Note To Peter Mansbridge

H/t Occupy Canada

Herr Harper, His Propaganda Machine, Your Tax Dollars

Hmmm.... it seems that the CBC has not yet quite capitulated to the Harper regime, at least when chief appeaser Peter Mansbridge isn't hosting The National:

Accountability, Whither Goest Thou?

If there is one good thing to be said about the Leslie Roberts scandal, it is that privately owned Global Television has acted with dispatch both in its investigation of the newsman/PR firm co-owner's terrible breach of ethics, and its subsequent actions. While the official 'story' is that Roberts has resigned, there is little doubt in my mind that he was given that option by management lest he be unceremoniously turfed.

This decisive behaviour stands in sharp contrast to the inaction of other media outlets. Perhaps the most notorious example of patently unethical choices is Margaret Wente's much-reported serial plagiarism which the Globe and Mail treated as some form of pecadillo that merited exactly what? All we know is that the editor at the time, John Stackhouse, said she had been disciplined; the terms of that discipline were private.

More recently, of course, we have had the sad spectacle of the CBC's Amanda Lang who, it is alleged, tried to stop a story exposing the RBC's use of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program to train and replace permanent employees; Lang's was a clear conflict-of-interest violation given the nature of her relationship with an RBC board member and the fact that she has accepted paying gigs from the bank.

As of this writing, the CBC continues to insist that Lang did nothing wrong, essentially the same approach that it took with conflict allegations against Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy.

These are hardly decisions that inspire confidence in the public broadcaster.

In his column today, Rick Salutin explores who is to blame for the sad state of affairs at the CBC (it is the managers, who cower in the shadows behind their “stars”) and remembers a time when when public institutions adhered to public values for the benefit of all:

Canada’s other main public cultural institution, the National Film Board, was built by John Grierson in the 1940s. He was a titan of global film. He acted imperiously. He recruited young Canadians and dazzled them with his ego and vision. One said, “A day never passed at the Board that Grierson didn’t remind us we were there to serve the people of Canada.”

Among his recruits was Sidney Newman. Newman went to the UK and worked in private TV, creating The Avengers. Then the (public) BBC hired him as head of drama. He revelled. He created Doctor Who, now in its 51st brilliant year. For the 50th anniversary, BBC did a film about Newman! He was its superhero.

Today, we regularly read reports of the death of traditional media, reports that, if I may borrow from Mark Twain, seem greatly exaggerated. However, those media do themselves no favours by trying to rationalize and justify failures when they occur. We, the news-consuming public, deserve much better.

The CBC: The Ethical Slide Continues

H/t Canadaland

The once-prized principle of journalistic ethics continues its precipitous decline at the CBC. Following last years's timid management response to conflict of interest allegations against chief correspondent and resident sycophant Peter Mansbridge and its sophistic treatment of oil shill/resident crank/climate-change denier Rex Murphy, the Corporation's management is at it again in defending its senior business correspondent, Amanda Lang.

Two days ago, Canadaland reported the following:

Multiple sources within CBC News have revealed to CANADALAND, under condition of anonymity, a shocking campaign Amanda Lang undertook in 2013 to sabotage a major story reported by her colleague, investigative reporter Kathy Tomlinson.

The story that Lang tried to block was uncovered by reporter Kathy Tomlinson and her Go Public team. It revealed that the Royal Bank of Canada was

using an outsourcing firm to bring in temporary workers for its Canadian employees to train... in order to sack those Canadian employees and ship their jobs overseas.

Canadaland reports that as CBC journalists across the country were gathering more information to follow up on the story, they were summoned to a conference call with Tomlinson and Amanda Lang:

Lang, they recall, relentlessly pushed to undermine the RBC story. She argued that RBC was in the right, that their outsourcing practices were “business as usual,” and that the story didn’t merit significant coverage. She and a defiant Tomlinson faced off in a tense, extended argument. Two of the CBC employees we spoke to recall a wave of frustrated hang-ups by participants.

