This post is a friendly counter-point to Cjunk’s earlier post here. I’ll start with an excerpt from a column by a Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald:
With only one previous prorogation in almost four years in office (when Prime Minister Stephen Harper rightly stopped the Liberal-NDP-Bloc “coalition” from subverting the will of the electorate), it’s not unreasonable that the PM ask for Parliament to be prorogued — as all previous prime ministers have done — to write a throne speech, shuffle the cabinet and prepare a budget.
Pierre Trudeau prorogued 11 times in 16 years; Jean Chretien four times in 10 years, including a four-month delay after Paul Martin became PM, to give Martin time to get his government ready. Newly elected governments take over within a few weeks, yet we’re asked to believe a sitting cabinet minister needed four months to set up shop!
Of course, Mr. Chretien’s true agenda was distancing himself from the auditor general’s report on the sponsorship scandal and dropping the mess into Paul Martin’s lap. I don’t recall manufactured outrage at the time by either the press or the opposition — certainly nothing resembling the contrived performance Canadians have been subjected to of late. Senator Moore was in that Liberal caucus and ignores their conduct, yet now expresses concern about an “affront to our democratic process.”
I suggest that the Canadian broadcast media’s decision to elide, during their coverage of the prorogation “outrage”, such factual context as MacDonald provides is professional malfeasance of the highest order, and that such a double standard, writ large, has an effect on poll numbers, and therefore on public policy.
The fact that one single group of highly influential players on the political scene are uniquely exempt from ever having to account for their actions isn’t a “media issue”, it’s a spanner in the works of our democracy. Producers and anchors and reporters at broadcast networks know full well that they will never be cornered on camera and forced to answer, on the public record, questions about the nature of their campaigning, which is viewed as a private, priestly prerogative. You can see the effects of this special dispensation in the Father Christmas mannerisms of people like Peter Mansbridge, who float above the political scene they affect as they compile and dole out, for private reasons, such partisan spin as they wish to provide to Canadians, all the while pretending to be trusted, impartial observers who are merely providing facts and impartial analysis.
The bottom line is that Mansbridge and the producers at the CBC wouldn’t survive a one-hour, on-the-record grilling at the hands of Conservatives like MacDonald: “In light of the fact that you didn’t make any kind of an issue at all of the Liberals’ far more frequent prorogations – and it’s on the public record – what was the basis, how can you possibly justify as a journalist, your decision to treat what was only the second prorogation in four years by the Conservatives as an outrage and an assault on democracy?”
Fortunately for them they’ll never be in such a position, and if they did find themselves in such a position, they would, unlike all other political figures, be entitled to sneer and walk away without any consequence.
Of course the left versus the right will scream not acceptable when either prorogues parliment the difference this time is that MSM decided to become one with the liberals and report half truths and bold face bull shite to support the Libs assertion that proroguing parliment was never done before and a damn abomination of justice.
Great op ed Sir.
Not only is the MSM Liberal biased it is rude and disrespectful towards The Prime Minister. The Globe and Mail’s Ian Brown states that Stephen Harper is ” a man who has the physical charm of a bathtub plug” And called him ” Hairhat ”
That juvenile opinion of the Prime Minister is acceptable by the Liberal media because they are morally corrupted by their lack of objectivity and allegience to the Liberal party which is reflected in their hatred of Harper
@William in Ajax:
What you’re suggesting is a Canadian version of the Fairness Doctrine. In either direction it’s wrong. Mandating what the media say makes for a slippery slope. What we need to do is put pressure on, a) letting the establishment media know we see their bias and hold them in contempt, and b) encouraging anyone who would want to install a balanced media outlet here that it would be well-supported. That’s the way to get past this.
See, the media are biased. All media are biased. We know that. Bitching and moaning about it won’t help do anything but make us look like whiners. Exposing it is fine; complaining, not so much. Real action is the solution.
Great posts! Don’t be too hard on those that really believe the MSM actually report the “News” and that “half of Canada” was outraged over prorogation? I guess they were all way too busy to show up in person to “protest” Our first virtual grass roots virtual revolution. I guess gettin’ out of their ‘jammies and leavin’ Mom’s basement was too trumatic to contemplate? Easier to just join “face-book a gazillion times. Protest? Outrage? About as “Real” as “Globull-warming” Actually Proroguing while being Conservative. Gotta laugh at Mr Ignatieffs naive plan to “amend our Constitution” CBC sucks, CTV sucks. Just another PM Harper hate fest sad really best PM in my lifetime. God help us if the nyuck, nyuck, nyuck, coalition ever get into power.
