1. What's at stake

The right to free expression, enshrined in the Canadian Charter or Rights and Freedoms as well as international declarations and treaties, is widely valued in Canada. When we learn of assaults on it elsewhere in the world, we are thankful that ours is a culture in which the peaceful exchange of information and ideas is respected and fostered. The claim that a Canadian media organization has itself violated the principles of free expression is a serious charge demanding careful examination.

Such allegations have been levelled at CanWest Global Communications Corp. in connection with its chain-editorial policy and its handling of the controversy surrounding it. Under this initiative, the major newspapers in CanWest's Southam group are required once a week to publish identical editorials distributed by its corporate headquarters. They are barred from diverging in their own unsigned editorial columns from the positions taken in these chain-wide articles. This policy, introduced in December, 2001, has prompted widespread expressions of concern among journalists and others who fear distinctive regional editorial voices will be lost.

The concern escalated as dozens of employees at The [Montreal] Gazette who publicly dissented from the policy were reprimanded and threatened with dismissal. Two columnists for Southam papers quit after their critical columns were spiked. Another was terminated after criticizing the chain-editorial move in another newspaper. Other columnists and writers have reported interference that is difficult to justify on journalistic grounds.

In March, a story by a reporter at The [Regina] LeaderPost who covered a speaker's critical remarks about CanWest Global was rewritten. The result of the rewrite was to remove the criticism from the lead paragraph and leave the impression that the thrust of the speech was to approve of the company's actions. Subsequent events at the LeaderPost led CanWest Global to issue a company-wide ban on the use of organized byline withdrawals by reporters as a form of protest. This order has also been circulated in the company's television newsrooms.

In response, CanWest Global executives have publicly slighted their own employees and scorned outside critics. Southam editor-in-chief Murdoch Davis has said employees at The LeaderPost should "go back to school." David Asper, a member of the CanWest Global board's Executive Committee, has branded media critics "professional whiners," "bleeding hearts" and "riff-raff." CanWest Global's readers have not been given access in its newspapers to the views of employees targeted by the company's actions nor, generally, have they seen stories about those actions.

The issue takes on added importance because of the commercial and editorial power exercised by CanWest Global. It has a bigger share of circulation and employs more journalists than any other proprietor in the Canadian English-language daily newspaper market. It owns one of three national English-language television networks and a major Internet operation. It is capable of exerting a strong influence on the climate in which journalism is practiced, and on the way in which information and ideas are exchanged among Canadians. As a broadcaster it has a legal obligation, and as a publisher a moral responsibility, to be fair and accurate in its treatment of the news.

This report has two main goals: 1) to encourage informed debate by providing a comprehensive narrative of events, and 2) to consider the extent to which the right to free expression been threatened or violated. It includes a history of the affair, a consideration of CanWest's defence of its actions, and a series of recommendations.