CBC Headline: "Edmonton reluctant to back troops"

The CBC is running a story with a rather disingenuous headline today: "Edmonton reluctant to back troops" and the so-called proof it cites is very questionable:

The death of another Edmonton-based soldier is raising questions about whether the Alberta capital is doing enough to support its troops in Afghanistan.

Pte. Robert Costall, who was killed late Tuesday in a firefight northwest of Kandahar, is the 11th soldier to die on the mission. Many of the soldiers in Afghanistan are based in Edmonton.

At the ABC Family Restaurant in north Edmonton, blocks away from the military base, military families are given a discount of 25 per cent. But manager Sylvia Jasmine said that isn't enough, given the sacrifice the soldiers are making in Afghanistan.

She would like to see greater support for the troops, and added she feels most people in Edmonton don't even realize Canadian soldiers are overseas. "There should be yellow ribbons, there should be bumper stickers, there should be signage," she said.

You don't measure support for the troops by how much of a discount they get at a restaurant, the belief of one woman that "most" Edmontonians aren't even aware of the troop involvement in the Afghan war or the lack of bumper stickers and signs.

Canadians are a quietly proud people who simply don't believe in expressing patriotism or public support for its soldiers via more American style methods such as massive displays of bumper stickers and signs. War is a serious business and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone, whether they support the Afghan mission or not, who would truly claim that they are opposed to the soldiers themselves. And, you'd probably have an even more difficult time finding such a person in Edmonton, which hosts those Canadian troops.

Why the CBC would even run such a story is beyond me but, as a news organization, they have an obligation to publish articles with much more proof than was provided in this one to justify such a blatantly false headline - especially on a day when Edmontonians and all Canadians mourn the loss of another one of its soldiers.

I have contacted the CBC to make them aware of my objections to this misleading headline.