The Leaders’ Debate Commissioner has reversed his earlier decision barring Keean Bexte from attending the Leaders’ Debate.
While it is too late to attend the French debate, Keean Bexte will be in attendance at the Gatineau, QC English debate location to hold Trudeau and his opponents to account on issues that real Canadians care about.
Unlike the CBC, The Counter Signal will not be asking questions about critical race theory and systemic racism. Instead – we are asking our readers what questions they want to ask each leader. You can submit your question suggestions by clicking here.
If you would like to help cover the cost of Bexte’s last-minute flight to Ottawa – please pitch into our Election Coverage Fund by clicking here.
As many will now know, the Leadership Debates Commission (LDC) waited until less than a week before the debates to disallow our journalists from attending the debate and asking questions.
The LDC also disallowed 11 journalists from Rebel News from attending – that decision was later reversed during an emergency hearing at the Federal Court.
According to the LDC, they based their original decision on new “high journalistic standards” implemented by the Trudeau cabinet, which TCS apparently didn’t meet due to a “conflict of interest”
“In denying the applicant’s accreditation, I have considered that the impacts on the applicant’s freedom of expression are outweighed by the salutary effects of the Commission carrying out its mandate. I recognize that the applicant will be precluded from asking direct questions to the leaders who participate in the debates,” their decision reads.
“In particular, the Commission has interpreted high journalistic standards to mean that journalists should not have a conflict of interest in the story that they are covering.”
By a conflict of interest, they mean they do not like the political opinions we sometimes espouse in our articles. The CBC and Rosemary Barton did not get a second look, despite both suing a party attending the debate.
Mounting a challenge to their destructive decision was extremely difficult due to the last-minute nature of it. However, after a long process involving several lawyers – The Counter Signal is pleased to report that our efforts in reversing the decision were successful.
We want to extend a huge thank you to our supporters who have stood by us during this struggle. We could not have done it without you.
