Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and of Justice and Attorney General
“Growing subsidies will turn much of Canadian media into a federally-controlled Crown corporation, if not a department of government.”
If you want to catch Pierre Poilievre in any detail, you have to do it early — in his morning media scrums on 24-hour news channels — before the ‘cycle’ takes over, and his points and his audience have been clipped, cropped, and culled.
For years, pundits have paraphrased his words, scarcely showing him actually speak (even while occasionally praising his political prowess.) To get around the media, Poilievre has had to post videos on social. Now, he’s accused of avoiding the media and not properly getting his message out (et tu, Kory Teneycke?)
At his big rally crowds, the thousands of on-site livestreams actually disrupt local cell tower reception. But nothing to see here, say the pundits: “Slogans and crowds” aren’t going to win Poilievre the prize.
You get an eerie sense these days of what it must have been like back in the USSR, at the mercy of Pravda for your daily news — blink-or-you-miss-it coverage of inconvenient truths, mangled quotes of unfavoured people, and plenty of distraction stories for the masses.
Like a true apparatchik, former Liberal Heritage Minister St-Onge complained about the lack of legislative control over free expression. Said she, “Misinformation circulates easier than facts. It’s difficult to talk about pressing issues without being the target of misleading, disrespectful comments.” (Blacklock’s)
So let’s create an Orwellian Ministry of Truth!
The Liberals have vowed to “protect democracy” through federal media subsidies. But according to a recent report by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, “Growing subsidies will turn much of Canadian media into a federally-controlled Crown corporation, if not a department of government.”
Take (subsidized) Postmedia’s silly, new Soviet-sounding editorial goals: “Ambition, pride of country and national service, quality of life, self-determination, and building great communities.” Shouldn’t promoting freedom of speech figure in there somewhere?
Canadians have been reduced to searching out the truth for themselves. They’re “more alert than ever to potential biases in mainstream news, exploring alternative sources, and capable of drawing distinctions between legitimate coverage and disinformation” according to CRTC report, Perceptions of Canadian News.
Good for them. But I’d still bet that the vast majority would be only peripherally aware — if at all — of some recent important developments:
Only one day after a gung-ho Premier Doug Ford attempted to impose a 25% hydro-electricity surcharge to turn off the lights to Great Lakes states, he had to pull in his horns. This, after Trump threatened a “financial price so big, it will be read about in the history books.”
Ford grovelingly apologized (“I’m not out to hurt the American people. I apologize to the governors…”) and called US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick a “very, very smart businessman and shrewd negotiator.”
Most media buried Ford’s electricity flip-flop completely or veiled it in general updates about the broad tariff threat. We couldn’t have “Captain Canada” lose face, now, could we?
Also mysteriously below the radar was last week’s endorsement of Poilievre by Ontario Minister Caroline Mulroney — citing her late father’s support of him — after Ford had banned ministers from making federal endorsements. Given the national, cross-partisan outpouring that followed Brian Mulroney’s death and ongoing interest about where his allegiances might have fallen, you’d think his daughter’s endorsement would have made the evening news.
Only after China executed four Canadians did the media finally wake up and more explicitly acknowledge that Beijing’s 100% canola tariff (25% on seafood exports) was in direct response to Ottawa’s 100% tariff on Chinese electrical vehicles and steel and aluminum.
To the paltry extent that it was reported in the first place, “elbows up” Canadians — many of whom are ideologically in favour of EVs — must have winced that it was Canada, not Public Enemy #1, that was wreaking economic harm.
Sinophile Mark Carney has also been shamefully mute on the issue.
Our only hope out west is that Maritimers, who have more political clout, will speak up loudly enough on seafood (as they did on the Carbon Tax) to force a federal course-correction on EV tariffs.
BC’s Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Act gives Premier Eby’s government sweeping powers to override — without debate in the Legislature — most provincial laws and regulations in order to “support the economy of B.C. and Canada.”
Imagine if a conservative brought that one in!
The Act apparently complements Eby’s recent drive to turbo-charge BC’s economy and streamline regulatory approval of key energy and infrastructure projects. Of course, that would also mean streamlining the entrenched (and notoriously slow) duty-to-consult process, which requires indigenous communities’ “free and prior consent” (aka a veto). Bowing to pressure, Eby recently walked some parts of the bill back.
Would a little in-depth analysis of the ins and outs be too much to ask?
And then there are Carney’s conflicts.
Is it not relevant that in a dawning Canadian nuclear power age, his Brookfield Asset Management owns a 51% stake in nuclear-connected Westinghouse? Or that, in the weeks before he sought the Liberal leadership, Carney sought — on Brookfield’s behalf — “deeper cooperation” with Beijing (even as the federal cabinet had censured China for unfair trade practices that would “cripple industry”?)
