A federal judge has upheld a government decision that found far-right outlet Rebel News didn’t produce enough original content to qualify for the journalism tax credit.
Rebel News applied for designation as a Canadian accredited journalism organization in 2021.
A federal judge has upheld a government decision that found far-right outlet Rebel News didn’t produce enough original content to qualify for the journalism tax credit.
Rebel News applied to be designated as a accredited journalism organization in Canada in May 2021 but was rejected by the Canada Revenue Agency, which determined that less than 1% of its content was original news.
The media outlet sought judicial review in the Federal Court, but in a ruling on Wednesday, Judge Anne Marie McDonald found the agency’s decision was reasonable.
The McDonald’s ruling noted that the tax office evaluated 423 news articles from Rebel News and found that only 10 were original.
The rest were not factually based, did not include diverse perspectives, or were curated content or material rewritten from other sources, she said.
This official designation allows news organizations to apply for the Canada Journalism Labour Tax Credit and their subscribers to apply for the Digital News Subscription Tax Credit.
