They Call It a Smear. I Call It Thursday.

Friends,

Pull up a chair. We need to talk about the knives that have been out since Thursday.

Since we published our investigation into Avi Lewis and the curious death of a “unionized” think tank, the usual chorus has emerged. Not with facts. Not with timelines. Not with explanations for what happened to those Leap workers who never got their contract.

No. They've emerged with accusations.

"Smear," they cry. "Bad faith," they type, fingers trembling with outrage on behalf of a man who won't answer our questions.

Let me tell you what bad faith actually looks like.

Bad faith is watching an organization unionize in June 2020, then doing nothing for nine months. No bargaining sessions. No contract proposals. Just silence, until the organization conveniently ceases to exist.

Bad faith is launching a new outlet six days later with the same editors, the same mission, the same ideological DNA, and somehow forgetting to include the unionized workers who made the first one run.

And bad faith, dear reader, is the excuse I keep hearing from Union-Buster Avi and his apologists: "But CUPE and Leap celebrated the unionization! See? They were happy about it!"

As if his flustered, angry response absolves everything that follows. As if a man can't smile for a photograph while quietly running out the clock on his own workers' right to bargain.

I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that Zoom caught COVID. I wasn't aware that Discord needed a ventilator. I wasn't aware that the entire collective bargaining process, something unions and employers managed through wars, depressions, and yes, pandemics, became impossible for nine months while Avi Lewis ran an organization that was supposedly committed to worker power.

Let me be direct with you about what's actually happening here.

The people calling this a "smear" are not engaging honestly with our work. They cannot explain the timeline. They cannot explain why The Breach—a direct ideological successor to The Leap, helmed by the same people, carrying the same torch—launched without a union.

They cannot explain why those workers never got their seat at the table. So instead, they attack the messenger.

They tell you I'm acting in bad faith. They tell you this is a “hit piece.” They tell you to look away from the sequence of events laid out in black and white, with public records and labour board documents to support every claim.

Here's what I tell you in return:

Keep watching. Keep reading. Keep demanding answers that Lewis and his campaign have so far refused to provide.

Because my team and I are not done with this story. Not by a long shot. The questions we've raised are just the beginning. There are threads we're still pulling. Records we're still requesting. Conversations we're still having with people who were there and have been silent for too long.

If Lewis has an explanation, he knows where to find us. His campaign ignored our requests for comment. That was a choice. And choices have consequences.

Until then, I'll keep doing what we do here at The Provincial Times. I'll keep asking the questions the right-wing establishment media won't touch. I'll keep following the facts where they lead, even when powerful people on "my side" don't like where they're going.

And I'll keep being grateful for readers like you; the ones who understand that journalism is about holding power to account, whether that power wears a Conservative blue or a performative orange.

If you value that kind of reporting, then I hope you'll consider supporting our work. We don't have corporate backers. We don't have billionaire benefactors. We have you. And every donation, every share, every subscription helps us dig deeper and report harder.

Because there's more coming. And when it lands, I want you to see it first.

Stay with us.

— Will Adams
Editor, The Provincial Times