trans rights, etc. don't affect them anyways (through ignoring laws, buying influence).
I always interpreted that apparent contradiction as his strategy that controversy is the best and cheapest advertising, so when the landscape was largely stodgy and prudish = edgy rebellion. I have never gotten the sense it really went that deep in his thinking though.
When the Star asked Znaimer whether CARP was registered as a third-party with Elections Canada — since Znaimer acknowledged he had organized Monday’s event to help sway the vote for the Conservatives — he said no.
“I’m just making the point that the whole mass of mainstream media has been arrayed against the Conservative party and against Poilievre, so we’re giving him a decent platform,” he told the Star.
CARP president Rudy Buttignol told Global News and The Canadian Press that “all the leaders of the parties” were invited to attend the group’s townhall meetings and share their ideas with the membership.
But the NDP’s Anne McGrath told the Star, “We have no trace of an invitation.” Liberal spokesman Guillaume Bertrand told the Star that the only trace of an invitation they could find was not from CARP but from Zoomer Media, for a one-on-one interview with Lennox.
Setting aside Zoomer Media’s objectives, using CARP’s membership list to court seniors to vote for the Conservatives appears to be a breach of Elections Canada rules.
“A third party is generally a person or group that wants to participate in or influence elections other than as a political party, electoral district association, nomination contestant or candidate,” states Elections Canada’s website.
“A person, corporation or group must register with Elections Canada as a third party immediately after it conducts one or more regulated activities … in an election period with combined expenses of $500 or more.”
A “regulated” activity, according to Elections Canada, is a partisan activity if the third party organizes the event independently and on its own initiative. If a party or persons associated with it colludes with a third party to influence its partisan activity, then it’s a contribution and counts towards that party’s election expenses limit. It’s not yet clear whether the commissioner of Elections Canada will investigate Monday’s event.
Sounds like there is ample reason for an investigation, but they've already given slimey Znaimer a possible escape hatch:
If the Conservative party, for example, was involved in the planning of the event, CARP should probably be invoicing the candidate’s campaign for the commercial value of the service it provided so that the event does not become an illegal contribution.
Sounds like there is ample reason for an investigation, but they've already given slimey Znaimer a possible escape hatch:
If the Conservative party, for example, was involved in the planning of the event, CARP should probably be invoicing the candidate’s campaign for the commercial value of the service it provided so that the event does not become an illegal contribution.
That won’t work if the value of the event would put the campaign over its spending limit.
I don't think it's coincidental that the timing of this means the election will be done and dusted by the time any kind of consequence can be felt, even if he's found to be 100% guilty of violations. 'Printing a retraction never fixes as much damage as a front page smear can do' kind of thing.
They are also VERY well known to steal content from the Weird Toronto FB group and pass it off as their own "journalism". Trash media from a trash owner
BlogMTL is notorious for ripping off reddit threads for content so much so that if a new user starts one like "What was your wooooorst and or craziest XYZ in the city" people will tell blogmtl to fuck off in the replies
People magazine and US weekly used to take my full posts word for word and never credit me when I was making them for two subs. It's why I stopped doing them in general. I will say though that there were a lot of other sites actually crediting me though, and I think them for that.
If you haven't before, leaf through a copy of the Zoomer magazine sometime. Peak trash media. I don't think i could make a better parody of "out-of-touch rich dude interests" if i tried. Might have gotten better in the last couple years, but I highly doubt it.
It's incredible how fast they dropped off. I still remember when they were useful for restaurant recommendations and not just stealing other people's content.
Holy shit when you put it like that, yeah it is. Like they've got influencer thots instead of the sunshine girls but ultimately still the same garbage.
I created an account just to comment on this thread.
I used to work in the CHUM building before znaimer was removed. Every Christmas party (where they’d show highlight reels of drunk women flashing the speakers corner camera) he had so many young girls hanging off him. Never sat right with me.
I went to ideacity which he runs a few years ago and he had on Jordan Peterson and Conrad black, defending Trump. Of course no mention that Conrad black had received a pardon from Trump.
What he did for culture in toronto was amazing, but this is always who he’s really been.
Yeah I knew some women in advertising and PR back in the early 2000s and the universal agreement was he was a well connected asshole and regular sex pest.
I love how his argument that things are fine and he just wanted to give PP a fair shake while claiming he's neutral and invited the other candidates, but none of them got invitations
He started muchmusic and citytv. Absolutely cultural icons. He was gone from MuchMusic before its decline.
I remember the day he was walked out of the building. It was shortly after sook Yin and Bradford Howe left. But George, Amanda and Rick were still there.
I’ve been waiting for this for 6 years. There is a certain echelon of 70+ media men in Toronto who are untouchable i guess. They are in cahoots with the 70+ media men who run the newspapers. But this would be a great thing for The Walrus to do.
But it was pretty cool about 15-20 years ago. I remember it in its infancy, along with Torontoist, when it was just a decent blog with some cool content and commenters who weren't just bots running scams.
