Did the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation publish an article that suggested offering Medical Assistance in Dying, also known as MAID, to "angry young men with no prospects" to combat "growing ideological extremism"? No, that's not true: CBC confirmed to Lead Stories that the news outlet did not publish such a story. The image in the post on X included a photo the CBC published in December 2023 with an article unrelated to the claims made on X.
The claim appeared in a post on X on July 21, 2024, (archived here) with a caption that read:
No matter how many times you read this headline, it doesn't become any less crazy than the first time you read it.
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Fri July 26 18:20:00 2024 UTC)
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Director of Public Affairs Kerry Kelly (archived here) confirmed to Lead Stories that the story shown in the post on X was fake.
"We can confirm that this is not a CBC story," Kelly wrote in an email received on July 26, 2024.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, did publish a story on May 27, 2024, the date seen in the X post, by the reporter whose name appears there, Christian Paas-Lang, but the article had a completely different title: "Third-party political advertising is at a crossroads. Do the current rules protect voters' rights?" (archived here).
A reverse image search (archived here) revealed that the image shown in the post on X was initially published in a CBC article on December 17, 2023 (archived here). It had nothing to do with "angry young men" or Medical Assistance in Dying, Canada's authorized procedure for assisted suicide. The article read, in part:
Community leaders worry about increased radicalization risk after arrest of youth in Ottawa
RCMP notes spike in youths arrested on terror-related charges -- five since summer
This is what the 2023 article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: CBC screenshot taken Fri July 26 17:28:34 2024 UTC)
Kelly added that the public broadcaster is seeing an increase in false ads and news stories "claiming to be from, or endorsed by, CBC or CBC-employees appearing on social media platforms and websites." In response, the outlet is working to "curb this alarming trend and to remove any false or inappropriate posts from social platforms."
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning Canada or that mention the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation can be found here.
