Downtown Toronto Studio

Citizenship Ceremony Dept: On Thursday, Sun News fessed up that a citizenship affirmation ceremony it staged in its downtown Toronto studio last October was fraudulent. While viewers were told the 10 people who pronounced the oath were new Canadians, six were actually federal bureaucrats faking it for the cameras. Despite weeks of effort, producers had been unable to scare up 10 real Canadians for the ceremony, according to Globe and Mail. When the story broke, other journalists lit up their Twitter accounts with glee, while many of those at the Sun Media parent chain stayed uncharacteristically silent. On Thursday morning, one of the channel s newsmen who had anchored the faux ceremony accepted an apology from a spokeswoman for the ministry. It would seem that both of us have a little egg on our face, Pat Bolland acknowledged and it turns out that owning Canada is a lot more complicated than wrapping yourself in the flag and mouthing a few stock phrases that even the ad agency for Tim Hortons wouldn t go near. While it had the option of attending an actual citizenship ceremony four were taking place in Toronto alone that would probably have made for boring television. Far better to have a quick hit and get on to the next item. So the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration had helped them out, with a nudge and a wink. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.