Roundup: Trying to falsely blame CTV

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At his media availability yesterday, Pierre Poilievre was asked if it was responsible for him to declare the explosion on the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls to be “terrorism” before anything was confirmed. And what did Poilievre do? True to form, he attacked the Canadian Press reporter asking the question (including lying about the substance of the corrections that a recent CP story made to a story about comments he had made), then lied about why he said “terrorism.” Poilievre claimed this was from CTV reports, and tried to get the CP reporter to try and denounce CTV. The problem was that CTV didn’t publish anything before Poilievre began his questions in QP. And what we do know is that Fox News was definitively calling it terrorism, as were several disinformation merchants who pose as journalists over Twitter. But rather than admit that these were his sources, Poilievre lied, continued to lie, and then post the video of him attacking the CP reporter to his followers, because right-wing populism has a huge hard-on/wide-on for putting people in their place (particularly if they’re vulnerable minorities or someone they suffer no repercussions for attacking, like media).

And then things got stupid online, as Poilievre’s fans and apologists kept trying to “prove” that CTV was still the source, really, relying on screenshots that came from a different time zone. And at least two MPs shared these screenshots before they were called out and deleted them.

I will say that between these lies, and the ones he has been telling about the Canada-Ukraine trade deal legislation, it seems to finally shaking up some legacy media outlets to actually start calling him out on them. Somewhat. Some outlets are still egregiously both-sidesing the lies, as they always do, but you had Power & Politics host David Cochrane finally interjecting in places saying “That wasn’t true,” or walking through the timeline of lies in the case of yesterday’s attempt to blame CTV. It’s not nearly enough, but it is a start, but we’ll see how long it can actually last.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A daytime cluster bomb attack in a suburb of Kherson in the south killed three people. Ukraine’s farmers are hoping that the Black Sea trade corridor will help them get exports to market so that they can survive.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1727681997076644088

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau hosted top EU leaders in St. John’s to talk hydrogen, and announce a research fund, as well as a plan to build water bombers to ship to Europe.
  • Bill Blair insists he’s going to ensure that any budget cuts at National Defence won’t impact readiness, but they may already be too late in that regard.
  • The fiscal update provided clearer timelines around when we’ll see the rules for clean energy tax credits.
  • The owners of the Stellantis plant in Windsor have once again clarified that there will be some temporary foreign workers to assemble and instal special equipment.
  • Now that there is a guilty verdict in the Cameron Ortis trial, allegations from the bail hearings that didn’t make it to the trial are now being released.
  • Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada hopes that support isn’t slipping given the way the Conservatives have voted against the trade agreement implementation.
  • Aid groups say that the federal government isn’t moving fast enough with the permits to allow them to deliver aid to Afghanistan now that it’s legal to do so.
  • Conservative senator Don Plett apologised for “losing his cool” in his screaming in the faces of two senators who adjourned debate on Bill C-234 two weeks ago.
  • Pierre Poilievre says he’s not proposing to take Canada out of the Paris Accord, but he also has no plan to actually meet those targets (which sounds like Harper).
  • No matter how many times it gets debunked, the Conservatives continue to lie about the Canada-Ukraine trade deal “imposing” a carbon price, which it does not.
  • Alberta’s energy regulator says it won’t reconsider its decision to allow an oilsands mine to expand into an ecologically sensitive wetland.
  • It looks like Preston Manning cribbed a lot of his COVID report on a previous fictional accounting of such a report, because of course he did.
  • Glen McGregor explains his reporting on the prime minister’s time off (but ignores how the story was framed, which was the real problem with it).

Odds and ends:

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