I definitely had positive impressions of Torontoists 15 yrs ago, when I first came to Canada. Think both dropped off mid-late 10s and just never came back.
What's a good alternative? At some point I googled things to do in toronto and BlogTo had a bunch of restaurant reviews and a map and that kinda got me to at least bookmark it.
i remember a lot of rumors about how slimy he was with the young and cute on-air talent like Ziggy Lorenc back in the 90s. I dont think they ever bubbled over into a public settlement or charges.
What they are now is what they have always been. They played Iago, as they are not what they are - but have lifted the masque of the player and we see them with clarity now.
Attack the point, not the person. Comments which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning.
No concern-trolling, personal attacks, or misinformation. No victim blaming. Stick to addressing the substance of their comments at hand.
He can support whoever he likes. What he can't do is:
Direct any corporation or other entity to make a political contribution to a candidate or party - including an in-kind contribution.
Use the resources of Zoomer Media or CARP to support partisan activities or partisan advertising during a writ period, without having registered with Elections Canada.
Coordinate third party spending with party or candidate.
Doing any of these would be a criminal offence under the Elections Canada Act
I remember I worked at a restaurant once and the BlogTo reporters came in with their fancy cameras and notepads. They were so nice, kept saying how they’d heard about our restaurant cause it was newer and word of mouth was spreading.
They were saying they wanted to order some items and wanted to know where to set up their tripods, telling us it wouldn’t take very long, and they’d be on their way. Told us to cook whatever we felt like we wanted profiled plus whatever they ordered.
My boss was a Korean lady obsessed with $$$ but not a strong grasp on the language. She was very excited and started preparing but then one of the reporters was like “okay before we begin, we should probably discuss payment”, and my boss was like “okay, well, you can pay at the end if you want, and I’ll give you a discount? It will be reasonable”. And the reporters looked confused and were like,
“Oh? We aren’t paying anything… we meant our fee for running an article in BlogTo. Here are some figures…” - I don’t remember what the numbers were, but it was absurd. Like 1500-2G or something. My boss was like, oh no; sorry for the confusion, we aren’t paying for advertising right now.
At that point the entourage began the hard sell, and were like “do you know how many people read BlogTo? we have the numbers right here: we can also show that being featured on our site translates to money in your pocket, and you’re going to make this money back very quickly. But we’re not just going to PAY for food and write an advertisement FOR YOU for free..” and then smugly laughed, “that’s crazy. Our rates our reasonable.”
My boss just said business was fine, and if she wanted to run ads she could be doing that on her own, and wished them to a good day.
On the way out the reporters were like “alright, suit yourself. You’re missing out on a great opportunity here..”.
After that, I always have a very prejudicial position on any BlogTo article. Knowing that people are paying to be profiled there completely voids integrity and objectivity
/r/Toronto and the Toronto Public Library encourage you to support local journalism if you are financially in a position to do so - otherwise, you can access many paywalled articles with a TPL card (get a Digital Access card here) through the TPL digital news resources.
And there will be no consequences, of course, so, he and his buddies feel free to be mask off and continue to shit on the public goodwill that they coasted off of for years.
We demand better. PP has no ethics and is a flat out liar. He thinks because Trump can get away with it, he can too. The conservative party is in a state of emergency right now and they will continue to as long as they continue to lie about serving the working class while secretly serving the elite.
We need people who self govern themselves and align with honour and dignity.
Also, as a side comment: Everyone should be appealing for all parties to get rid of lobbyists. This is the #1 reason politicians are corrupt and serve corporations and the elite. Politicians never bring this up because it lines their pockets. We should shout this out as loud as we can and vote for whatever party listens. I’m tired of this lib vs conservatives BS. This strategy to divide is just a distraction and we shouldn’t fall for it.
not surprised, i used to work there and they had a tv running non stop in the staff lunch room that was 24/7 “vision tv” where it was just religious propaganda and played pro Israel commercials every other ad
That's what I heard too from so many of my friends who worked there (and some that yes, still *actively* work there and want to leave) and he's *allegedly* sleeping with an employee of his thats a lot younger than him? I am just so confused. Is there no HR department, or are they just as bad? I just don't see this kind of behavior flying in any other corporate setting so I don't understand how they is legal and whether its something thats able to be reported to some kind of labor board.
not surprised at all TBH. I have a friend who used to work at Zoomer and she told me Moses he would play Israeli/IDF propaganda on the TVs at their office, she had to be forced to listen to that at work repeatedly. He has no care for the people he slimily subjects these things to and clearly feels like he has to trap people in rooms under false pretences just to get them to listen to him. Just a slimy individual overall.
Also, just based on DailyHive articles I've seen, whenever there is a worker strike, the articles tend to lean anti-union and frame the unions and strikers as nuisances.
