Gloves are off, elbows are up, media cross swords and accusations of shilling for the Liberals fly
Grits grabbing Globe and CBC content for attack ads supporting Carney's "positive" campaign while CTV Ottawa drops all pretence of journalism as anything other than a circus sideshow
The fact that most of Canada’s news organizations are reliant on government subsidies was always going to be awkward for those covering this election.
And it didn’t take long before it got ugly.
On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail published a story based on a single, unnamed source. It resurrected concerns by CSIS that agents for the government of India tried to get involved in the 2022 Conservative leadership race. Then, that afternoon, as Conservative activist Brad Tennant pointed out, the Globe posted a column by Marsha Lederman entitled “(Liberal leader) Mark Carney embraces the power of positive campaigning.” Dreamy if you are a Liberal. But an awkward combination if you’re trying to retain a reputation for fairness.
Carson Jerema of the National Post sure didn’t like it. Firing up the afterburners on his laptop, he excoriated the Globe’s original report with a fierce rebuttal “Globe’s India story smears (Conservative leader Pierre) Poilievre with Carney talking points.”
The story, Jerema wrote, “contains almost no new information, at best 100 new words out of 1,100. Delivered on the third day of the election campaign, and laced with Liberal talking points about Poilievre’s “security clearance,” nothing about it smells right.”
The fact the Globe’s sole defence against the Post’s accusations was an unnamed person identified only as someone with “top-secret clearance” presented a pretty fat pitch for Jerema. So he swung for the fences.
“That means it could have been someone from CSIS, but it could have also been a member of the cross-party national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians, or it could have been a member of the Prime Minister’s Office, or it could have been a cabinet minister with the requisite clearance, or even the prime minister. It reads like a planted story, released for maximum political benefit for Mark Carney’s Liberals.”
Making matters more awkward, the Liberals then took the Globe’s story and used it as a campaign stick to beat on Poilievre. They repeated their months-old attack on his refusal to get security clearance for top secret briefings (which he insists would muzzle him).
When Poilievre, whose position has been supported by a previous Opposition leader, Thomas Mulcair, and others tried to point out that as a former cabinet minister he had previously passed security muster, a stern Janyce McGregor of the CBC weighed in with a fact-check on Poilievre that the Liberals also weaponized against the Conservative leader. (Who has vowed to defund the CBC, which in a previous campaign sued the Conservatives for using their material for partisan purposes, just as the Liberals are using it now.)
The Globe, the Post and the CBC are all beneficiaries of government support. So while one can point to Jerema’s efforts as inconsistent with public suspicions media are all in for Carney, that’s unlikely to satisfy Conservatives.
Their belief that the CBC is dedicated to their demise wasn’t at all alleviated when a much happier-looking McGregor took a full four minutes to debunk a story broken by her French-speaking colleagues concerning Carney’s use, while at Brookfield Asset Management, of Bermuda as a tax haven. McGregor was careful to explain to the unsophisticated that Carney was very wise and his use of these havens was beneficial to middle class people. And she used a phrase I hadn’t heard before from a CBC reporter when she referred to “the populist left” which I took as a synonym for the working class and union workers.
I don’t know if or for how long the Globe sat on that story. I do know that reporters and editors have been known to save them up for major events like elections when they can have more impact. Take that for what you will, let’s just say the Liberal’s use of reporters’ work to fashion attack ads, while always awkward, just gets real messy when government funding is on the line. Super messy. Oh, and I rather expect that Lederman’s optimism concerning Carney’s “embrace of the power of positive campaigning” may have been misplaced.
A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it? The most bizarre media move of the campaign so far is CTV Morning Live Ottawa’s decision to hire online personality and activist Rachel Gilmore as a fact-checker. I was interviewed by her back before she was let go as an online reporter for Global News and she seemed pleasant enough. But I will admit I muted her on X/Twitter because it was hard to watch what seemed to me to be her descent into a dark world obsessed with left-wing conspiracy theories and self-promotion (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Plus, she certainly didn’t hesitate to display bias against anyone to the right of Justin Trudeau.
Nevertheless, her performances built a huge social media following, particularly on TikTok where I think her numbers qualify her as an “influencer” and that’s where a lot of young people get their “news.” My spies tell me that’s why the crew at CTV Morning Live Ottawa hired her. They think she’s a hot ticket and will drive ratings.
If that’s the case, their move further debases journalism as some sort of circus act and I pray Bellmedia did not use money from the $100 million Google fund the Liberals created for media (the cheques came out just before the election) to make the hire. All that is missing from this cabaret, one seasoned veteran suggested, is the addition of a right wing internet personality such as Keean Bexte for “balance” and all of a sudden I can’t get that Stealers Wheel tune out of my head:
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers the right ……”
As for Gilmore’s fact-checking, it wasn’t off to a great start, She was fact-checked pretty quickly on X when it was pointed out to her that “Uh, Rachel, the House never sat after (John) Turner won leadership on 16 June 1984. Parliament was dissolved July 9 and the election was in September.”