Getting caught up in the “truths” about prorogation is irrelevant; most Canadians don’t care as they are watching US TV. The fact is that the media is bias; so what else is new? Boo Hoo! Grow up and develop a strategy to win and quit blaming the big bad media. What I’m reading here is one big excuse making effort. If you can’t get a majority against Dion and Iggy, you need an overhaul as they are the two worst LPC leaders in decades. Only the recession saved the CPC …recession and Dion didn’t go well together; like water and oil.
1984 – the US media is ruthlessly leftist lashing out and mocking conservative ideals
– the hippies have come of age and are now finding their way into media and the DNC
– Venona is not yet known where it is later proven that there is real infiltration of the media by Soviet operatives.
– Academia is hopelessly leftist; the hippies of the 60s are now in control
– European media criticizes the US more than the USSR; calling for compromise and a stepping down from cold war, savaging the US arms race.
– there is no FNC; there are no blogs; and talk radio does not command tens of millions of patrons; there is no alternative to the leftist mainstream media
– the international theme within the media is that Ronald Reagan is an idiot, and a dangerous one to boot.
– Reagan wins a landslide and ends the term the most popular president in history
2010 – Canadian Conservatives now have more exposure and voice than ever in their history via New Media; yet they blame the MSM (or worse yet, Canadians) for their failures.
Truly pathetic … we are so done for.
Ted
I have suggestion for you
when you come in here to debate, set yuor emotions aside, and use facts and logic (I know, being a lefty that will be hard for you to do)
now as several have pointed out, it’s the media bias that is the problem, proroguing is another issue for another time
and the score
EBD = gold
Ted = no show
Part of the problem was the PM knew he wasn’t going to get a fair shake. The booze and eats were gone and he did not do scrums. When he went to the US and did in my opinion a first rate job as a statesman in interviews, posters at the CBC went into a frenzied state. How come he does not do interviews like this in Canada? My reply, whether they posted it or not was, “When does he get the chance?’
Paul:
If the sight of people on blog forums pointing out/reiterating/drawing attention to media bias turns you off or strikes you as being an excuse, well, there it is, that’s your prerogative. I’d just like to point out, though, that I neither stated nor suggested that Conservative fortunes are entirely the result of media bias – if that were true they never would never have been elected – and I haven’t seen any commenter on this thread saying that either. What I said was that the media’s constant anti-conservative campaigning “has an effect,” which I absolutely believe to be the case. If only one in every fifty voters – a conservative estimate, imo – buys the media’s constant hammering about what a cruel dictator the PM is, that’s two percent of voters.
Your criticisms at Cjunk of the Conservatives for abnegating conservatism are valid and well-written and convincing, and frankly I find myself unable to disagree with almost everything you’ve written there. But I also think that other folks’ criticism of the overwhelming anti-Conservative media bias – e.g. the turning of events/procedures that happened under the Liberals’ watch into Conservative “scandals” – is also valid, and an entirely legitimate concern, and an important discussion.
Regarding Reagan’s success in overcoming negative stereotypes about him, that’s not really a valid comparison. America has a long history of liberty and freedom from government – the country was pretty much founded on those ideals – so Reagan’s anti-big-government message found ready purchase in a large segment of the population. Canadians, in comparison, tend to define our country by its big government, i.e. it’s level of government services.
Back to the issue of whether or not complaining about/noting media bias is just pointless “boo-hoo”ing, I believe it’s far from pointless. One example: during the Israel/Lebanon set-to a while back, Christina Lawand and/or her producer took video of Stephen Harper’s answer to a particular question and edited it in as being his answer to what in fact was a different, unrelated question, with the effect that it looked like he was shrugging off the death of innocents. The blogosphere went apeshit, and then subsequently the matter hit the opinion columns of newspapers. Within a week the CBC issued an on-air apology and Lawand got fired.
Again, your criticisms of what you see as the CPC’s abandonment of conservatism are valid, but so is criticism of the legacy media’s – particularly the broadcast media’s – baldly, nakedly anti-conservative campaigning.
EBD: The excuse making I’m refering to can be found in many comments, and what I find in my experience when discussing this very issue with party insiders. I’m not referring to your post, which was very balanced and well reasoned.
Furthermore, I’m not concerned as much about the abandonment of conservative values as much(that’s a secondary theme) as I’m concerned with the CPC messaging and tactics, which I find grossly lacking. I fear, that were the LPC to find a leader with a pulse, the Harper CPC would be done for.
I genuinely feel that come next election, if there is not a significant change, the LPC will win a slight minority, which will mean that The House will have a “progressive” majority. My criticism comes from concern for the future and the last election results. The CPC should have won a majority because they were facing off against the worst LPC leader ever fielded in the history of that party.
