Invasion Of Privacy In Canadian Media

Having lived in Canada when I was 8 before the US-Canada magazine dispute occurred, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in Canadian culture. It seemed a perfect culture, built to protect domestic interests and despite the potential division between countries, created a safe environment where people were unafraid to leave doors unlocked, due to almost no crime. The peaceful and respectful nature of most Canadians isn’t just a fluke, the country was designed this way, and one of the primary influencers of this strategy is the media. Watching the news in Canada, the focus is positive, the message is positive, there is no forced fear of sense of doom as we see here in the US. Life is about being sustainable, not so much a struggle to the top of the food chain, but working together, instead of separating and segregating groups. That is except the region of French Quebec; however, Quebec is like a whole new country in itself.

As a Canadian in today’s society we believe we have a certain set of inalienable rights. One of those rights that seem to be at the forefront of the 2015 Canadian election is privacy. As Dr. Kent Roach and Dr. Craig Forcese state, “privacy is, in our society, the right to be left alone by the state.” The Conservative upbringing of Bill C-51 challenges the ideology around our right to be private, as well as our government’s role in the protection of Canada from threats of terrorism. The Harper government essentially, will increase their role in national security to keep a constant watchful eye on potentially harmful situations and end them before anyone is hurt or killed. If passed, the bill would allow the government to arrest anyone suspected of terrorism without that person even committing a crime. Furthermore, the language used in the bill is extremely vague and makes one question, where the line will be drawn? Will our basic rights to peaceful protest and free speech be affected? Unfortunately perhaps they will. One of the most concerning parts of the bill in regard to privacy is the fact that the government will now be able to access several sensitive documents about citizens from top agencies such as the Public Health Agency, Canadian Border Services Agency as well as the Canadian Border Services Agency. Privacy is changing in Canada. This is a landmark bill and as such it is creating quite a splash in the ongoing Canadian Election.

Media plays a huge part in the lives of individuals in their regular activities in the society. Surely, it has impacted on how we see the world and ourselves. Numerous different sorts of media including television shows, radio, movies, advertisements, and daily papers are put on the web and random places. This paper investigates how the role of representation in media is important.

Transparency in the Canadian Government is being used inefficiently and unfairly. Over many years since Canada has been a country their have been many different censorship laws. Censorship has been included, in film, broadcasting, print, art, and the internet. As years pass the Canadian Government has been lenient towards censorship towards film, broadcasting and the arts. However, with the expansion of technology the Government still censors and denies multiple files and information from the General Public. The Harper Conservative government and CSIS have denied access to multiple government files and even censored out files allowed viewing by the general Public and now Canada has had the most files censored currently in the history of the

We believe that our judicial system does not support the rights guaranteed in Canadian charter rights and freedom and focus on legal guilt over factual guilt. The Canadian court system sentencing procedure see’ over both sides of the story carefully but court focus on proving suspect guilt rather then innocence. Our judicial systems currently have many flaws and it’s clearly noticeable in some situations. There have been a lot of cases where our judicial system failed to provide justice to the victim or guaranteed rights to society. Our main law that has been compromised in years is the privacy law. Fifteen years ago privacy was not as important as it today, the main reason for that is technology. As science advance it came up with all these new gadgets such as cell, computer and tables and with all technology came the rise social media. We now have Facebook, Twitter, Istagram, and many more online social media sites that people uses. Our law says that all of our private information cannot be disclosed to government unless someone is a threat but these rights have been violated multiple times. The first time it was an issue was in G20 summit, June 2010. Lately is have also been an issue in Canadian spy companies. Also government recently passed the bill c-150, which clearly violates our charter rights.

Additionally, courts in Canada are open to those who wish to challenge the laws. Finally, the media is not censored for those who wish to promote their beliefs. In many totalitarian countries, people are unknowingly snatched of the right to think on their own, and demand reform. As a result, though the Canadian liberal democracy may have flaws, the rights and freedoms that are often overlooked affect the everyday lives of the citizens and the government

Colonist Lakritz, Naomi writes that Justin Trudeau at the age of 12 could not have been immune to the headlines. The celebrity status of his father and the media attention during his Parent divorce coupled with his mother’s sexual escapades during his father's years in office was widely framed in the media as a Canadian affair.

Canada is considered to be a cultural mosaic, where all cultures are embraced opposed to a melting pot where it is expected to adopt one culture. Government regulated media is more favourable than policies based off of self-regulated solutions when addressing Canada’s media industries and cultural needs. Canadians place importance on national identity and without government regulated policies, the content in the media would have minimal Canadian information. According to the Aird Commission, when Canada’s media was operating through private enterprise, many stations expressed conflicting content, however, with state regulated media, broadcasting allows the nation to have a unified vocation. One unified message being sent to the nations citizens is more beneficial than multiple broadcasts on differentiated and insignificant information.

One of the major reasons that Canada needs public broadcasters to enhance democracy is because Canadians are heavily influenced by the media. One of the arguments against this notion is that Canada as a nation has been able to retain democracy before the introduction of media, according to Attallah (2008) there is no need for public broadcasting because democracy was able to thrive prior to the introduction of media (p.1). Attallah, however, has neglected the fact that the Canadian society like every other active society is forever evolving and changing. As we move into an era where the media plays a major role, it is imperative that our way of thinking about the society evolves as well. This means that though the nation was able to thrive without public broadcasting 2000 years ago, this is not the case now.

The media makes an essential contribution to the way in which the public understands controversial issues such as the arrival of refugees in Canada. The public has

The media influences how people experience social life. Media such as newspaper, television and film, are important sources of information, education and entertainment. It can be used to learn more about the world and the people in it. In this regard it can be said that the media represent, interpret and endorse aspects of social experience (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2005). The media are also implicated in social regulation, or in other terms, the government of society. The media are implicated in government and politics in an obvious way because modern systems of democracy are conducted through the media. But the media have a bigger role to play in government by structuring how society is controlled and maintained.

Another very controversial issue is the right to privacy of citizens in their own homes. As citizens of Canada, we have the right to privacy and reserve the right that our privacy will be not be intruded upon. However, as citizens, we also do not have the right to commit crimes within our homes. By committing crimes, we are giving up every right as a citizen.

“The media are a primary source of those pictures in our heads about the larger world of public affairs, a world that for most citizens is ‘out of reach, out sight, out of mind’ and what we know about the world is largely based on what the media decide to tell us” (McCombs).

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." This quote by A.J. Liebling illustrates the reality of where the media stands in today's society. Over the past twenty years there has been an increase in power throughout the media with regard to politics. The media's original purpose was to inform the public of the relevant events that occurred around the world. The job of the media is to search out the truth and relay that news to the people. The media has the power to inform the people but often times the stories given to the public are distorted for one reason or another. Using slant and sensationalism, the media has begun to shape our views in society and the process by which

Working within the media industry, especially as a journalist. It can sometimes be difficult and challenging as you are more than often finding yourself having to raid people’s personal lives to get a story. However, 'Is it in the public interest? ' that is the one question any journalist must ask themselves if they are to publish a story that may contain an individual’s private information.