My friends at Avaaz.org keep sending emails exhorting me to sign a petition to prevent the SunTV news channel from polluting Canadian airwaves with “false news”, “poisonous propaganda” and “outright lying”:

Dear friends across Canada,

In 48 hours, public protections against false news coverage could be destroyed. The CRTC may pass a huge loophole to the “fair and balanced” rule that currently prevents media from outright lying to the public.

Canada’s broadcast journalism standards are an impediment to the new “Fox News North” (Sun TV) network being set up by Prime Minister Harper’s cronies, which promises to mimic Fox News — the poisonous US propaganda network. The CRTC rule change, which allows false news to be blasted across Canadian airwaves, comes just as SunTV is about to launch.

We can stop this — last year, we prevented Harper cronies from pressing the CRTC to fund “Fox News North” with public money. Now, we have just two days to raise another national outcry to save the standards of Canadian journalism, and our democracy.

It’s difficult to believe that anyone would fall for such tripe but – they do. To summarise:

• The sky is falling
• A SunTV news channel will be the end of democracy in Canada – just as Fox News brought down democracy in the US.
• Fox News is a poisonous propaganda network. That’s why it’s so popular.
• We have to save the standards of Canadian journalism. That’s why the CRTC permitted the usually anti-American and frequently anti-Semitic Al Jazeera news network to start broadcasting in Canada.
• It’s a devious plot concocted by Harper cronies.
• The sky really is falling.

That all sounds fair and balanced.

What is the real problem? The left hates competition from the right because it knows that the right makes more sense.