“I cannot emphasize enough how wrong it was,” said one CBC employee we spoke to. “That another journalist, not involved in a story, would intervene in the reporting of others and question the integrity of her colleagues like that. I haven’t seen anything like it before or since.”

Lang's efforts did not end there, and extended to on-air efforts to undermine the story, as you will see if you read Canadaland's full report.

Canadaland has since learned the apparent reason for Lang's efforts to subvert the story:

CANADALAND can now confirm that CBC Senior Business Correspondent Amanda Lang’s ties to RBC go beyond sponsored speaking events.

Sources close to Amanda Lang, who spoke to CANADALAND on the condition of anonymity, confirm that she has been in a romantic relationship with RBC Board Member W. Geoffrey Beattie since January 2013 at the latest. This relationship is ongoing, and the two were involved in April 2013, when Lang acted within the CBC to scuttle a colleague’s reporting on abuses of Canadian labour law by RBC.

Predictably, CBC management is circling the wagons.

CBC News Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire said in a memo to staff Monday that the allegations about business reporter Amanda Lang’s involvement in the story on RBC’s use of temporary foreign workers were “categorically untrue.”

End of story. Or so the CBC might wish. But with the kind of fine investigative work being done at Canadaland (they were, in fact, the first to uncover the Jian Ghomeshi accusations), I suspect that this story is far from dead.

Meanwhile, Back At The Trough

The steps of Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy, I imagine, have a bit of a spring today, content in the knowledge that they are no longer outliers in the land of journalistic conflicts of interest. There's a new kid on the block (or, perhaps more appropriately, at the trough).

The Toronto Star reports that Global News anchor Leslie Roberts has been caught in a multitude of egregious conflicts of interests, promoting on air and in his tweets the interests of clients of BuzzPR, the public relations firm he owns with a partner:

Here is but one example of that the newspaper has uncovered:

Toronto lawyer Sandra Zisckind of Diamond and Diamond has often been a Global guest, sitting at the anchor table with newsman Roberts with both her name and the name of her law firm in a bold caption on the television screen as she comments on legal issues. The spots, connected to the news of the day (a high profile arrest or liability issues related to something in the news) run for about three minutes — a boon for any company trying to build a business. What Roberts said he has never revealed, to viewers or to Global, is that he is “creative director” and part owner of BuzzPR, which provided Diamond and Diamond lawyers with media training and helped them get featured on Global news.

His defense of such practices is weak:

Roberts said he never directly accepted payment from a client to be a guest on his show. However, he acknowledged that each business client pays BuzzPR to get media exposure on Global and other networks.

The list of Roberts' moral and ethical compromises is lengthy, and the clients mentioned in the Star article have either enjoyed on-air interviews with 'their man', been treated to 'shout-outs' by him, or enjoyed his twitter acknowledgments.

Predictably, Roberts says that he has done nothing wrong; it is an assertion that offers everyone a rare and unflattering look into the soul of an on-air personality.

Personally, what I see repulses me.

Mockery Is All They Deserve

Crawford Kilian of The Tyee poses an interesting question/suggestion:

What If We Made 2015 the Year of Poking Fun at Conservatives?

While there is certainly no dearth of mockery emanating from the blogosphere and people like Rick Mercer, Kilian suggests that 2015 is a propitious year for Canadians to return to a time when we were known for our irreverence and refusal to defer to those who claimed to be our betters:

The first Canadian volunteers to reach Britain in the First World War soon gained a reputation as bloody-minded, disrespectful and insubordinate. Today's Canadian is defined as the kind of person who says "sorry" when you step on their foot; the Canadian of a century ago would have punched your lights out.

Kilian notes that our formerly insouciant ways extended beyond soldiers' disdain for pretentious officers to politicians themselves, and continued well into the last century:

In the midst of Trudeaumania in 1968, the great man was already being lampooned in books, opinion columns and cartoons. Journalist Stanley Burke and cartoonist Roy Peterson collaborated in the 1970s on Frog Fables and Beaver Tales and a sequel, which portrayed Pierre Trudeau as a frog -- amusing many and scandalizing none.

