In the name of banning ‘fake news,’ the government is infringing on free speech
OAKVILLE, ONT.—With all the furore that’s surrounding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s blackface scandal, it’d be easy to miss an important news item that came out recently. But I didn’t miss it, because this particular news item happened to touch on a subject of keen interest to me: the right to free election speech. So what […]
Liberal, Conservative campaigns ‘at war,’ Scheer ‘vigorously swinging to land a punch’ on Trudeau: pollster
The Liberal and Conservative campaign teams are “at war” trying to unsettle each other, and the possible minority Parliament that could result could be dysfunctional, carrying “significant instability,” says a high-profile pollster. “The war rooms are at war with each other,” said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist and founder of Nanos Research. “If it’s a […]
On the road again: many media organizations taking ‘flexible’ approach to party leader tour coverage
As the party leaders kicked off their national campaigns last week, The Hill Times took a look at which media organizations are joining them on their buses and planes, and what sort of planning goes into coverage of leader tours in a 40-day sprint toward election day on Oct. 21. The Globe and Mail parliamentary […]
Globe appears to be on campaign to keep SNC-Lavalin story alive
OTTAWA—The Justin Trudeau campaign plane being hit by the media bus could be a metaphor for his campaign. Or not. It depends on the success of what appears to be a campaign by The Globe and Mail to keep the SNC-Lavalin story on the front page. The first two official days of the race have been dominated […]
True, Patriot Act love was a glorious demo of what a free press could be
OTTAWA—Traditional media needs to get its act together for the upcoming election. This has never been more apparent than last week, when Canadians found themselves enamoured with Netflix’s breakout political show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and its report on Canada, complete with an interview with the prime minister. Patriot Act is a half-hour political […]
Military was too slow to act after finding hate group recruiter in its ranks
OTTAWA—The saga of Master Cpl. Patrik Mathews continues to be a puzzler, with a plethora of unanswered questions. What we do know for sure is that Mathews joined the Canadian Army reserves eight years ago as a combat engineer. He was promoted twice to his current rank, and received training in the usual combat engineer […]
Mike Pompeo to visit Trudeau, Freeland in Ottawa on Aug. 22; Venezuela, China will be on agenda
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is coming to Ottawa on Aug. 22 to visit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to talk Venezuela and China. Mr. Pompeo is the latest member of the Trump administration to visit Ottawa since Vice-President Mike Pence visited the nation’s capital on May 30. Since […]
Beware the Twitter Sapiens
Maybe it’s just me, but I think the nature of humanity is being dramatically altered by Twitter. As a matter of fact, I’d say people who spend too much time on this particular social media platform face the risk of being transformed into what I call “Twitter sapiens.” And this is not a good thing […]
Media struggles to separate politics from climate story, hurting coverage, say experts
Many reporters are struggling to disentangle politics from the facts around climate change in their coverage, compromising their ability to serve in the public interest, say veteran journalists. The politicization of climate change is “making journalists hesitant to cover this issue as aggressively as they should,” said Sean Holman, journalism professor at Mount Royal University […]
Downloading ideology works efficiently in banana republics, juntas, and dictatorships, but not so well in democracies, as the Conservatives should have learned in 2015
HALIFAX—Like death and taxes, I suppose it was inevitable. In not so subtle fashion, the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is trying its best to suggest that the media is the enemy of the people. Certainly of conservatism. An important message in an election cycle—and a derivative one. Like Donald Trump, whose constant whine is […]
