There were to be no questions. Those were the ground rules Pierre Poilievre鈥檚 people communicated to the press on Tuesday, in the new Conservative leader鈥檚 first media appearance in weeks. He鈥檒l give a statement, and you can watch.
Some media were grumpy. David Akin, chief political correspondent for Global News, thought this was unacceptable. According to sources in the room, Akin told Poilievre press secretary Anthony Koch, 鈥淲e鈥檙e not his f——— stenographers. And you can tell him that.鈥
Akin is known as the kind of reporter who shouts questions whether you asked for them or not, though usually not in the middle of a statement; he did not respond to a request for comment.
He barked at Poilievre as he spoke, asking if he would take questions afterwards; Poilievre, rattled enough to revert to his instincts, called Akin a Liberal heckler, even after Akin identified himself. Akin kept on, and Poilievre agreed to take two questions in midstream. Nobody came off particularly well.
OK, fine. Akin was overly combative, even if it got results; he would later apologize for being 鈥渞ude and disrespectful.鈥 Poilievre seemed to have been thrown off-balance. Media dustups happen all the time: they just aren鈥檛 always broadcast live. Far-right websites such as The Rebel and the True North Centre, or right-wing influencer Ontario Proud, rushed to push out the video; all three, self-servingly, love to say mainstream media is the enemy. That鈥檚 typical stuff.
But what happened after the brief tussle was the important part. that Akin had told him to tell Poilievre to 鈥済o f—- himself.鈥 And Poilievre鈥檚 fundraising email later that night claimed Akin, whom the email identified by name, was hurling obscenities, and said, 鈥淭he media are no longer interested in even pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.鈥
Not only was the incident used to smear the media and gin up anger, the incident itself was misrepresented, and Akin himself 鈥 who has worked for conservative outlets such as the National Post, Sun Media and the Sun News Network, and whose outlet receives no government funding, unlike newspapers 鈥 was branded an enemy. Fomenting anger at the media is a lazy but effective trick to consolidate support and blur reality: it鈥檚 used everywhere from conspiracy theorists to Donald Trump to the people who sell miracle diets. (Here鈥檚 what THEY don鈥檛 want YOU to know! Or, as the Poilievre email said, 鈥淭his is what we鈥檙e up against.鈥)
But Poilievre doing it this way, three days into his leadership, tells you a lot. None of it is good.
Look, politicians have sparred with the media for as long as they鈥檝e both existed, though Stephen Harper鈥檚 time as PM was . Harper , too, and some emails named specific writers.
Poilievre, though, is ratcheting up the noise in a more frenetic environment. When Global News鈥檚 Rachel Gilmore recently asked him for comment on his , Poilievre pushed out a statement with the introduction, 鈥淥ne of Global News鈥 so-called journalists decided to smear me and thousands of other Canadians because we criticized the federal government鈥檚 unscientific and discriminatory vaccine mandates.鈥 Gilmore, notably, has been a high-profile target of The Rebel and the People鈥檚 Party of Canada, including PPC Leader Maxime Bernier, who has explicitly called for harassment of journalists. The harassment of female reporters in particular, including female reporters of colour, has escalated this year.
And Poilievre, of course, chased PPC and convoy votes in his leadership triumph, and that group is explicitly, angrily anti-media. Poilievre鈥檚 choice for House leader, former party leader Andrew Scheer, spent his leadership farewell speech calling for Canadians to read right-wing content mills, and said earlier this year, 鈥(Poilievre) is not going to listen to our enemies on the left. Our enemies, the media.鈥
So this is probably how it鈥檚 going to go. Attacking the media is a strategy to go with the promise of defunding the CBC and cancelling the federal media subsidy. (There is plenty of conservative media in Canada, by the way, and some of it takes the subsidy, too.) Poilievre, meanwhile, won the leadership by reading the anger in his party better than anybody else, and he might have to keep that emotional appeal high for up to three long years. Which means we in the media aren鈥檛 ready for what is coming for us.
It will be a challenge. You can absolutely call for better media coverage. But media is in no way obligated to both-sides the truth, and the Conservative party in particular has been guilty of pushing imaginary problems to an increasingly angry base. If one politician is less truthful than another and is covered honestly, it can look like that politician is being attacked. If that politician declares media an enemy, the temperature goes up.
All journalists can really do is avoid unnecessary fights, and do the work. If you want to know why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn鈥檛 heckled mid-statement, the short answer is that while the prime minister often gives answers full of infuriatingly empty calories, he has a track record of answering questions. The general lack of transparency in his government is a real issue, but he shows up. Meanwhile, in all their anti-media rhetoric, the Conservative party never talks about the fundamental importance of a free press to a functioning democracy. Seems like a tell.
Meanwhile, one of the questions Poilievre did eventually answer was about Quebec MP Alain Rayes, the former deputy leader who left the Conservative caucus in response to Poilievre鈥檚 ascension. The party encouraged voters to call and demand Rayes鈥 resignation, and the .
Inventing enemies is a feature, as it turns out, rather than a bug.