Nor were Conservatives granted an exemption, as

the CBC's Max Ferguson made his reputation with a sendup of John Diefenbaker's pompous, wattle-shaking speaking style. The Royal Canadian Air Farce skewered Brian Mulroney's oily good cheer, Joe Clarke's awkward laugh, and Preston Manning's Prairie whine.

The writer suggests that somehow, things gradually changed, and not for the better:

In interviews, journalists began to speak with excessive respect to prime ministers and their cabinet officers, as if the politicos were the bosses and not the servants. Mulroney, Clarke and Manning lived to become statesmen, not jokes.

One need only note the recent deferential year-end 'interview' the most reverent Peter Mansbridge conducted with Stephen Harper for an egregious illustration of that fact.

Clearly, the time has come for some widespread and much deserved disrespect, given the material the Harper regime supplies on an almost daily basis:

So Pierre Poilievre had us rolling in the aisles with: "The root cause of terrorism is terrorists." He and his Conservative colleagues have themselves become punchlines, like Paul Calandra and Dean Del Mastro.

Stephen Harper must wonder how long he can keep a straight face. For eight years he's been the guy with the boffo gags (Prorogation! StatsCan! Vic Toews! The F-35! Robocalls! Julian Fantino!) while seeing off a string of inept straight men like Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

Kilian concludes with this observation:

It's going to be a very solemn 2015 indeed if the NDP and Liberals (and the media) don't lighten up and start giving the ridiculous Conservatives the ridicule they deserve for running this country into the ground for the past eight years.

I suspect there are few among us who could disagree.

More Conflict-Of-Interest At The CBC

The deterioration of the once highly-respected CBC continues apace. Not only has Peter Mansbridge, as seen recently in his year-end friendly chat with Stephen Harper, abandoned any semblance of journalistic impartiality and integrity, but he also seems to be acting as a bad example to younger colleagues, one of whom is reputed to be a potential successor to the chief correspondent.

Like Peter and Rex Murphy before her, Amanda Lang, CBC News' Senior Business Correspondent, seems to have developed a bad habit that those outside of the cloistered Corporation would label as conflict of interest. Succinctly put, as reported by Canadaland, said correspondent took money from both Manulife and Sunlife and then gave them favourable coverage on the network.

On July 10 and August 7 of this year, Lang was a paid moderator for two Manulife asset management seminars.

Now here is Lang on September 5 – not quite a month later – welcoming Manulife CEO Donald Guloien on her business affairs show The Exchange for a cozy interview about his company’s $4bn acquisition of a competitor’s Canadian assets.



To compound the conflict, Canadaland reports the following:

Manulife Asset Management is the specific part of the company that hired her. Unprompted, Lang says this at 4:54:

“...one of the things that Manulife has done is grown its asset management business in a big way in the last few years.”

The entire segment casts Manulife (and its stock) in a positive light, giving Guloien an uncritical platform to boast about his big deal.

CBC News aired Lang’s interview segment with Manulife’s CEO without any disclosure of her financial relationship with the company. The segment can still be streamed on the CBC’s website without any mention of the conflict of interest

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Canadaland's reporter, Sean Craig, puts it all in perspective:

To recap: Lang (a contender for Peter Mansbridge's chair as anchor of The National) is CBC News' Senior Business Correspondent, the top business reporter in the organization. She hosts the CBC's flagship business affairs show, which regularly covers the insurance industry. And Manulife is a giant insurance company.

Yet Lang took their money twice, moonlighting at their corporate events. Then she had their CEO on her show. And then she praised, to him, the specific department of his company that had hired her.

And this takes place despite the fact that after the Rex Murphy and Peter Mansbridge conflicts came to light,

CBC News Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire announced that from that point on when journalists asked her permission to speak for cash, she would "reject requests from companies, political parties or other groups which make a significant effort to lobby or otherwise influence public policy."

In November 2014 alone, Manulife held official meetings with two government cabinet ministers and Members of Parliament from each major opposition party.

