BY: ANTHONY FUREY

I feel really bad for some journalists covering politics today. And by today I mean this moment in time, in the months leading up to Canadian federal election.

Many of these reporters likely went to school thinking they’d have a career writing in depth investigative features. Or maybe they wanted to be documentarians. Or write stellar books of essays like some of the great journalists of the 20^th century.

But no. Not for some. 

Right now, it appears there are a whole pile of Canadian journalists who have been seconded into studying tweets and hashtags and what’s trending so they can write on these scary things called “fake news” and “misinformation” and “electoral interference”.

Here’s the first line of a recent story by the National Observer – a left-leaning online news outfit: “The hashtag #TrudeauMustGo went viral last week, driven in part by inauthentic activity including artificial amplification and automation.” And then I can’t tell you what happened next because I did not read the second line, because… well, because I have a life and things to do. Who in their right mind devotes time to reading in depth analyses (it’s a fairly long piece) about a hashtag, of all things? 

And I get that a job’s a job and media gigs are hard to come by these days, but there’s also the poor soul who spent hours on this piece to think about here.

I mean, there are outlets that don’t devote this much attention to real issues like the budget and boil water advisors on First Nations reserves. And yet the National Observer is far from the only publication doing this deep dive into hashtags. I’m not looking to pick on them and their reporter – this is only the latest example. Other news organizations, far more mainstream ones, have at least one if not several reporters who seem to be working the “fake news” beat full time. 

Spare a moment to mourn a lost year of their careers.

This is all of course fuelled by the broader sense perpetuated by my colleagues in the liberal news media that we are under siege by an onslaught of “fake news” and “misinformation”. But the things they’re presenting as evidence are pretty weak sauce. 

While appearing on a CBC panel on the subject the other week, I pointed out that I’m all for exposing and denouncing outright “fake news” but I just don’t see too many real examples of it. Nor could my fellow panelists offer up any recent ones. 

Some sort of hashtag gone awry should not be the best you’ve got. Is that really newsworthy? Is it “misinformation” or “fake news”? Come back to me when you’ve found an example of news that is totally fake, which – one would think – should be what we think of when we think of “fake news”.

Or, better yet, come back to me when you’ve got a news story on a major political party’s platform or an investigation into a government department or the latest on our foreign affairs escapades. 

If you’re that concerned about “fake news” the best antidote is probably just to focus on writing real news.

Jonathan or Jessica Yaniv, whichever you prefer, is a pathetic figure. 

I am not sure what is more pathetic, the fact that he has filed as many as 16 complaints with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) accusing female aestheticians of refusing to wax his male genitalia or the fact the BCHRT entertained the complaints.

The BCHRT went through a period of global mockery when it, in 2008, entertained a complaint of “Islamophobia” against McLean’s magazine and syndicated columnist Mark Steyn after it published an excerpt from his bestselling book “America Alone.”

The tribunal ultimately returned a finding of not guilty, but it shone a very bright light on what a kangaroo court the tribunal is. 

In their process, there are no rules of evidence as we know in a normal court of law. The accused is responsible for their own defence while the complainant has no need of counsel as they would in a conventional civil trial. The tribunal itself acts as the advocate for the complainant.

The complainant needs only to say they were offended or their feelings were hurt and the accused has to try and defend themselves against such utter nonsense. 

The BCHRT was made infamous for such decisions as when a trans man who wanted to be a counsellor with Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter was rejected by the crisis centre. Such positions were for women so sexual assault victims would be comfortable opening up to someone who would understand. Rape Relief was assessed a $7500 fine in that case and stripped of its city funding. 

There are a litany of ridiculous such cases over the years as the political lefties sitting on the tribunal ruled in their oh-so-politically-correct way. 

After the Steyn case and all the resulting publicity, the BCHRT kind of disappeared into the ether. Under the NDP government of John Horgan, the Yaniv complaints show that they’re back. The lunatics are back in charge of the asylum it seems.

In the first instance, did it not occur to them with 16 complaints that Yaniv was desperately trying to be a victim? Wouldn’t that have triggered them to ask a few questions?

In the second place, a rudimentary investigation shows that Yaniv is, at best, unbalanced. 

His social media presence clearly shows him to be such, talking about tampons and pads about teen girls variously representing himself to be male and female and trying to get young girls to engage with him in text conversations. 

I won’t go into details because it’s more than a little troubling. 

At least one trans individual, Morgane Oger, a candidate for the NDP in Vancouver Centre in the upcoming federal election, reported his apparent predatory actions to the RCMP requesting they investigate. Where that complaint is, I am not sure, but I would suggest the fact pattern and the content of those messages suggest they should investigate. 

Oger also wrote a blog post in April of 2019 about Yaniv titled “Preying on children makes you a predator regardless of who you are.” 

This month Yaniv applied to Langley Township Council for a permit to hold a pool party with topless girls 12 and older, no parents invited. The permit application for an “All Bodies Swim” for “people aged 12+ where these events will be restricted to LGBTQ2S and individuals will be permitted to be topless.”

Yesterday video emerged by a citizen journalist, Dan Dicks, who tried to engage Yaniv at a Vancouver courthouse. Yaniv was in a motorized scooter and jumped out of it, threatened to pepper spray Dicks, pulled the fire alarm in the elevator and called 9-1-1. He was clearly unhinged. 

Given all of this, why is the BCHRT giving this man any credence? 

Add to all of this, the process of waxing male and female genitalia is different and aestheticians need to be trained in both if they are going to provide that service. Most are only trained in female waxing and according to an aesthetician instructor I spoke with, damage can be done to males if aestheticians are not trained properly in waxing males. 

I was also told that in the majority of cases, males get erections when a female aesthetician is handling their genitals. Professionals are trained how to deal with this.  I can certainly understand why a female aesthetician not trained, such as those Yaniv singled out in his complaints, would decline to provide this service. 

Nowhere in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution or even the Magna Carta does it say that anyone has the right to not be offended. 

The BCHRT should tell Yaniv to gather up his block and tackle and take a hike or risk more global ridicule – again. Or has common sense left the BCHRT hearing room entirely?