Carney's "won't you be my neighbour" approach to Trump draws praise from media elites, eye-rolling from others
Plus! CTV News is starting to take heat for its bias and is making strange choices for expert opinion
There was a lot of media buzz regarding Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to dump his promised “Elbows Up” approach in favour of presenting himself to US President Donald Trump as a humble, neighbourly bureaucrat.
A column entitled “Carney did what voters wanted him to do: Be the adult in the room” by the Globe and Mail’s Robyn Urback was, I thought, a fair reflection of the consensus opinion among the legacy/mainstream media elite regarding the prime minister’s first formal visit to Washington. The National Post’s Tristin Hopper offered what I would call a stirring minority opinion and there were a number of comments on social media to the effect that, had Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre been as mild-mannered as Carney in dealing with The Donald, that same gang would not have been as generous with its assessment. Matt Gurney of The Line reinforced that view, which Alex Zoltan of True North epitomized with a post on Twitter/X that went like this:
CARNEY to TRUMP: "You're a transformational president, sir."
TRUMP to CARNEY: "Never say never to the 51st state. Oh and by the way, tariffs still on—because we don't want your cars, your steel or anything else."
CANADIAN MSM: "Magnificent performance by Prime Minister Carney."
Me? Carney’s cynically supplicant approach may well have been the wisest given that the rotting reputational corpse of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky still hangs in the Oval Office as a warning to all others who dare enter there. But it was certainly not the “Elbows Up” tough guy performance he recently promised the electorate. Indeed, in my mind, the PM came across a lot more like Mr. Rogers than he did as the Captain Canada crusader many panicked, Liberal-voting boomers were convinced was coming. Institutional media coverage - and I’m using a sweeping generalization here - leaned more to applause than skepticism. Maybe this was because, beyond the exchange of compliments between leaders, there was virtually nothing to report on other than “Leaders meet, behave politely.”
I expect I would feel the same way had Poilievre been the Canadian leader on hand, but I must confess some relief that, after nine years of Justin Trudeau, someone resembling a grownup was representing the country. Saying nerdy things like “the incentives have to be in alignment” sounds a heckuva lot better than talking about building the economy “from the heart out” even if the new age, net zero agenda - as so far appears to be the case - remains unchanged.
Some of this was the subject of discussion on the Full Press podcast last week where we talked about whether the Conservatives need to rethink their strategy regarding media. I try not to give political advice: The Rewrite is about journalism. So, as I mentioned in the podcast, while the Conservatives may indeed wish to revisit their media strategy, this might also be a good time for media to ponder doing something similar when it comes to their approach towards covering Conservatives and, more importantly, their supporters, who distrust them deeply and are abandoning them.
Canada has slipped seven spots so that it now ranks 21st in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index. Also of concern in the annual report is “For the first time, over half the world’s population lives in countries classified as “difficult” or “very serious” for press freedom, and the situation is worsening in all regions except a few EU states.”
We don’t talk about CTV News enough here and, for one reason or another, it doesn’t seem to inspire the same level of outrage as the CBC. Perhaps that’s because people don’t see it as taxpayer-funded.
One of its reporters, Judy Trinh, is at risk of becoming the new Rachel Gilmore when it comes to being the poster child for bias. You may recall that she was the one who, during the election, was so outraged by the Conservatives’ unwillingness to take her questions that she was desperately shouting (once again) the Liberal talking point “why don’t you get your security clearance?” at Poilievre from the pen she was confined to. This week, she fanned the flames with a report on how much it would cost taxpayers for a byelection so Poilievre can regain the seat he lost in the election. Conservative Senate staffer Jacqui Budden posted that “Hand to god, if @judyatrinh did a story/posed this question regarding the St. Paul’s byelection after Carolyn Bennett was consoled with a diplomatic post, I will take her for a lovely steak dinner and eat my words.”
The National Post’s Jamie Sarkonak also weighed in with a sarcastic “The Carney deficit is slated to be bigger than the Trudeau deficit, but what really matters here is the cost of a byelection.”
There is nothing wrong with Trinh doing a story on the cost of the byelection. Budden’s comment and Sarkonak’s correction are, however, sound reminders to journalists that they are judged not only by the stories they do, but also on the stories they choose not to do. No steak for Judy.
While on the topic of CTV, I couldn’t help but notice the rather odd selection of economists that CTV Edmonton chose when it was building a story on Alberta as an independent nation.
It found Moshe Lander at Concordia University to say “The idea that Alberta could go it alone is a complete nonstarter. It cannot be economically viable.”
There are a lot of arguments to be made concerning Alberta independence but its economy isn’t typically one of them. So it was surprising that the reporter accepted Lander’s assessment at face value and didn’t wonder how he could reach that conclusion given that Alberta, with 11 percent of the nation’s population, is responsible for 15 percent of its gross domestic product? And why go to Concordia when Trevor Tombe is right there at the University of Calgary and might have said something similar?
Yes, indeed, we need to keep an eye on CTV News.
Thanks to my friends at The Line, The Hub and Troy Media for publishing my thoughts on this, this and that last week.
(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)
I heard that twaddle with Moshe Lander, not sure why CTV didn’t just get Butts instead.
If Alberta were to separate, BC would be separated from the rest of canada and the rest of canada would lose access to BC and the pacific
So everyone would negotiate access.
If Canada falls apart, and I still hope it doesn’t, it’s very likely that most of BC joins with AB and SK, leaving a rump city state in vancouver that will have to ask nicely if it wants electricity and water from the new entity.
The clarity act was very clear that its region by region because the threat was the Quebec corridor along the st Laurence would lose the hydro assets up north
Applies everywhere.
And yes, it will come down to whether net zero fanatic Carney has learned anything because it’s those fantasies that will break the country, not smith.
In the 2015 election, I turned on the tv at 6:30 pm which was on CTV. I'd forgotten there was an election and was about to turn the channel, when the on air reporter was interviewing former premier Danny "the bankrupter" Williams. She gave him the microphone and allowed him to spew two uninterrupted minutes of vitriol towards Harper and the Conservatives. I waited for her to follow with an opposing view, which unsurprisingly, didn't come. Polls were still open.
This is the same organization who demanded they allowed to own all media in Canada, then got their way and are now demanding taxpayers pay for their incompetence.
This is also the same organization whose president (Kevin Krull) stepped into the newsroom to interfere in an unfavorable news story regarding Bell. What surprises me the most is that the liberals, despite an entire news media promoting their agenda, they weren't able to gain a majority. DEFUND CTV...