Lang was also paid for a Sun Life speech in November. Just six weeks before, she conductd this interview with Sun Life CEO Dean Connor:



By the way, neither of the interviews offers any disclaimer about Lang's pecuniary relationship with the companies.

Of course, the CBC 'shirts' have all kinds of inventive justifications for these egregious violations of conflict-of-interests policies, none of which sound valid. If you are interested in reading them, check out the original story.

Needless to say, I and doubtless many others would say those 'explanations' come nowhere close to passing the olfactory tests of most reasonable people.

Real Journalism: Holding Harper To Account

Unlike the kind of faux journalism that the CBC's most reverent chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, has perfected, real journalism requires critical thinking and hard-hitting questions. In that, The Toronto Star holds to consistently high standards.

To appreciate this fact, consider first the following exchange during the year-end interview the Prime Minister granted his media acolyte:

Mansbridge: So why don’t we propose something then?

Harper: We have proposed something.

What have we proposed?

Well the Province of Alberta, excuse me, the Province of Alberta itself already has a, it’s one of the few GHD regulatory environments in the country. It has one. I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader.

This is the carbon levy?

This is the tech fund price carbon levy and the, the, it’s not a levy, it’s a price and there’s a tech fund in which, in which the private sector makes investments. So look, that’s what Alberta has done, that’s a model that’s available but you know as I say, we’re very open to see progress on this on a continental basis. I’ve said that repeatedly to our partners in North America and we look forward to working on that.

There is no follow-up by the good Mr. Mansbridge on this alleged carbon tax. That became the task of The Star, in today's editorial, which pointedly lambastes the Alberta model:

...the relaxed Alberta model that Harper promotes imposes a levy of just $15, and only on large emitters that fail to improve their energy efficiency (rather than reduce output). The firms can pay the money into a clean-energy research fund or purchase carbon credits. The result? Alberta emissions continue to soar, albeit at a slower rate, undercutting efforts in Ontario and British Columbia.

Far better, says The Star, would be to adopt the B.C, model,

which has a straight-up carbon tax, an approach the Star has long favoured. The $30-per-metric-tonne levy currently pushes up the cost of gasoline and natural gas by 6.67 cents a litre and 5.7 cents a cubic metre. But it is revenue-neutral. Residents reap the benefit in lower income taxes. It has led to a sharp drop in per capita fuel consumption.

British Columbia’s tax has been a “phenomenal success,” Charles Komanoff told the Star’s editorial board on Friday. He’s a co-founder of the New York-based Carbon Tax Center, dedicated to curbing global warming. The centre favours an aggressive carbon tax starting at $10 per metric tonne and rising to $100 over a decade.

The Star speculates that any talk of a carbon tax, even the weak one used in Alberta, is simply subterfuge on the part of Mr. Harper who, going into an election year, is trying to don the guise of a green warrior.

It is to be hoped that Canadians will not be so easily fooled this time around by such shameless posturing.

The editorial offers a solid suggestion that, if pursued, will reveal not only the truth behind Harper's rhetoric, but also the integrity and commitment of the other party leaders:

When Parliament resumes after the holiday break the opposition should make it a priority to pin him down on just what he’s prepared to propose to our major trading partners, by way of a credible scheme to price carbon and curb climate change. Voters should know before they cast their ballots on Oct. 19, or sooner.

I look forward to the House's resumption on January 26.


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Setting The Record Straight

Weakly constituted as I am when it comes to tolerating disingenuous and dishonest political theatre, I was unable to watch the Chief Prevaricator, a.k.a. the Prime Minister, while his chief courtier and media enabler, the most Reverend (and reverent) Peter Mansbridge, performed what Michael Harris described as his Yuletide foot massage during their year-end chatfest.

However, I was able to muster up the strength to watch this snippet, after which follows a critical analysis on the CBC website of Mr. Harper's claims:



Harper Whopper Number One:

"We’ve got more work to do, but our emissions are falling," Harper said on Wednesday.