Or that Mr. Carney thought that Liberal candidate Paul Chiang’s idea to kidnap his opponent and put a $1 million bounty on him was merely “a teachable moment?” Or that, between 2021 and 2024, Brookfield should have paid $6.1 billion in 26.4% corporate tax but — under Carney’s steerage — paid only $2 billion? Has that apparent $4 billion tax discrepancy been widely bruited in the media?
Carney likes to say he gets “how things work.” But he’s combative about declaring his financial interests and was the Big Banker who headed up the Bank of England … when the economy tanked. He has major comprehension issues in French (see Hamas, École Polytechnique) and his doctoral thesis is compromised, despite what his former Oxford supervisor is insisting to the contrary. (See the clear cross-compare of “problematic passages” in the National Post, April 1).
Most media convey the impression that because our unelected “Prime Minister” eliminated the 18% consumer charge on a litre of gas by “executive order,” the carbon tax is done and dusted.
They fail to mention that the federal carbon tax legislation remains on the books (!) that the tax is scheduled to rise by up to 300% over the next five years (!) and that Carney has been suspiciously vague about what he will “replace” it with. (!)
They also choose to forget the underpinning, destructive patchwork of federal policies that remains in place — Bill C-69, the Fuel Standard (Carbon Tax #2), Clean Electricity Regulations, the oil and gas cap, the “greenwashing” bill, etc. — and that the major architects of those policies remain in Cabinet.
Reporting on the industrial carbon tax gets even muddier.
Poilievre has committed to scrap it and allow provinces to do their own thing. But lost in the nuance-less media mix are Poilievre’s reasons:
that it hits already-beleaguered, tariff-impacted industries
that tax incentives are more effective ways for heavy industry to pursue lower emissions
and that we need more natural gas pipelines and low-emission LNG facilities
“It’s no achievement to shut down a Canadian steel mill and then see one open up in China that produces 10 or 20 times more emissions for each unit of steel,” he said. (Globe and Mail)
No matter. CTV’s Rachel Aiello gamely sought out reaction from the Climate Institute, which dutifully parroted that an industrial carbon tax is the only way to combat climate change.
The Globe and Mail’s Robyn Urback called Poilievre “sophomoric” for continuing to bang on about the carbon tax, while Carney was “above the fray…a real leader.”
And so it goes.
The recent federal inquiry on foreign interference warned that “misinformation tactics include attacking politicians on social media, entities targeting election campaigns to push narratives that suit their own interests, and propping up favoured candidates.” (Globe and Mail)
Foreign interference and election-count irregularities really are threats. But haven’t political attacks, propped-up candidates, and pushed-out narratives always happened?
Ah, but it all depends on whom they happen to.
In the recent Saskatchewan provincial election, hundreds of anonymous letters sent via mail, in hand-written envelopes, to homes across my constituency personally defamed me and my record. Do those count as misinformation? Were they investigated? Are you kidding?
The best the Globe and Mail can apparently do on political misinformation is point to a self-generating bot, which appeared on “hundreds of X accounts” in 2024, claiming users had attended a Poilievre event at Kirkland Lake, Ontario. It used repeated phrases such as “I’m still buzzing from the energy!”
Call out the misinformation brigades!
The best way to bring back real information is to bring back real debate.
In the old days, Barbara Frum — one example — interviewed talking heads on the CBC evening news. Two sides, two people, ten minutes.
Yes, CTV’s Power Play and others still do talking-head interviews, but they’re generally with partisan-affiliated strategists and former politicians, such as Christy Clark, Tom Mulcair, Scott Reid, Jagmeet Singh’s brother, etc. CBC’s At Issue panel, hosted by Rosemary Barton, is so dated, we’ve watched Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hébert, and Althia Raj actually age!
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a Liberal minister debate Pierre Poilievre on, say, the industrial carbon price, mano a mano? Then we might be getting somewhere. That’s why everyone’s waiting for the one-French, one-English televised federal leaders debates — because we’re robbed of debate the rest of the time.
We get Jagmeet’s brother instead.
The national newscasts specialize in delivering our daily pablum: weather, weather, and more weather. Is seasonal shopping up or down? Is the Bank of Canada going to raise, or lower, the lending rate? The wrap-up of the federal GST holiday “caused inflation.” Astronauts-abandoning NASA is working “very well” (Dan Riskin, CTV). There were ten protesters outside a Tesla dealership in Winnipeg yesterday…Etc.
Canada has become a media-ocracy, where one side has a death grip on how the news is selected and spun—and therefore, how the country is (and will be) run.
So, keep scrounging for news, Canadians. That, or keep your heads in the sand. Because the real misinformation resides in the media itself.
Bronwyn Eyre is the former Saskatchewan Minister of Energy and of Justice and Attorney General. Bronwyn.eyre@sasktel.net