For many, Canada has been a land of openness and accessibility – a land with freedom of the press, equal opportunity, and democracy. However, this country is on a crash course toward the likes of North Korea. 

In ten years, you may never see local news. Instead, it will be mass-produced, canned garbage. 

In no way is this more evident than in the case of our print media – a near monopoly controlled by a powerful few who fake competition and drain the life out of journalists. 

The quick and dirty example of this is Brunswick News, a company that literally owns every English-language paper in New Brunswick. 

Owned by the Irving Family, one of the most unchecked monopolies in the democratic world, Brunswick News has been known for employing dirty tactics to prevent smaller newspapers from getting started. 

These tactics include unwarranted lawsuits, law manipulation to get the police to raid individuals’ homes, and dirty business tactics to undercut newcomers. 

All the while, they have a bare-bones team of journalists who produce articles that are put into all of their newspapers instead of supporting dynamic teams for each city. 

This results in zero opposing opinions in our newspapers and a fake sense of objectivity in our overall media.  

So, why should this concern us? 

Journalists act as our media gatekeepers and have the power to choose what stories to report on and, of course, how to report on them.  

All of which plays a part in how we interpret our news and in turn, view society. 

The dangers of having only a small few control the mass of our news consumption are that we will evidently be fed the same stories in the same light and will lose all opportunities to see opposing sides. 

Eventually, everyone will think and believe the same information without contradiction or question.  

If you want to get a job writing for your local newspaper, that dream may die sooner than you could ever imagine. 

This is not a one-off occurrence. It is happening everywhere free markets have control over the free press. 

Torstar and Postmedia, the two juggernaut companies that own a majority of Canada’s newspapers and almost all of those in Ontario, fired approximately 244 journalists at the end of 2017 when they traded competing newspapers with each other. 

This was an act of anti-competitiveness – something that our country’s autonomous future is contingent on fighting. However, they now have monopolies in several Ontario cities, and no one is around to keep them in check. 

The news that you are reading at a corner store, a restaurant, or your front door has no competitor or regulator; they can do what they want and push whatever agendas their shareholders desire. 

Would you rather live in a country where you know that the news you are fed is proverbial feces, or do you want to continue living in the pretend land of Canada where companies are becoming the new state? 

Setting a precedent for our country’s future, Brunswick News has been known to sprinkle their papers with pro-Irving articles just as Kim Jong-un’s regime is known to sprinkle the news with their own agenda. 

Many may not even be aware that Brantford lost one of its newspapers, Brant News, in all this. These companies conspire against the general public, and the flock is inevitably consumed by the wolves.