Can you see how CHEX-TV an affiliate of CBC, evidently a public broadcaster, simply picked up the pre-recorded interviews and scenes that the lobby group Smoke-Free Housing Ontario handed to the media on a silver platter?
We are not dealing with a petty situation here. Smoke-Free Housing Ontario is using fear mongering propaganda to garner support of the population for smoke-free housing which they reassure us should be voluntary but as we all have learnt to expect, it will undoubtedly eventually be made mandatory by law following the bullying and harassment of the anti-smoker cartel. If we can violate private clubs without the Supreme Court deeming it important enough to hear the case, what makes us so confident that the government won’t step in people’s homes sooner than we think under the pressure of NGO’s that government themselves finance for these explicitly described reasons?
Considering the magnitude of this ultimate violation of private property - one’s own home - how can the reporter repeat the lobby group’s press release almost verbatim, use the pre-recorded video scenes of the lobby group and serve it to the public without a minimum of questions asked? And all this leaving the uninformed masses with the impression that it’s investigative journalism since there was filming and interviews of a ''real sufferer'' involved!
Does the reporter know who this ‘’Margo’’ in the video is? Is she related to Pippa Beck or anyone else from the anti-smoker cartel? Is she their employee? Is her health truly affected from the smell from other apartments? Has it been testified by a doctor? Does the reporter even care?
What is the evidence that such low magnitudes of smoke (faint smell probably describes it better) affect anyone unless they have serious intolerances? Isn’t it reasonable to assume that for such people it would be more than just tobacco smell that would be affecting them? Society simply can’t cater to everyone’s hyper sensitivities. On which studies do they base their contentions that such low magnitudes of tobacco smoke are a serious health problem? Does the reporter even care?
What does the Cancer Society’s paid Ipsos poll ask? Does the reporter even care?
The 2010 question was:
''If two buildings were the same in every way, including cost, except that one did not allow smoking anywhere, while the other building allowed smoking, to what extent would you be likely or unlikely to choose the “no-smoking” building over the building where smoking was permitted?''
Let’s change the word smoking in the ''did not allow smoking anywhere'' phrase, to read any of the following: '’cooking with garlic, curry, frying'', and bets are that most people would have answered the same way. Does that mean that these people actively seek buildings with such restrictions? Of course not. However, if given a hypothetical choice, it is natural that they would pick a building that is totally smell free be it tobacco smoke, cleaning products, pet smell, garlic, bacon or other smells they may dislike.
The Cancer Society 2011 question was:
''To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements dealing with smoking in multi-unit dwellings (i.e. apartments, condominiums, co-ops, etc): Smoking should not be allowed in-doors in multi-unit dwellings?''
Where does this make it clear that ''in-doors'' means in people's private apartments?. It could be the hallway, the laundry room, the stairway, the indoor pool, anywhere but people's private apartments. Why did they not specifically ask the question this way: ‘’Do you agree that people should be forbidden from smoking in their own apartments?’’ Bets are that formulated directly and clearly the question would have gotten totally different answers, because despite how smokophobic Canadians are, they have one big quality that supersedes it: They believe in the privacy of the individual. We can safely say that the majority of the public would never go so far as to endorse something that would violate one’s privacy in their home.
The only consolation about this blatant biased journalism is that not too many newspapers or broadcasters picked up the Smoke-Free Housing lobbie’s press release. Perhaps some media are more aware of what is unreasonable and unpopular with the public than others.
We intend to file a complaint with the CBC ombudsman against how CHEX-TV reports the news.
Posts