"Other countries’ emissions for the most part are going up. World emissions are going up. Canada’s have not been going up."

But the government's own report suggests emissions will go up dramatically by the end of the decade because of oil and gas production, Canada's emissions will be 22 per cent higher than its Copenhagen target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below their 2005 levels by 2020.

Harper Whopper Number Two:

Harper says he'd be open to using a carbon-pricing system like Alberta's for the entire continent, a concept he's previously opposed.

"I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader," Harper said in Wednesday's interview.

Says David McLaughlin, an adviser at the University of Waterloo’s school of environment,

... emissions continue to rise under Alberta's system of carbon pricing.

"The price of $15 a tonne is too low to actually get the emissions reductions we want from these big emitters. So it would not do the job of reducing emissions in Canada."

Harper Whopper Number Three

The prime minister also took credit for getting tough on coal.

"We are phasing out in Canada through regulations, we are phasing out the use of traditional dirty coal. It’s going to go to zero in the next 15 years or so," Harper said.

Alas, as with most pronouncements by the Prime Minister, there is less here than meets the eye:

New federal coal regulations apply to new plants built after 2015. Existing plants built in the last 50 years are grandfathered, meaning they would have up to 2030 to close or introduce carbon capture and storage technology to reduce emissions.

And Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray points out an inconvenient truth:

...the province closed coal plants with no help from Ottawa.

[I]"f the federal government wants to start taking credit for provincially funded initiatives, they could at least have the decency to make a commitment to support those initiatives in the future."

Thanks for taking a few moments to see through the Emperor's diaphanous attire.

Mansbridge Revisited

The other day I posted a report on Peter Mansbridge speaking out against cuts to the CBC and the unprecedented secrecy that pervades public institutions under the current federal government. I gave some praise to the broadcaster for finally speaking out about important issues that potentially affect all of us.

My friend Dave, from Winnipeg, sent me an email last night that offers a different perspective on Mr. Mansbridge's foray into important commentary. With his permission, I am posting it below:

Hi Lorne,

Caught your blog piece about the recent conference in Winnipeg. While the theme was important and more public discussion needs to be generated I was disappointed by my alma mater’s staging of the conference.

Why is Canada’s most ‘famous lost luggage announcer’ and several other fellow CBC employees, no doubt all champions of the public good, speaking at what can only be described as a private function? I wonder how many students shelled out $300 (guess it’s a bargain at $100 a day) to hear Pastor Mansbridge say things he avoids on air? Apparently if you are a student and could only attend one day there was a reduced rate of $50. Guess Petey and fellow public servants speaking fees had to be covered somehow.

If Pete felt so strongly about the issue I’m sure he might have waived the costs (Christ, he makes over 900K a year) and stayed at his family's place here in Winnipeg so more students could have participated.

I am more disappointed with the UofW though for commodifying what should have been an open forum for students, staff and the community to hear and discuss a very pressing issue.

Steaming mad,

Dave

Peter Mansbridge Speaks Out

Readers of this blog will know that I am a frequent critic of both the CBC and Peter Mansbridge. Both 'institutions,' in my view, often fail to live up to the standards ethical and brave journalism demands. They have been far too passive, even complicit in, the Harper regime's scorn for the so-called 'state-broadcaster.' And of course this disdain has culminated in a series of deep and devastating funding cuts to the CBC that threaten the very nature of its existence.

A new dynamic is perhaps now at work. Stung by the latest cuts, have both the corporation and its chief correspondent decided there is little to lose by speaking truth to power?

On Friday, at a conference co-sponsored by the CBC and the University of Winnipeg called “Holding Power to Account,” an international conference on investigative journalism, democracy, and human rights, Mansbridge decried a “culture of secrecy” within Canada’s public institutions.

He recalled a headline in the Toronto Star back in April that read, “What the public is not allowed to know. Public information being kept secret.” That headline, he said, was not about blocked access to public information in countries notorious for their secrecy, but about his own country.

“Not China. Not North Korea. Canada,” he said.

