Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is applauded after speaking during during question period in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
On Wednesday, Pierre Poilievre stood in the House of Commons, noted “media reports about a terrorist attack at the border in Niagara (Falls),” and asked if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had any information he could share. The prime minster did not, to no one’s surprise, the incident having only just occurred.
Later in the afternoon, American officials said they were pretty sure the fiery one-car crash had just been a bizarre accident. And back we all went to finding serious solutions for Canada’s many serious problems.
Ha, ha, no. The Liberals charged that Poilievre had tried to “rile people up” by assuming the incident had been terrorism. That’s very unfancy! The mediaran withthat angle. But furthermore, as a CBC online subheadline put it, Poilievre’s “timeline (was) in question.”
In one of his trademarked Testy Exchanges with Reporters, Poilievre had claimed to get the “reports” of a potential terrorist attack from CTV News. Asked if he thought he had jumped to an irresponsible conclusion, he shot back at the reporter: “Do you think the CTV was irresponsible in putting up that tweet?”
“Biff! Ker-sploosh!” the partisans cheered. Another jumped-up reporter who hadn’t done the homework, exposed as a charlatan!
Ah, but did Poilievre’s alibi stand up? “The timestamp on the (CTV) article indicates that it was published at 2:39 p.m. ET on Wednesday,” CBC reports. “Subsequent tweets from the article’s author and CTV itself were published at 2:40 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. respectively.”
(Keith Morrison-esque pause here for dramatic effect.)
“Poilievre asked his question at 2:25 p.m.”
What could explain it? An excess of chronitons in the subatomic interstices? Could Poilievre be a robot from the extremely recent future?
And why could any of this possibly matter?
Alas for the Parliamentary Press Gallery, it has to matter. It matters, somewhat, because politicians shouldn’t assume incidents are terrorist attacks when they’re not sure. It matters, more, because if a politician fibs about little things, they’ll almost certainly fib about big things
What seemed to matter most to many journalists, however, was how frightfully rude Poilievre had been to the reporter. “I had the privilege of jousting with dozens of prime ministers, premiers and opposition leaders from all parties over 25 years, and I don’t remember one of them acting like this, and certainly not on repeated occasions,” long-time Globe and Mail reporter Les Perreaux, now editor of Policy Options, tweeted. Veteran political columnist Chantal Hébert agreed.
Globe columnist Elizabeth Renzetti marvelled at the “utter condescension and contempt” in Poilievre’s tone of voice.
Poilievre remains a real conundrum for the Ottawa Press Gallery. As I say, if a politician tells a reporter something that seems to be false, then it needs to be checked out. But when political leaders are always bending the truth — which pretty much all of them are — all that checking can make the gallery look petty and obsessed with minutiae. Poilievre and his people know this very well. They bait journalists into looking silly for sport, and most journalists haven’t yet figured out how to deal with it.
In the very unlikely event they would ask me for advice, here’s what I suggest.
First of all, dial down the drama. If you can’t handle being dressed down by Pierre Poilievre, journalism is not the field for you. No disrespect to the man, but “intimidating” is not a word that comes to mind in reference to him. If you’ve done your homework and you ask a good question and he pitches a fit about it, you’ll look good and he’ll look silly.
Secondly, accept that Poilievre sometimes has a point about journalists not doing their homework. He was entirely within his rights to reject the premise of the British Columbia journalist who recently demanded to know why he’s so much like Donald Trump.
And thirdly, consider what I see as a crippling bias in Ottawa toward perceived niceness.
If Poilievre is different than all the leaders who came before him when it comes to dealing with the press, I would argue (as Renzetti suggests) that it’s much more in tone than in substance. But substance is vastly far more important than tone.
Ask me about the most insulting party-leader press conferences and my mind, being of a certain age, goes immediately to Jean Chrétien answering a reporter’s question about the mass pepper-spraying of protesters at the 1995 APEC Summit at the University of British Columbia: “For me, I put pepper on my plate. Next!” (Cue gales of laughter from the assembled reporters.)
My mind also goes to what might be the most famous interview in Canadian political history: Tim Ralfe’s Oct. 13, 1970 encounter with Pierre Trudeau over the invocation of the War Measures Act. Complaining that “men with guns” had been interfering with Ralfe’s reporters, Trudeau asked what Ralfe’s friends had been doing.
“Trying to take pictures of them,” says Ralfe.
“Ahaaaaa,” Trudeau responds, dripping with disdain for Ralfe and all civil libertarians besides.
And my mind goes to a 2017 press conference in an Italian restaurant in Stouffville, Ont., where Justin Trudeau refused a female journalist’s request to speak to embattled then finance minister Bill Morneau, whom everyone was there to talk to. “You’ve got an opportunity to chat with the prime minister,” Trudeau told her, smug as a very weird bug in a rug.
I recall covering the 2019 Liberal election campaign, during which Trudeau would fill an artificially finite amount of daily press-conference time by spending five minutes not answering every question and follow-up question and then … whoops, time was up and off he went, not having said a single goddamn useful thing.
And I recall covering that year’s Conservative campaign, during which Andrew Scheer would take as long as reporters wanted not answering every question and follow-up question.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
