Roundup: The optics ouroboros

Posted on by

So, that big CBC/Radio-Canada “scoop” that dominated the news yesterday about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation. Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I figured I would make a few remarks, because there were some very obvious things about it that were just being shrugged off, or actively ignored by some of my fellow journalists. To begin with, there is not a lot of substance to the story. It’s some typical cheap outrage—how dare the prime minister go on a luxury vacation on taxpayer dollars when there are people struggling in Canada—mixed with a specious connection that doesn’t mean anything in substance, but which looks bad when you make it sound sinister in order to fit it in with the current nonsense around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Fit those two in a particular frame that makes it sound salacious, and you have the makings of a story that dominates Question Period. Congratulations! You’ve set the agenda for the day, you can pat yourselves on the back to your heart’s content.

But the whole connection to the Foundation is a construction that implies a relationship that doesn’t exist. Yes, the Trudeau and Green families have been friends for 50 years, but the donation to the Foundation was a bequest after the death of one of the Green family members, and it was done two years ago, which was eight years after Trudeau stepped away from any involvement in the Foundation. Implying that there was something untoward about the donation and then vacationing with Trudeau—who has been family friends his entire life—is simply scandal-mongering. And this gets justified with the pearl-clutching about “optics!” But you’re the one creating the optics with the distorted framing of the situation, so you’re literally inventing a mess that doesn’t actually exist, so that you can report on the invented mess, and then report on the follow-up reactions from other political leaders who will tut about “optics.” Which you created in the first place with your framing, like some kind of ouroboros. Very convenient, that.

None of this is to say that Trudeau shouldn’t know better than to take these kinds of trips, because he knows full well that there is an intrinsic culture of petty and mean cheapness in Canadian media, and that his opponents will take full advantage of it. And lo, the story also quotes unnamed Liberal Sources™ who are once again shocked and dismayed that the prime minister once again did something with poor optics, because that’s who he is. And Trudeau then made it worse, as pointed out in my QP recap, by not answering about the gift of the accommodations, which just perpetuates the story rather than cutting it off at the start. “Yes, I accepted the gift of the accommodations. Yes, the Ethics Commissioner cleared it. Yes, I paid the equivalent commercial rate for the flight.” And it stops their ability to try and stretch this into a scandal. But Trudeau and the people who advise his communications are so tone-deaf that they keep doing this. They keep stepping on every rake in their path, every single gods damned time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the eastern city of Avdiivka, which is facing an advance like Bakhmut, which itself is facing an increase in Russian shelling and air strikes. Ukraine has reached a deal with Poland about grain and other food products transiting that country, but the future of the Black Sea deal remains in doubt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648431809200553985

Good reads:

  • No deal was reached by 9 PM, so the largest public sector union is now on strike. And while they demand the right to remote work, they demand in-person picketing.
  • Mona Fortier is promising an “action plan” to help fix the Access to Information system without legislative changes…in the “coming months.”
  • As I’ve written about elsewhere, the formal changes to the Royal Styles and Titles for King Charles III are contained in the budget implementation bill.
  • A federal document shows, completely unsurprisingly, that the closure of Roxham Road will make enforcement harder and drive more asylum seekers underground.
  • The Canadian women and teenagers who went missing from a Syrian detention camp have made contact and are alleging mistreatment, but we have few details.
  • Here’s a look at the reasons why we currently don’t manufacture infant formula in Canada, and why we’re trying to regain the capacity we gave up.
  • The Auditor General is “assessing” the invitation to audit the Trudeau Foundation. (Spoiler: She has no legislative authority to do so).
  • The National Post has a deeper look into the crumbling state of our official residences, in large part because the NCC can’t get the funding to do the repairs.
  • The CBC and Ontario’s privacy commissioner were at the Supreme Court of Canada to fight for access to Doug Ford’s mandate letters.
  • Bill C-11, which amends the broadcasting act to make streaming services pay into Canadian media funds, is about to pass the Senate as amended.
  • A former national security advisor and Clerk of the Privy Council told the Procedure and House Affairs Committee they were worried with Russian interference in 2019.
  • The Commons transportation committee is recommending tougher changes to the air passenger protection regime (which I’m sure the government will ignore).
  • Jagmeet Singh says he’ll table a bill to raise CEO tax rates based on lowest-paid employees—erm, except he can’t do that, and this is American-made theatre.
  • Kevin Carmichael parses the inflation data and what it is likely to mean for the Bank of Canada’s future calculations.
  • Emmett Macfarlane takes exception to Beverley McLachlin signing onto that political letter accusing the government of “backsliding” on national defence.
  • Stephen Saideman provides some useful context and commentary to that open letter about our national defence and security spending.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks on Poilievre’s desire to break more things as an expression of the grudges he’s nursing.
  • Paul Wells ponders the Poilievre/CBC imbroglio, and plumbs some of the underlying cultural tensions that surround it, which Poilievre his half-assedly tapping into.
  • My column looks at how the government is weaselling out of its promise not to engage in abusive omnibus bills like the Conservatives did.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I look at the merits of automatic criminal record expiries based on a bill in the Senate and an upcoming Supreme Court of Canada case.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.