While not directly naming the regime responsible, Mansbridge also said:

“My company, my corporation, the CBC, the public broadcaster who has a mandated interest in investigative journalism. Who boasts that we have more investigative journalists that any media organization. This is where we’re cutting back?” he asked.

“We should be investing more in these programs. Not cutting them.”

Perhaps there is some hope, after all, for both 'institutions'?

The CBC Ombudsman Makes Her Ruling

As reported by Andrew Mitrovica on iPolitiics, the CBC ombudsman, Esther Enkin, has finally reached her decision on the many conflict of interest complaints lodged against Rex Murphy and Peter Mansbridge.

Briefly, here is what she said:

“Given that Journalistic Standards and Practices spells out a commitment to independence, and the Conflict of Interest guidelines encompass perception of conflict as well, it is inconsistent with policy when CBC news and current affairs staff accept payment from groups that are likely to be in the news.

She has a somewhat timid suggestion for CBC management:

“But since taking money leads to a perception of a conflict of interest, CBC management might want to consider, in the review they are undertaking, whether even with disclosure, it is appropriate for CBC news and current affairs staff to get paid for their speaking engagements.

“To summarize, in the course of reviewing its policy, I hope CBC management will reconsider the practice of paid speaking engagements for its journalists and, at a minimum, consider how any relevant activity and payment can be on the public record.”

As Mitovica tartly points out,

Enkin’s ruling is a stinging rebuke of Mansbridge and Murphy — who, since the controversy broke in iPolitics, have not only been unapologetic about receiving payment from outside vested-interest groups, but have also vowed to continue the controversial practice despite mounting criticism and condemnation.

The ombudsman's full report can be read here.

Will anything change as a result of this finding? Given the fierce recalcitrance of Rex Murphy, more a legend in his mind than in anyone else's, I am dubious. But one hopes that the CBC will show a shred of its rapidly diminishing integrity and issue Newfoundland's favorite son an ultimatum.

After all, given Rex's apparent popularity with the tarsand enthusiasts, he should have no problem keeping body and soul together by continuing to be a shill for the petroleum industry.

CBC's The Current: The Ethics Of Journalists And Paid Speaking Engagements

While I and others have written about Rex Murphy's close relationship to the oil industry, a relationship that appears to be in direct conflict with his position at the CBC, Peter Mansbridge has also been embroiled in controversy recently because of a speech he give to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). Indeed, and somewhat parenthetically, The Star's Heather Mallick has a blistering assessment today of Peter's moonlighting activities.

So what constitutes proper and improper speechifying? Yesterday on CBC's The Current, a good debate, guest-hosted by Jeffrey Kaufman, took place. Kaufman, a former Canadian journalist now working in the U.S., also had some interesting things to say about the very tight stateside restrictions placed on newspeople when it comes to outside engagements.

You can listen to the entire debate below:

Last Night's At Issue Panel

The comments of guest panelist Althia Raj, from The Huffington Post, are worth the price of admission here as she declares, in no uncertain terms, that The Fair Elections Act is legislation aimed at voter suppression. In reaction, the attempt at stoicism by Peter Mansbridge, currently embroiled in his own controversy, is also noteworthy, in my view. The fun begins at about the 12:30 mark:

On The Perils Of Retirement

As a retiree, I occasionally think that maybe I have too much time on my hands - too much time to follow politics, especially its more sordid aspects which, sadly, seem to define almost all politics today. National, provincial and municipal affairs appear beset with a kind of self-indulgence and selfishness (perhaps the two are synonymous) that, I believe, is wreaking havoc on the social health of the nation. Federally, we see a government mired in corruption and seething with contempt; provincially, a rabid and pervasive partisanship seems to have the public good as only a distant afterthought; municipally, we have the spectacle of a scorched earth policy being practised by Toronto's chief magistrate and his brother. Something is indeed rotten in the state of Denmark.

