Roundup: A promise to interfere with media

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It was late in the afternoon yesterday that CTV announced that the two-person team responsible for the manufactured quote of Pierre Poilievre “are no longer with CTV News.” The breach of journalistic ethics in manufacturing a quote because you needed it to fit your narrative, despite the fact that the quote you had available wasn’t really useable, makes this understandable, and these are consequences that can happen. I’m less concerned about that as much as I am about the other signals that have been sent, particularly by the Conservatives.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1839452343596720522

The fact that Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri, a former journalist herself, is promising that Poilievre is going to “restore journalistic ethics and integrity” should be lighting up every single alarm around the country because that is a promise to politically interfere in the media and its independence. It’s not enough that they have successfully bullied and intimidated one of the largest media outlets in the country, but they are promising more of this, but they plan to ensure that media falls in line. And then there’s the hypocrisy—that they align themselves with PostMillennial, True North, and The Rebel, all of whom have demonstrated a lack of ethics, or commitment to things like facts. The fact that this is a party that has made outright lying their chief strategy shows exactly why this kind of war with legitimate media outlets is so dangerous for our democracy.

On another note, there were a number of stories yesterday about NDP MP Leah Gazan tabling a bill to make residential school denialism illegal, and that this was done in advance of National Truth and Reconciliation Day. The problem? Not one of the stories from any of the outlets (National Post, CBC or The Canadian Press) bothered to mention that Gazan has already used her private members’ business slot in this parliament for her cockamamie “basic income framework” bill, and it went to down to defeat earlier this week. That means that this bill is going to languish on the Order Paper and never see the light of day. The CP copy did note that “The chances the bill actually will be debated and pass into law are slim without it being adopted as a government bill by the Liberals,” but that obscures the fact that she used her spot, so the whole point of her tabling this legislation is performative.

Parliamentary procedure and rules matter, and if you ignore it, you wind up looking like a fool for spending your dwindling resources covering legislation that will never, ever see the light of day.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russians launched a five-hour aerial attack on Kyiv overnight, again targeting the power grid. There was also shelling of Kherson in the south that killed one, rockets launched against Kharkiv, and more shelling in the Donetsk region that killed three.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau hosted French president Emmanuel Macron in Ottawa followed by Montreal, and they talked trade, climate, Haiti and the Middle East.
  • Trudeau is calling out François Legault for saying things that aren’t true about immigration, and that he’s still waiting for their plan for temporary foreign workers.
  • Canada joined allies in calling for an immediate 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, but it doesn’t sound like Benjamin Netanyahu is amenable.
  • Ginette Petitpas-Taylor says they will work with stakeholders to ensure that veterans attending the Invictus games in 2025 will be insured, unlike past games.
  • The government is looking at ways to enhance the public warning system for foreign interference in an election, but it remains a tricky issue of judgment calls.
  • Documents from Global Affairs’ Rapid Response Mechanism showed that media outlets aligned with the Modi government targeted Trudeau after the Nijjar murder.
  • The government has been slow to roll out NORAD modernisation funding, but that’s to be expected given the scope of such a procurement project.
  • Given the changing global environment post-Ukraine invasion, there are doubts that Canada could even mount a conventional war effort like in WWII.
  • Chief of Defence Staff Jennie Carignan says that there is a training bottleneck in the Canadian Forces that is hampering their ability to recruit new members.
  • NSIRA has found that CSE is relying on unreliable polygraph tests for employees in ways that are likely to violate their Charter rights.
  • An Alberta First Nation says they weren’t consulted on a proposed dam to control water flow in the Bow River that flows through their territory.
  • A BC man has been sentenced to two months of house arrest for a death threat against a Liberal MP.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks that Poilievre seems to be trying to win the next election by being completely unlikeable, which is a bold strategy.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I talk to members of the legal profession about the Manitoba backbencher who was kicked out of caucus because of his law partner’s client.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: A promise to interfere with media”

  1. If you look at the assumptions behind a polygraph, the most likely person to pass the test is a psychopath. Why is our government using this piece of fake crap?

    A ouija board would probably work too.

  2. I for one believe that it is time to legislate how news media in general behave. Many countries like France and Italy have some rules that media must follow in reporting and quoting public officials. I am more than tired of reading and listening to media reports that are either incomplete or manipulated to attract more attention and clicks. Click bait is a tactic employed by the media. It should also be forbidden to have media outlet owned in part or as a whole by foreign entities, as we see now. Not to forget that the majority of people believe what they read without question.

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