Canada's Press: Slightly Freer Than Namibia's

Despite the Globe and Mail's 'victory' in the Supreme Court last week, Canada's press is less free compared to other countries.

On Saturday, the Globe and Mail declared victory in a court case that centered on their investigative reporter Daniel Leblanc. The Globe went to court over Leblanc’s right not to divulge one of his sources, and the court agreed in this instance to protect the source’s identity. The resulting Globe editorial crowed that the court “has in effect given the organized news media the tools to do investigative journalism in the public interest ... In an era in which every blogger is a self-proclaimed journalist, the court clearly puts great stock in the organized media.”

So, a big win for the Globe, right? Not really, writes David Eaves in The Mark. The ruling is a draw at best and “provides no real new tools; the Globe's lawyers extracted little from the courts in the form of new protections; and the protections that do exist exist for everyone, not just journalists.” Despite the tone of the Globe’s editorial board, the court refused to issue blanket constitutional protection for sources, and ruled that it remains up to judges to determine protection on a case-by-case basis. And what’s with the Globe taking a shot at bloggers? What the editors don’t say is that the protections the court upheld can conceivably be applied to anybody who applies for them, which includes us lowly online writers. “What you are really reading is a lot of spin,” writes Eaves, “which is part of what makes the editorial so frustrating – I hold the editorial board to a high standard, and I expect its members to not spin stories, especially about themselves.”

The incomplete ruling is a reminder that Canada’s free press is not as free as it could be, writes Sun Media’s David Akin. Noting that Reporters Without Borders ranks Canada 21st in the world on its “press freedom index,” right above Namibia, he laments Canada’s lack of strong U.S.-style ‘shield’ laws and says “despite the Supreme Court’s ruling last week, there are still no guarantees a journalist won’t face jail time if he or she is determined to shield a source. That ought to change.”