I do not live in Toronto, but anyone who thinks that the damage being done by the Ford follies is confined to Ontario's capital city is deluded. Putting aside all of the criminal and unethical acts he seems to partake in, the mayor's absolute refusal to see council's stripping of his powers as anything other than politically-inspired renders him manifestly unfit for public office, since clearly the demands of his and his brother's egos take precedence over the stability and well-being of the city of Toronto. But what about the fact that this debacle is being watched closely nationally, even internationally?

Despite their obvious intellectual limitations, I am convinced that on some level the Ford brothers must know that their insane antics are deeply corrosive to everyone's faith or trust, however slight they may be, in politicians everywhere. As but one example, they must know, yet they do no care, that reducing yesterday's council meeting to little more than a tag-team wrestling match, complete with the obligatory cat calls to the spectators, removes any dignity that one might associate with public office.

I am posting no video here of yesterday's events, but anyone so inclined can find them easily enough on the Internet - video of the Fords with Peter Mansbridge, on Cnn, and with NBC's Matt Lauer. To watch any of them will confirm the abject narcissism of the Ford brothers, but they will also probably consolidate a cynicism and disgust that only the insensate could be immune from. I can't bring myself to post them

The true irony here is that there really is only one solution to the wholesale destruction of politics taking place at all levels: voter engagement. But the longer the selfish, the ignorant and the mercenary dominate politics, the less and less likely it is that significant numbers of people will be willing to get involved, even if it is only to go to the ballot box, to stop the madness.

I am not at all hopeful about the future we are leaving to succeeding generations.

Time For A Break

Recently, as I watched Peter Mansbridge's One on One interview with former Prime Minister Joe Clark, I was reminded of a time when Canadian politics had more texture, depth, structure and, yes, intelligence. Clark, no fan of Stephen Harper, spoke knowingly of the complexities of politics, both domestically and internationally, and his point was clear: we have, under the current regime, turned our backs on time-tested traditions that stood us and the world in such good stead, replacing them with what can almost be described as caricature.

For example, rather than to continue to engage Iran, the ultimately more productive choice, we have severed relations with the theocratic state, thereby ending any possibility of ongoing dialogue towards moderation. Our unqualified, uncritical and unstinting support for all things Israeli, no matter how egregiously in violation of international law, would be another instance. We are clearly no longer the world's honest broker.

There was a time in politics when honour meant doing what was right for your country and for your citizens. That time is no more, confirmed daily by a Prime Minister who regularly refuses to answer questions about his real knowledge of the Duffy payoff. It was confirmed yesterday by the eleventh hour admission from Rob Ford about his drug use.

Neither man, of course, will do the right think for this country and its citizens. Holding on to power is their only raison d'être.

And so the debasement of the people continues, with neither man showing a whit of concern for the toll that such corruption takes on the electorate; indeed, they probably exult in the likelihood that even fewer people will turn up at the ballot box, thereby giving their bases even more power to continue the perversion of politics under their corrupt avatars.

With my heart heavy with disgust, disillusionment and contempt for those holding the reins of power today, I think I will likely take a few days off to read, attend to neglected household chores, and try to recharge my spirit.

Meanwhile, I would encourage you to read some of our fine national columnists and our fellow bloggers if you have the heart for it and the capacity to withstand the despair they can engender. Truth is always painful.

"I Take Full Responsibility"

There, Pam Wallin said it, and like all politicians who trot out what has become but a tired platitude, she would now like all of us to tune in to another channel. (How about we devote ourselves to really serious matters, like that dastardly Mulcair showing such flagrant contempt for all that is holy?)

Those who are strongly constituted can watch the wayward woman from Wadena justify herself in an interview with Peter Mansbridge. (I confess I have not worked up to watching it yet - wonder if Peter asks her about her strategy in recently resigning two board memberships). Those whose patience with politically-motivated patter is limited can instead watch the clip that follows the interview in which the At Issue Panel offers a brief assessment of the good senator's 'performance'.

Harper Hypocrisy on Full Display

In his column this morning, The Star's Tim Harper points out something that I think many of us are all too aware of: Stephen Harper is a hypocrite. There really is no other way to describe the despicable partisanship that permeates our Prime Minister's deformed soul, most recently on display in London when he took the opportunity to exploit the tragedy of the Boston Marathon deaths and grievous injuries from a terrorist bombing.