Enough said.
Watch for more commentary on the media’s election performance in the weeks ahead. Please tell your friends and click the subscribe button. Don’t be afraid to hit the paid part as I’m hoping to be able to throw a little loot into the pockets of other writers so I don’t have to perform this Sisyphean task alone. And make sure you check out this week’s Full Press podcast:
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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 and a former vice chair of the CRTC)
https://open.substack.com/pub/jamesroguski/p/reject-the-treaty
We are in a broad age of manufactured reality. The actual tensions of globalism vs nationalism is not sufficiently exposed. Above is a post about the WHO Pandemic Treaty. I don't think anyone has covered it, in depth or otherwise, and certainly no one in government paid media. The omission is more important than the news they do cover.
Bill C293 is an area I extensively researched. The liberal and NDP voted for expropriation of land, for elimination of meat agriculture (phasing out live animal markets) and for carte blanch authority through the WHO on the entire governance of Canada and setting up a permanent emergency act. No serious reporting ever reviewed that act, the consequences to Canada. Here is one of my podcasts on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m5iz3MtW30
When Carney says he wants Emergency Powers to run Canada to put through green or energy people ought to look what Bill 293 was and represents. It was at the senate 2nd reading.
Who understands National Focal Points and how they work. Emergency powers to a Prime Minister? That should frighten every voter in the nation. Yet that seems to have skated by.
Who is looking and Programmable Digital Currency which Christine Laguarde has proposed for the EU by October 25, 2025. What is a Central Banker good for if not imposing this?
How about speech and the idea of speech committees through the work place, professional bodies deciding almost universally to side along global v national lines. Big disease Big Climate Big Gender and the global governances are the things you cannot discuss yet are moving top down, globally with governing structures. Yet none of the changes are examined comprehensively.
globalcovenantofmayors.org
Here is a dissection of c40 cities I did using Toronto as an example.
https://rumble.com/v2yhak4-climate-crisis-curtailing-your-freedoms-c40-smart-15-minute-cities.html
the structure of the pandemic treaty, bill c293, and c40 all have the same themes: 0kg of meat or dairy (yes); mandatory de-growth and total control of countries, and populations,
Immigration is a massive hot topic. Yet no one found the IOM or the UN Migration Compact which requires steady unending migration into oecd countries where migrants are provided housing food and jobs and digital biometric id.
I determined that most things we are observing and at issue can be sourced through examination of the tension of globalism v nationalism. Yet where is that examination in the media or of Carney? We are in a structuralized take-over by globalist power structures embedded through national focal points of either the UN or the WHO.
If I found all this just with an innate curiosity looking at legislation and treaties and bilateral and multilateral agreements and NGO activities then how come media hasn't shown any interest.
What about that changes to municipalities are coming in at speed that set up a smart city, a cognitive city and utilize the bills passed like c11 and c18
The press does talk. it seems the crises are what they discuss. But what they miss means we have a population that is massively illiterate on globalism and how to parse our world.
There is just such a phenomenal amount of changes to power, to governance, to how we will live that is being structured within legislation that never gets a real examination.
So we have a very funded media dancing the topics along, and filing our lives with non-analysis.
I am an "influencer" possibly on the Right. My hope for the right and conservatism is that within it are the people aware of these tensions and understand the threat a global totalitarian state that approaches China (hey what about Carney and the digital yuan and his funding of Brookfield through the ccp bank). Social credit is not easily wrestled off. It comes with digital programmable currency and digital id and a bloated state set up through known online and known in the real world (smart city).
Unless we have a population educated in what the consequences of globalism, how can we evaluate what Carney represents or possibly push back on elements that are dangerous for auto determination.
Every leader that is a threat to the globalist vision for humanity is attacked by media and through power structures that side-check them.
The soft glove treatment to a man dropped into Canada and who helped generate the decade of decline we are witnessing is appalling.
Peter, thank you for your thought-provoking and timely commentary. Your article highlights the tension between journalism and political influence during this election season, and I appreciate your candid, balanced approach.
You shed light on the challenges media organizations face when they rely on government funding while trying to maintain editorial independence. The example of the Globe’s dual pieces—one potentially damaging to Poilievre and the other casting Carney in a flattering light—illustrates how easily timing and tone can be perceived as partisan, especially during such a critical time. Your coverage of Carson Jerema’s response added valuable perspective, showing that internal media debate is alive and well and that accountability within journalism is still possible.
Your remarks on Rachel Gilmore’s new role at CTV Ottawa were also humorous and insightful. It’s clear that media outlets are wrestling with connecting with younger audiences, but as you point out, that shouldn't come at the cost of journalistic integrity. Your Stealers Wheel reference brought a smile—perfectly capturing the current media circus.
In a climate where polarization can cloud facts and optics matter more than substance, your article offers a necessary call for critical thinking and transparency. Even if readers may differ politically, your voice reminds us that the media’s role is too important to be reduced to campaign fuel or clickbait content.
Thanks again for continuing to speak with clarity and courage.