Talking of CBC and the double standard, I was going to give things a rest and not comment. There was at only a scant 38 minutes ago, the “Fifth Estate”. What followed was first a vague insinuation that George W. Bush is thought by so many percent of the public as knowing about the 9/11 tragedy before hand. All this to say it was a review of the events of this century.
Absolutely nothing concrete, just an allegation of what Bush could not have seen at the time on the T/V showing the impact on the Towers. He on tape, saying he did. Then they moved to Dick Cheney. What an import of this sinister man- so they implied. They even brought in Tony Blair. This to inveigh against the war on Iraq.
Off topic I know, but for so many years one could sit there and inwardly rage. Oh yes, there was Lyndon McIntyre to the fore. I could not get the name of the man who seemed to intone more allegations and insinuations against Cheney.
Pointing out the obvious isn’t the same as making excuses.
I understand the program “Fifth Estate” was a repeat. Seems to me they did not say that at the start.
Watcher said: “Why not? Why not a Canadian media accountability center on the i-net with a streaming daily or weekly netcast reporting on the media malfeasance of the day and video of getting into the media player’s face with a camera and tough questions?”
I agree wholeheartedly with this idea. Complaining won’t change the situation. We need an alternative and that could be our own ‘Pajamas Media’.
Bring it on!
Another reason why Prime Minister Harper is viscerally hated by the MSM, and liberals on the left everywhere, is because he is a believing and practising Christian.
Don’t ever underestimate the left’s contempt for Christians.
They know that practising Christians will never fall for statism and will always resist the takeover of individual rights and freedoms by collectivist impulses espoused by the Liberal$, the NDP, and the Bloc — and most members of the media.
Canada, under the dispensation of the Trudeau/Charter of “Rights” and “Freedoms,” is actually a deeply bigoted, anti-Christian country. Look at who’s being targeted by the Canadian Human Rights Commissions and tribunals. Look at how Christians are regarded and treated by the Canadian media. Look at how Canada’s Judeo-Christian culture has been expunged from the public square and our educational institutions.
Canada’s multi-culti mumbo-jumbo celebrates every culture and faith BUT Judeo-Christianity and, in fact, scorns Christianity and Christians — which is deeply ironic, seeing as it is Judeo-Christian values that undergird the institutions of our Canadian democracy, the very democracy to which our multicultural hordes have fled from the tyrannical non-Judeo-Christian regimes of their countries of origin.
This is not a conversation we’re actually “allowed” to have in Canada. But, make no mistake, the left’s visceral hatred of Christianity is definitely a factor in their contempt for and deep dislike of Stephen Harper and his government.
We need to talk about this. We need to shine a very bright light on this religious bigotry and remind Canadians that the right to freedom of religion still exists in Canada, if only faintly. If we don’t talk about the disgraceful anti-Christian bigotry everywhere present in “official” Canada, then we might as well scratch freedom of religion and freedom of expression from the long list of “rights” Canadians enjoy. And, then, see where this takes us. I can assure you, it won’t be a pretty place.
‘Just lost a post, always a mystifying event. Poof! It’s gone!
In essence, when looking at the factors that account for the left’s visceral hatred of and contempt for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, never underestimate Canada’s anti-Christian bigotry, which began in earnest under the dispensation of Trudeau’s Charter of “Rights” and “Freedoms.”
The evidence of anti-Christian sentiment and discrimination is everywhere in “official” Canada, from the expunging of Judeo-Christianity from the public square and our educational institutions to the hauling of Christians before CHRC tribunals, fining them, and re-educating them (good luck!).
Christians have always resisted statism and the coercive limiting of individual rights and freedoms, something that is anathema to those on the left who wish to enlarge the influence and power of the state.
Anti-Christian bigotry is definitely a component of the left’s disdain for Stephen Harper, a believing and practising Christian.
Unfortunately, this is a conversation, among many, that we aren’t “allowed” to have in Canada.
Oh boy! Now my editing prowess is on show! WHERE did that first comment disappear to — and then, magically, reappear from???????
I see Ted has poked a stick into the Angry Right Fringe hive.
And, of course, he is right. It’s not about prorogation per se, it’s about the context of this prorogation after Harper’s promise breaking election,
subsequent craven prorogation, his return to deficit and debt, and inability to justify in any way his latest prorogation.
Since MacDonald bases his argument on lies/…a parliamentary coalition is subverting the will of the electorate…Harper has prorogued twice in 4 years…/,
he has zero credibility, except with the Angry Right Fringe, for whom the Dear Leader can do no wrong.
