CBC blames 'staffing shortage' for not covering latest church arson

CBC Edmonton says staffing shortages and breaking news prevented it from covering the arson that destroyed a nearly century-old Ukrainian Orthodox church in central Alberta.

Source: Rawpixel

CBC Edmonton says staffing shortages and breaking news prevented it from covering the arson that destroyed a nearly century-old Ukrainian Orthodox church in central Alberta, a fire that police have since linked to a series of vehicle thefts, charging three suspects.

The absence of CBC coverage was first noted by Peter Menzies, a former CRTC vice-chair who said he searched for reports on the All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church fire in the hamlet of Bellis, Alta., but found none.

Menzies contacted CBC directly for an explanation.

In an emailed statement, Stephanie Coombs, CBC’s Director of Journalism and Programming in Edmonton, said the story had not been ignored but postponed due to limited newsroom capacity.

“When the RCMP released information last week about the church fire, many media organizations chose to cover it just by writing up information in the press release and not doing any further reporting,” Coombs said. “That is never our approach; we always want to ensure we can cover something substantively, and in this case, that meant us getting community reaction and other voices about the impact of the church arson. Unfortunately, we had some unexpected staffing changes and developing news that meant we couldn’t do that work last week. The story remains on our radar and we are hopeful we’ll be able to cover it in the near future.”

The church, built nearly a century ago, was destroyed in the early hours of September 21.

RCMP said they were already responding to two vehicle thefts when the fire was reported around 3:30 a.m.

Police arrested a youth, a 23-year-old, and a 26-year-old, charging them with arson, break and enter, assaulting police with a weapon, flight from police, and mischief to cultural property, among other offences.

Investigators said items, including candelabras and crucifixes, were found in one of the suspect vehicles, linking the fire to the thefts.

An arson investigation service determined an accelerant was likely used in the blaze.

RCMP said they are still searching for at least one additional suspect.

The destruction of All Saints adds to a string of more than 120 church burnings and acts of vandalism targeting Christian churches across Canada since 2021.

The CBC only made a brief reference to this burning in an article attempting to debunk Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s claim that Christians are the most targeted religious group in response to True North’s question on anti-Christian hate in Canada.

One Liberal MP, John-Paul Danko, described outlets like True North as “alt-right” media and accused the Conservatives of peddling conspiracy theories for drawing attention to the wave of violence against Christian churches.