Took my first good look at The Maple yesterday. They feature some fabulous journalists (Emma Paling, for one) but I gotta say: not a fan of their framing in general.

effortpost tl;dr: sus

TIL:

The Maple started in 2017 as North99, “a political advocacy group founded by former Liberal Party staffers.” 2 years later they were caught linking to data mining petitions:

People who sign a petition from North99 may think they’re advocating on an issue — such as backing abortion rights or universal health care — but some of these petitions never get delivered to anyone. Instead, they’re used solely to gather information about the people who signed them, including their email address and postal code, ahead of the 2019 election — something that’s not clearly communicated on the site.
For instance, issue pages say “10,000 signatures needed” or “sign the petition,” but elsewhere use more ambiguous language, such as “Show your support … by adding your name below.”
…
In the last few months, North99 has purchased hundreds of Facebook ads, many of which drove people to the petitions or surveys. Scollon said the group has spent about $6,500 on advertising this year.
CBC News was able to analyze 687 ads purchased by North99 in Facebook’s political ad archive. About 65 per cent of those ads, or 445 in all, were purchased in the month of June, just ahead of new spending rules that limit the amount of money third-party groups can spend on advertising in the weeks leading up to the election. - cbc 2019

After the CBC report, North99 created Passage to publish opinions/analysis and later renamed North99 The Maple to publish news/investigations. Passage and The Maple continued to be funded by the nonprofit formerly known as North99. 2 years later, “it became clear that The Maple and Passage shared similar values” so they "merged.” - About Us

3 sample headlines to compare:

1 - Rabba, a Palestinian-Owned Chain is Selling Israeli Produce (- yesterday)
irl: Jack Rabba’s family moved to Canada in 1966, so that’s “Palestinian-Canadian” tyvm and it was 1 bunch of grapefruit at 1 store.
Looking into it: No, the Maple hasn’t published any stories regarding any other grocer and the BDS movement. Just one that’s likely to get a Palestinian-Canadian business owner harassed by well-intentioned activists who don’t rtfa.

2 - NDP Officials No Longer Welcome At The Maple (- 2023)

The NDP has shown that it is willing to stand by as genocide unfolds, saving its harshest actions for those fighting back […] as editors of The Maple we will no longer seek or be open to any sort of pitches, articles, appearances, features or requests from elected NDP officials, those who run for the party going forward, those employed by the party, and others with more formal ties.

irl: Just a few months earlier, Singh was horribly harassed and demonized as a “Danger to Jews” because he sent an email to a few dippers with “13 demands of the Liberal government on Palestinian rights” -2022, springmag & IJV. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs - the group that fomented the harassment campaign against him - invited him to speak at a conference and he did, making statements condemning anti-semitism. In their denunciation, The Maple chose not to mention the very relevant context of CIJA’s harassment of Singh, nor the fact that he’s had to deal with racists trying to rip the turban off his head since he was a kid, .

Another beef they had was with Olivia Chow, who tweeted in 2023 that the Chief of Police would let her know if there were any reports of hate “incidents” at what she was informed was a pro-Hamas rally. She acknowledged Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada. That one (1) tweet was listed in The Maple as a reason she’s obviously pro-genocide.

Looking into it: There were plenty of reasons to be pissed at the NDP regarding Israel-Palestine in 2022-23, and the editorial statement lists some entirely relevant points. Importantly, there are no similar denunciations of any other political party in Canada on their website. Though looking at their Content from the same time period, I found their Guide To Pierre Poilievre — Canada’s Next Prime Minister? ctrl+f Palestine and Israel show nothing. ctrl+f for NDP acknowledges the Broadbent Institute was named for Ed.

3 - The Left Has Failed To Confront Canada’s Resurgent Right
Quite the headline, no? I personally know many, many people “on The Left” who’ve been aggressively confronting regressives for decades, so that headline pisses me off and makes me want to defend their tenacity (and my own goddamnit). From a different perspective, where The Left clearly indicates folk working within the Establishment, I agree, because shit’s all fucked up, Project2025, etc.

“The Left Has Failed” alone could produce a mountain of online commentary.

irl: That “Left Has Failed” headline links to an excellent interview with the editor of Confronting The Resurgent Right and 2 of its contributors. The book focuses on “How to account for the rise of the right in Canada, and what can we do collectively in our communities to resist the right’s resurgence?”

There’s a tone decidedly more hopeful than its headline would suggest.

Again, work worth reading, buried beneath a ragebait accellerationist headline guaranteed to Generate Content amplifying The Failure of Canada and The Left discourse instead of the content of the article.

Now this illogical piece about HIMARS.

Given their organizational history and obsession with aggressively purity-testing “allies,” The Maple’s too sus for me to trust with so much information warfare flying about. Luckily it looks like the good journalists working for them also work with The Breach and others, so no great loss.