As Tim Harper tartly observes, the usual protocol of not criticizing one's own country while abroad depends on who’s talking. There is one rule for Stephen Harper and another rule for everyone else.

The columnist reminds us of how Tom Mulcair, during his recent trip to Washington, offered some trenchant criticism when responding to questions by Canadian reporters:

When Mulcair questioned Canada’s commitment to fighting climate change, raising the Conservative decision to abandon Kyoto and its inability to meet its Copenhagen greenhouse gas emission targets, the government went apoplectic.

Mulcair was accused of “trash talking’’ Canada, killing Canadian jobs, ignoring Canadian interests, refusing to, as Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver put it, “leave politics at the border.”

Yet, of course, while in London on Wednesday to attend the Thatcher funeral, Harper refused to 'leave politics at the border'; even though he was not even asked by reporters about Justin Trudeau's remarks to Peter Mansbridge, our national disgrace launched into a broadside against him in an attempt to score a few political points.

While most of us were taught to show some respect when death and serious injury occurs, apparently Stephen Harper sees such occurrences as opportunities to promote his political 'brand,' one that, I sincerely hope, is becoming increasingly odious to more and more Canadians.

The Synchronous Decline of Peter Mansbridge and The CBC

I admit that I stopped being a regular viewer of the CBC years ago; I think the catalyst for my disaffection was its transparent policy of appeasement (under the pretext of balanced reporting) of the Harper regime which, of course, holds its funding strings. Especially evident in its flagship news program, The National, hosted by that one-time icon of journalistic integrity, Peter Mansbridge, the Corporation has become a parody of itself. And as I have written in past posts, Mansbridge himself has to take the bulk of the blame for its sad decline.

On February 8, The Star's Rick Salutin wrote a piece entitled CBC’s Peter Mansbridge coulda bin a contender. Somewhat dirgelike in tone, Salutin asserts that Mansbridge just seems to have given up on doing any substantive journalism, contrasting him with the redoubtable Walter Cronkite, who he describes as ... ready to stand up against the state and the flow and was solid as the bronze statue of the American revolutionary minuteman who stood “by the rude bridge that spanned the flood/ His flag to April’s breeze unfurled.”

Mansbridge, on the other hand, has happily gone with the flow — and the pressure. CBC has become numero uno for crime stories, weather coverage (today’s snow), product launches, celebrities and awards gossip. None of this is new, or news, and CBC itself doesn’t contest the point.

In this morning's Star, the majority of readers appear to agree with Salutin's assessment. I am taking the liberty of reproducing some of them below:

Leave Mansbridge alone. After his last interview with Stephen Harper, it seems obvious he’s angling for a Senate appointment a la Mike Duffy. Calling attention to his soft-shoe journalism will only make his task that much harder.

Mike Sampat, Toronto

I watch CBC’s The National mostly for entertainment. For real news I watch Aljazeera English and BBC World.

Entertainment, news.

Raja Khouri, Toronto

.... How can one explain that in every half-hour broadcast the “weather person” comes on three times. I suppose it is easier to kill time having the weather person on than to go out an find some news. If we want to dwell on weather there is always the Weather Channel. We can surely do better.

Bob Joakim, Oakville

.... Yes, he is rather apolitical and borderline fawning at times, such as his interview with Stephen Harper before the last federal election, but I can forgive him for that. At least he hasn’t pulled a Mike Duffy and obtained a sinecure in the seniors club we call the Senate. He could have gone to New York a few years ago, but decided to stay, to his and our benefit.

Sigmund Roseth, Mississauga

Expect nothing to change in the near future.

What Canadian Media Outlets Need

What they need is people like CNN's Soledad O'Brien, who refuses to be cowed by right-wing bullies like John Sununu.

Peter Mansbridge, are you listening?

H/t Roger Ebert

See also Andy Ostroy's thoughts on The Huffington Post.