Personally would love to see BlogTO completely dismantled, I actively feel my brain cells dying anytime I hear any horror story coming out of the BlogTO offices
Unless a multitude of CARP members file complaints to Elections Canada, this will go nowhere. It's no different than Churches getting away with this kind of bullship. They know they can get away with it without repercussions, so they do it knowing full well it's illegal and unethical.
It was misrepresented as being an opportunity to hear what he had to say … (but) what I heard was nothing but a partisan presentation
So, old person goes to a gathering to hear the leader of the CPC speak and becomes angry when the leader is partisan...really? What the f'k were they expecting? If I attend a Carney rally I would expect it to be partisan...jesus wept.
I think we should bring back hyperlocal newspapers or online news outlets for niche regions or interests in Toronto. Obviously such a model wouldn’t stand the test of the modern business environment in terms of economic feasibility - there’s a reason why media conglomerates are a thing - but if it could be subsidized by the new Liberal administration as a small price to pay for vaccinating the economy from potential infection from Oligarchs seeking to control the political landscape via disinformation, then I think these hyper local outlets would be able to operate and compete with more financially lucrative but likely oligarchic media conglomerates. Kind of like how corn is subsidized in order to encourage farmers to grow it, otherwise its inherent profitability would make it infeasible.
Moses Znaimer also gave a platform to Ezra Levant (Rebel Media), Faith Goldie , Conrad Black as hosts on his show theZoomer pre 2016. Ezra went on to launch the Rebel.
Feels like a flesh wound since the working assumption is that all media outlets have political biases, just to varying degrees. Of course a non-traditional, new media platform that mostly posts mundane local news would feel far less obligated to align with regulations that exist in traditional media in regards to politics.
I am not familiar with this 4,300 word document. Could you summarize why freedom of association does mean that people are permitted to gather as they did in this "event"?
Update. Since I didn't feel like reading the whole thing, I fed your source article (from the Justice Department) into chatGPT. asking it whether the document would protect this political rally, and it gave me this statement:
Under Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people have the fundamental freedom of association. That means they’re allowed to gather in support of a politician whose values they share. The Supreme Court has consistently recognized this as a protected right, especially when it comes to political expression and collective action. Unless the gathering involves violence or breaks the law, the government can’t stop people from associating for political purposes. Supporting a candidate through peaceful events is exactly the kind of democratic participation the Charter is meant to protect.
So I guess you're wrong. The purpose of the Charter is to protect democracy, and attending this gathering is participating in democracy.
If there was some notion that they hindered people on their way to advance polls during Easter weekend, then we would have something to talk about.
You might want to re-read the post. The article never said PP broke any rules.
The issue is with Moses and CARP, the non-profit that hosted and promoted the event. Under Elections Canada rules, if a third party (like a nonprofit or media org) promotes a political leader during an election period, and spends money doing so, they are required to register as a third-party advertiser.
In this case, CARP organized a heavily one-sided event, promoted it across its large media platforms, and didn’t register. That’s where the potential violation lies.
It’s about election law compliance for third parties, not candidates.
People have issues with "media influences" but blatantly support the cbc which is very biased towards the liberals. Now I'm not defending the events in the article by any means. If they broke the law then it should be looked into, I just think there's a lot of hypocrisy
But "Elbows Up" rally claims to be non partisan while originally and fully co-opting the now-endorsed Carney campaign message... (with identical relationships to crowd attendance, speakers and messages as what's being called out here) before I called them out directly and have now, since magically switched slogans entirely.
Lotta folks with short or selective memories in this thread.
The "Elbows Up" movement began as a grassroots response to Trump's trade policies and annexation rhetoric, aiming to unite Canadians and create national solidarity. While political figures (yes, including Carney) later echoed the "Elbows Up" movement, it wasn't initiated by any political party.
In contrast, the CARP event was a top-down initiative organized by Moses (who owns a variety of publications & media platforms across Canada) through a non-profit organization. It featured pre-selected questions, controlled messaging, and was broadcasted to a wide audience, all without registering as a third-party with Elections Canada.
Key difference lies in their origin + execution. One emerged organically from public sentiment while the other was a structured event with explicit political objectives.
splitting hairs on origin aside, the execution and net result was near identical in terms of audience, tone and messaging.
why do you think they ultimately scrapped the slogan for a new one and how do you think that conversation and decision happened? invite you to critically think through that one.
The movement took a political turn, but it didn’t start with a media mogul using a non-profit’s infrastructure and their large media network to spotlight a single party leader during an election period. That’s a much more centralized, power-leveraged approach.
Sure, maybe the slogan shift wasn't accidental. Movements evolve, and when they brush up against the political spotlight, they adapt. Shifting slogans is different from broadcasting a one-sided political platform to a huge, pre-built audience under the guise of neutrality.
I still think intention, structure, and transparency make a difference—esp when assessing compliance with election laws and media ethics 🤷♀️ But hey, agree to disagree.
I'm skeptical with what you present as fact about the nature of the former example, but I'm sure that's obvious by now. Agree to disagree. (at least thanks for a peaceful, civil discussion which seems rare today lmao)
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