Most will have heard about the unpleasant contretemps between Global's David Atkin and Pierre Poilievre when the latter announced he would not be taking any questions from the press at his 'news' conference. Atkin became aggressive over this point and later apologized for his outburst.
That was apparently not good enough for PP. A friend of mine, who joined the Conservative Party in order to vote in its leadership campaign and follow it more closely (he is neither a Conservative nor did he vote for PP), received the following from the newly ensconced leader after the Atkins event.
Ray,
You won’t believe this. I couldn’t believe it, and it happened to me.
Today, I was delivering a statement about how Trudeau’s inflation is hurting everyday Canadians when someone started shouting.
First, they hurled obscenities and then started shouting at me.
Was it some left-wing protestor? Maybe it was a Liberal MP or staffer?
No, it was a member of the media.
That’s right. David Akin from Global News was swearing, shouting and heckling. He wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say, and he certainly wasn’t interested in reporting it in an unbiased way.
This is what we are up against.
It’s not just the Liberals with all the advantages and resources of the federal government at their disposal.
It’s the media, who are no longer interested in even pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.
But we have a secret weapon.
You, and hundreds of thousands of other Conservatives across this country. People who want inflation to go down, the out-of-control spending to end, the CBC to be defunded and all the hurt caused by Trudeau turned into hope for a better future.
We can’t count on the media to communicate our messages to Canadians. We have to go around them and their biased coverage. We need to do it directly with ads, mail, phone calls and knocking on millions of doors. And to do all that we need your help.
Chip in to help us go around the biased media.
Thank you,-Pierre Poilievre
PS. We can’t take on the Liberals and the media and win without your help. Chip in here: donate.conservative.ca
If the above looks familiar, it should. It is a ploy taken directly out of the Trump playbook, the one in which the media are demonized as repositories and promoters of 'fake news,'' their avowed aim to tear down elected officials in order to advance an unholy 'woke' agenda.
Much is being written these days about the perils to democracy in our country. At the top of the list should be the threats posed by demagogues like PP and his ilk, whose motives in their rants have nothing to do with promoting our most cherished political principle.
I have only one word: despicable.
ReplyDeleteDangerous is another word that also comes to mind, Owen.
DeletePoilievre only has three years of publicly sucking & blowing
ReplyDeletePlenty of time for whatever cadre of ‘journalists’ still exists
I give David Akins the tiniest sliver of slack.. as we both attended University of Guelph.. but in this case I grant him far more than his usual cryptic partisanship might normally deserve
I’ll stress again that most media kisses Poilievre ass
- Plain & Simple.. blatant & obvious
But the reality is that only the Electorate of Carleton can vote for PP. Yes.. that’s it ! If his fellow ‘candidates’ wish to run on Vote 4 PP ! That’s OK .. they may lose their Ridings accordingly
Out of approx 100,000 population, how many Carleton voters are there actually & how many will actually vote ? For an absentee Public Servant ensconced at Stornaway after a 60-80 site Evangel Vanity Tour 4 PM .. same guy who marches with anti-vaccine, anti-abortion zealots & gets astonishing donations from Pro-Convoy fans ?
Losing ‘his’ for For Sale Or Rent Carleton Riding will kneecap his career. Running in a mercy level by-election to remain as leader - hardly an option upon losing the General Election - He may be The Great Old Stock White Hope.. but.. oh so many ‘but’s’
I heard a report on the CBC this evening while we were driving back from Stratford, saying how PP is attracting so many young people to the party. Let's hope that the inspiration they profess to find in PP's 'leadership' doesn't muddy whatever critical thinking skills they may have. A young person reveled in how the CPC leader is talking about problems his generation faces. I hope he will demand something beyond "firing the gatekeepers" as the solution to his existential angst.
DeleteWould love to see & examine any data regarding Poilievre et al generating interest or support among ‘young Canadians’. Without validation, or demographics such articles rate as ‘opinion piece’ or even careless ‘personal propaganda’. Current malignant Partisan ‘strategies’ include Limiting Voting via ‘any means available’.
DeleteI consider ‘Actual Journalism’ - whether via Mainstream or Indy, Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, TikToc, whatever.. as a last gasp, ‘line in the sand’ for Canada as we knew it.. or know it. The Partisan ‘actors’ pimping for Poilievre are simply ‘aping’ Steve Bannon’s maxim ‘Flood the Zone with Shit’ - thus we are bombarded constantly with confusing and/or fabricated ‘noise’ - That is ‘a strategy’ .. That is the modern Coup D’état - ‘Seize The Media & The Palace Is Yours’ ! A complete reversal of Seizing the Palace & the Radio Station ASAP to initiate & announce Marshal Law 🦎
Poor old David Akin cannot even get his name spelled correctly here! Atkin and Akins seem to be dominant.
ReplyDeleteI pegged Akin as a Tory years ago. He used to darkly mumble about the size of the CBC and their high reporter/journo pay. Well, he probably didn't want to join the CBC for his own ideological reasons, so Global it was after the Sun.
Nevertheless, he has responded rapidly and cogently to me over the years when I've lobbed an email at him, so he's not stuck in a complete mind rut.
Obviously, Skippy going off on a flight of lunatic fancy after his win, and then not accepting questions from the press asif he were royalty got Akin's goat, and rightly so. Good on him.
As for the strange Pepe the Polecat email requesting support and mentioning "Trudeau inflation", well, after the hi-falutin' victory speech, one can observe that the whiny weasel is back on form as a lying country-wrecker.
Young people get their "news" from social media where bots crawl and so-called AI algorithms censor, while older folks still gaze at MSM's not much better service. I am perfectly able to deduce after hearing CBC radio interviews of some young 'uns hanging around the Con "convention", that PP's fantasy messaging is going down well with that crowd of know-nothings. These nutter followers are devoid of even basic knowledge and common sense to my ears, and treat electing a pol as a rah rah pep rally having nothing to do with real-politic.
It's a mess out there. A complete tragi-comedy of nonentities who want to impose utter nonsense on us all. Glad I'm old and won't have to put up with it long. Trudeau hanging around means many normal citizens won't bother to vote next time because the man is NOT popular. And Cons always vote, so there is likely a PPPM in our dystopian future, uttering BS and governing in an even more mean and nastier manner than harper. Revenge of the greaseball convoy truckers and village idiots is how I forecast it. Great ... Eight out of ten provinces are run by Cons of one stripe or another, and none of them well even by the NDP in BC and the Libs in NL. Dear oh dear.
I do fear, Sal, that many Canadians are going down the same rabbit hole of vacuity so many Americans have fallen into in their adulation of Trump. Empty, jingoistic phrases replacing well-considered policy statements - what could possibly go wrong, eh?
Delete