Batb, it’s been my experience that about once in every eight times when I submit a comment it doesn’t show up at the bottom until I refresh the page. I suspect that’s what happened. If the page loads but your comment doesn’t show up immediately, hit refresh and it will show up.
Btw, I agree with your comment regarding subducted anti-Christian bigotry being a factor in negative coverage. Also, I’m sorry to say, I think there’s a bit of anti-Protestant sentiment as well. With the exception of Kim Campbell (who was nominally Anglican) all our prime ministers in the last forty-some years have been Catholic.
Phil: yes, he has prorogued three times; the Senator’s statement that he has prorogued twice is in error. The number of prorogations isn’t really the point, though: Since confederation, parliaments have prorogued, on average, once ever 1.3 years; Stephen Harper has been in power for four years, so three prorogations work out to one every 1.3 years. Fancy that.
Btw, the Conservatives’ – and my, and many others’- assertion that the attempted coalition government would have subverted the will of the electorate is not a “lie”, unless you’re willing to make the case that every Liberal voter, say, wouldn’t have switched his vote to the Conservatives if thought a vote for the Liberals was a vote for an NDP/Bloc/Lib coalition. Not one single Canadian voted for a coalition led by Stephane Dion, and “make no doubt, my friend”, as Ignatieff would say, that the Liberals knew it, too. When the Libs saw what happened to them in the polls after their little coup attempt – they sunk to historic lows – they completely backed away from the coalition. What does the Lib’s nosedive after the coalition attempt tell you about the electorate’s view of the coalition, Phil?
As for the “Angry Right Fringe” comment: we have a Conservative government, Phil. That’s not really very fringey, is it? And based on your comments, you’re about as angry and ill-humoured as a guy can be, so….
I suspect you’re right, EBD, about the “bit of anti-Protestant sentiment.”
For some reason, Catholic Christians (except at the CBC which is still on about Mount Cashel) aren’t as suspect as Protestant Christians in the mind of the media, which just goes to show how ignorant they are. The MSM equates the religious right in the U.S. with Protestantism here in Canada and it scares the living daylights out of them, poor dears.
What they are right about, however, is that Christians — other than the nominal kind which, it seems to me, our recent “Catholic” Prime Ministers have been, thus rendering them pliable and maleable — mean business when it comes to the left’s attempts to revise our history and our core Canadian values. Committed Christians aren’t going to fall for the Pied Piper tune of the collectivist left, something they know and, rightly, fear.
However, that doesn’t justify the dirty tricks of the lib-left. If they’re convinced they’re correct, they need to convince the electorate using legitimate tactics like superior debating skills, proposing better policies, and forwarding compelling arguments.
EBD, thanks for the tip about refreshing the page. It works!!
What does the Lib’s nosedive after the coalition attempt tell you about the electorate’s view of the coalition, Phil?
What does Harper’s nosedive tell you about Harper’s prorogation?
Oh yeah, it’s the fault of the omnipotent, dastardly MSM, that being
one of the mainstay default positions of the Angry Right Fringe,
which refers to the hive mindset of the usual suspects here at SDA,
not rational, thinking human beings of a conservative bent.
You mean, this nosedive?
Poll question: “As you may know, Michael Ignatieff is the leader of the federal Liberal Party, Stephen Harper is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Jack Layton is the leader of the federal NDP, Gilles Duceppe is leader of the Bloc Quebecois and Elizabeth May is the leader of the federal Green Party. Of the following individuals, who do you think would make the best Prime Minister?
All figures in percent:
Best PM:
Harper: 32.0 percent
Jack Layton: 18.1 percent.
Michael Ignatieff: 16.1 percent.
Take special note of the neck-and-neck race between May and Ignatieff in this next one:
Most Trustworthy Leader:
Harper: 25
Layton: 20.8
Ignatieff: 10.4
Elizabeth May: 9.8
Most Competent Leader:
Harper 33.6
Layton 14.2
Ignatieff: 13.0
May: 6.4
Leader with the best vision for Canada’s future:
Harper 26.8
Layton: 17.2
Ignatieff: 16.0
May: 6.4
(Nanos poll, completed on Feb. 8)
What stunning numbers your Dear Leader has.
The thinnest kid at fat camp.
Phil, putting entirely aside for a second all the typical heatedness and animosity that characterizes our exchanges – we can get back to it later! – who, or which party, do you vote for, and which parties/leaders have you voted for in past elections?
I vote Conservative, obviously, but you’ve never indicated your political preferences, or who you vote for, and I’m curious about it.
Cheers.