Journos can tally up the questions but why can't they ask the Big Ones like who are these guys and how will they keep the West from leaving? Or do they care?
Plus! If Carney doubles the CBC’s funding and allows it to sell advertising, he might as well "line the country’s private broadcasters and newspaper publishers up against the wall and open fire"
During this election campaign, we’ve had occasion to wonder why the nation’s media, at a time when we really need them to step up, have failed to ask certain questions.
Yes, David Akin of Global News, amplified by Justin Ling in the Toronto Star, was able to find the time to count the number of questions from reporters and Ling took time to write about those numbers. Liberal leader Mark Carney answered - or at least responded to - 100 questions while Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre handled less than half of that. Apparently that stat stands for itself as something and while it probably concerned a number of fretful journalists about something, it means absolutely nothing unless we know the nature of the questions.
Not to be too cynical, but Carney has been holding prime ministerial news conferences on tariffs issues, for instance, which may account for part of the imbalance. But even if it doesn’t, the number of inquiries and replies are of no relevance at all if the questions are mostly the Toronto Sun asking Poilievre “why are you so awesome?” and the Toronto Star asking Carney “how come you’re so smart?” In other words, it’s the substance that matters. What people really want to know is how many original questions of depth get asked and are actually answered and are they generated by reporters or their editors?
Me? As I asked a couple of weeks ago, I still want to know who the Eurasia Group (where Carney’s wife works) is. And I don’t understand why no one in media wants to know why a foreign company donated an employee - Evan Solomon - to run as a candidate in Toronto and its vice-chairman, Gerald Butts, came to be Carney’s right hand man. (Hey, wait, isn’t he the same guy who played the role of Justin Trudeau’s brain for a few years and drove Ontario’s finances into the ground?) But I’ve pretty much given up on the idea that anyone will wonder just how much influence a company based in New York will have inside the government of Canada. Surely if titles such National Observer (regularly a leading recipient of federal Local Journalism Initiative funds) can tie Poilievre, suspiciously, to a global network involving the likes of public intellectuals such as Jordan Peterson, a Canadian, they might be similarly inclined to look into stories such as this to prove they are not influenced by their dependence on federal funding.
I was going to query why no one thought it was a thing that, despite the carbon tax being reduced to zero, government cheques would be issued to about 13 million people just before voting starts. But then the Globe and Mail - hats off - reported on it, quoting an economist saying it makes zero economic sense and asking Carney to explain. The Globe was also on this story right out of the gate, wondering in a March 25 editorial why Carney’s first act was to blow “a nearly $4-billion hole in the federal budget.” I am not sure if anyone else did but I do know the CBC mentioned it. Maybe sending free money (hint, hint) to people just before a vote is no longer controversial in modern Canada. Maybe it isn’t. Who knows at this stage?
Which brings us to a question posed by Marco Navarro-Genie of the Haultain Research Institute.
Now there’s something worth counting. Yes indeed, the item Trudeau (remember him?) was so determined to hide that he allowed his government to grind to a halt last fall. It must be a pretty big dirty little secret. Don’t you think? Or maybe not. But hello, hello Canadian journos - are you there? - how the actual did that one just fall off the table? One hundred questions asked, we’re told (and OMG Poilievre!) but this wasn’t one of them? If it was, someone please point me to it. Nor, for that matter, has anyone asked Carney or Poilievre if they will defend freedom of speech - something the Trudeau government was pretty iffy about in its obsession with “misinformation and disinformation.”
Here’s yet another issue that, while there’s been no shortage of smug from the nation’s leading illuminatae, deserves some more serious examination than the skyward thrust of a Hogtown proboscis.
Yup, according to this poll by Angus Reid, one in three Saskatchewanians are ready to collect their potash, pulse crops, uranium, canola, diamonds, combines and other valuables and loudly (cue Colter Wall) declare “no eastern boy’s gonna twist my arm” if the Liberals win the election. In Alberta, separatist sentiment numbers are getting up there, equivalent to Quebec but not as high as Sasky. Yes, I know Preston Manning - who knows a thing or two about political Prairie fires - warned of this and Carney dismissed that warning as “not helpful” (what’s not helpful in a warning?) but, seriously, this storyline demands to be among the questions asked of not just Poilievre and Carney but all parties. In every province, separatist sentiment goes up with a Liberal win. No doubt many Liberals would dismiss this as “just” grumbling Tories and Bloquistes but, so what? If they want to break up the country, they want to break it up. And while the numbers as they stand aren’t dominant, what Quebec separatists used to call “winning conditions” can evolve quickly. If the gas is in the air, all it takes is the right person to light a match. Manning knows that.
Normally, national unity is a topic covered in elections; just not this one, it seems. Doug Ford, after all, is on side and, well, who cares if the oil and canola people want to leave: they don’t think right anyway. That’s certainly the impression one gets listening to members of CBC’s At Issue panel
Little wonder their ratings in the nation’s hinterlands are so poor.
Last week, the issue of funding for the CBC made election news when Carney declared his determination to not only pump another $150 million into it immediately upon his election but also to, eventually, double its funding and allow it to continue to operate as a commercial enterprise by selling advertising.
As I noted in this analysis for The Hub, “The truly frightening part is that if Carney doubles the CBC’s funding and allows it to continue to sell advertising, he might as well line the country’s private sector broadcasters and newspaper publishers up against the wall and open fire.”
There will be more to come on that, but in the meantime, credit to the CBC’s Brodie Fenlon who acknowledged in a response to that news that “There is an obvious challenge and inherent conflict of interest in covering ourselves and our public funding.”
Now, if only the other news organizations suspected of being dependent upon a Liberal victory for the continuation of their access to the benefits of the treasury would do the same, trust could begin to be restored to that industry. It needs it. And so do the rest of us.
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(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.)
Peter: Canadians would benefit from more journalists who ask tough questions. My friend Veronic teaches journalism in Windsor and studiously imparts to these young minds never to lose their balance and be swayed by the dollar, for then you have corrupted yourself and the profession. I always enjoy your articles. Keep up the great work.
Great article that reminds us that it doesn’t matter how many questions get asked if answers aren’t provided. Bob and weave and blame everything on someone else rules and reporters put up with it.
I think a very underreported story is having a “caretaker government” passing out free money, no conditions attached, right in the midst of an election campaign. Carney tried to justify the carbon tax rebate as a “bridge” to help needy families to get by for a few weeks until better plans come forth after the election.
It’s blatant vote buying, because the carbon tax rebates were paid in ADVANCE of the fiscal quarter of taxation. With the tax rescinded, there is nothing to rebate.
Try harder reporters. I can see Democracy Watch or some other organization taking the government to court for abusing their limited spending powers during an election.