Canada is now entering into a volatile election year. This is reflected in the tense, angry exchanges in the House of Commons as MPs shift their foothold so as to gain the best advantage to hurl their spears into the opposing camp. This is also reflected in the mainstream media gearing up for the election, manipulating the public by painting an unpleasant picture of Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre. For example, on September 26, 2024, Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt, wrote a column entitled, “Pierre Poilievre acts as if there’s power in being unlikeable. It’s not a good look”. During the course of her column, Ms. Delacourt characterized Mr. Poilievre as “mean”, “unlikeable”, “vindictive”, and generally unpleasant. Mr. Poilievre’s sin is that he is not nice to Justin Trudeau in his position as the leader of the official opposition. Ms Delacourt’s bias is not surprising given the fact that she was appointed as a Trudeau Mentor by the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation for 2016, and whose husband, Don Lenihan, has been a policy advisor for the Liberal government and is an expert in DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).
During the same week of Delacourt’s column, CTV News presented a newsclip of Mr. Poilievre from comments taped during a scrum with reporters. CTV News spliced together his words in a way that gave the impression that Poilievre was introducing a non-confidence motion — which would bring on an early election — because he wants to do away with the Liberal government’s fledgling dental care program. In the actual scrum Poilievre had said: “That’s why it’s time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election.” When broadcasted, however, before Poilievre was heard, the CTV reporter commented that there are “questions” about dental care’s “future” with the non-confidence motion. Right after that, Poilievre can be heard saying: “That’s why we need to put forward a motion.” This editing clearly suggests that Mr. Poilievre’s non-confidence motion was about the dental care plan. The Liberal’s dental care plan, however, never came up in the scrum interview on the non-confidence motion.
An enraged Conservative staffer wrote to CTV News for an apology. CTV News finally apologized for the ‘mistake’, blaming it on a “misunderstanding in the editorial process”.
Further examples of media bias and twisting of facts are numerous, for example, Don Urquhart, Editor of the South Okanagan’s Times Chronicle, interviewing Mr. Poilievre alleging that Mr. Poilievre was a “populist” like Donald Trump and was following Trump’s playbook. When Poilievre pressed the reporter to explain what he meant by this, the reporter could not do so.
Another example occurred in April 2024 when Mr. Poilievre stopped to speak to a group demonstrating against Trudeau’s carbon tax on the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia boarder: The Toronto Star and CBC painted this brief encounter as an endorsement of an unknown and unsubstantiated “far-right” organization, Diagolon, because one of the vehicles used by the group had a small flag symbol of unknown origin, which the media purported was the organization’s flag. Such an “endorsement” is highly unlikely as the media seems to have forgotten that in 2022, Mr. Poilievre called out Diagolon members as “losers” and “dirtbags” after they suggested on a podcast to rape his wife, Anaida Poilievre.
The election coverage can be expected to become even uglier since half the journalists will be doing so with the knowledge that Mr. Poilievre may very well end their employment by defunding the CBC, while the other half worry about their jobs should the Conservative government cut off the subsidies taxpayers now provide to mainstream newspapers, and their individual journalists.
Currently, the CBC receives $1.4 billion annually from the Canadian taxpayer. The CEO of the CBC, Catherine Tait, is paid a base salary ranging between $468,900 and $551,600 plus bonus entitlement of between 7% and 28% of her base salary. Despite the generosity of taxpayer funding, in December of 2023, the CBC laid off 600 low-level employees because of financial problems. Those “financial problems”, however, did not prevent the CBC from paying out $18.4 million in bonuses for the fiscal year 2023-24 to 1,194 employees. More than $3.3 million of the $18.4 million was paid to 45 executives—that’s an average bonus of over $73,000 per executive. More than $10.4 million was paid out to 631 managers and over $4.6 million was paid to 518 other employees. The 2023-24 fiscal year payout is not a “one-off” event. In the 2022-23 fiscal year, $14.9 million was paid out to 1,143 employees.
CTV privately owned, a division of Bell Media, a subsidiary of BCE, also receives taxpayer money through program funding, licenses, and market protection as well as The Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canada Media Fund.
One does not have to like Mr. Poilievre or support his policies to believe that he should be treated fairly and objectively by the media by way of an unbiased reporting of the facts, rather than by an interpretation of an event by a journalist. It seems, however, that Canadians are not going to be provided with unbiased reporting during the election year. We will be on a rollercoaster based on accusations, distortions and manipulations all aimed at furthering a preferred narrative that sees Trudeau and the Liberals returned to power. Therefore, we must assess carefully anything we read or view on the mainstream media.
Unfortunately, this disturbing situation may continue right up to election day October 27, 2025, because it is unlikely that a non-confidence vote will be successful against Trudeau before then. Despite NDP leader Jagmeet Singh removing the Supply and Confidence Agreement to support the Liberal government, he will likely use any pretext to support the Liberals—after all Singh appears more concerned about the health of his MP pension than he does the health of the country. MP’s pensions don’t start until they have served in two parliaments. Mr. Singh’s pension will not take effect until the end of October 2025 (election day). Quite apart from his own personal financial interests in supporting Trudeau, with the NDP at only 17% in the polls, if an election were held today, it would win only 15 seats, down from its current 25. Therefore, the NDP will likely delay an election in the hope that Trudeau will grow even more unpopular so that the “soft” Liberal vote will go their way. Also, money is always an issue in an election. According to the federal parties’ most recent financial statements, as of December 31, 2023, the Conservatives have $10 million in unrestricted funds, the Liberals $2.1 million, and the NDP $1.6 million.
Based on this, it seems that Canadians will be enduring long months of unsettled, discomforting manipulation under the guise of “news analysis.” Politics, however, is always full of the unexpected with many twists and turns. The current situation might change, but we shouldn’t count on it.