The press corps¹ and its love for the Liberals

WHO will watch the watchers? It is time to check whether most of the English-language press¹ in Ottawa have taken out membership in the Liberal party. The other explanation is the Stockholm syndrome, the affliction suffered by hostages who come to admire and bond with their captors. Or could it just be springtime and puppy love?

The federal government is getting an extraordinarily friendly ride from the people paid to report on their doings.¹ Consider the Somalia inquiry. Yes, I know, but please, wake up, this is important.

Here we have a semi-competent investigation into a one-of-a-kind incident (the only deliberate killing by the Canadian military in years) in a far-off country that nobody cares about. After droning on for a couple of years, the Keystone commissioners were finally getting close to some big fish back home and to an alleged coverup. Questions were raised about the roles of friends of the government--former chiefs of staff and high officials, some since appointed ambassadors, men with Chrétien fingerprints all over them. This proved too close to home, and the inquiry is being shut down early by the government and so blocked from following this sensitive trail.

In any other western democracy, would there not have been a major, major media¹ fuss about this, especially after the commissioners alleged political interference and one of them--a professional journalist--excoriated the press for its indifference?² In a like situation in my home province of British Columbia, there would have been a firestorm.³ But not in Ottawa. Consider the just-released budget, which came complete with some of the most fawning media coverage in Canadian history. Here is a government that has made a start on the deficit--and good for it--but how? By hugely increasing revenues taken from taxpayers' pockets and slashing social transfers to the provinces, thereby directly causing the current cuts to health-and-welfare programs. The media¹ have accepted the spin of toughness and Ottawa sacrifice suggested by the feds, who have left all of the actual pain and suffering to provincial governments and their sick and needy dependents.

Do you think this is worth a small mention in every story? No sir, what we get out [of] the national press¹ is Liberal fluff about a few new dollars put into health-and-social programs, largely ignoring the $8-billion cut out. This is like doing a biography on Brian Mulroney with a 90-per-cent focus on his fine Gucci shoes.⁴

Not content merely to tart up the allure and ignore the defects of this aging courtesan-government, the national press¹ puts a bit of powder on her pimples as well.

SUPPOSE a Liberal makes a slip, what happens? Nothing much. Just a couple of weeks ago, Joseph Landry, hand-picked and appointed to the senate by Jean Chrétien, told startled listeners that Canadians could learn a thing or two from Adolf Hitler (he later apologized for the remark). Defense Minister Doug Young likened Deborah Grey to a "slab of bacon." Brief reports on these Liberal events were put out by their media¹ friends. End of story. Suppose these words had come from Reformers or Bloquistes? Cry havoc! and loose the hounds of the parliamentary press gallery¹ weeks on end.

There is a double standard at work here, and it plays perfectly into the Liberal strategy of portraying Jean ("two-seat") Charest as up-and-coming, Reformers as rednecks and the NDP as irrelevant. It is divide-and-rule on the right and damage control on the left, which is fine--but why are the media¹ playing the Liberal game?

All of the above would be amusing if the national press¹ was doing its job on the only national story that really matters. This country has a significant chance of splitting up over the next few years, and the national press¹ virtually ignores the issue, allowing the government to carry on its losing ways. What an act of friendship, for the Liberals are desperate to keep the area of great failure--the unity file--off the election agenda.

There was a major conference in Washington last week, which simply assumed Quebec would separate, and discussions centre on possible consequences. A Léger & Léger poll for the Globe and Mail notes that almost 52 per cent of Quebeckers would vote "Yes" for sovereignty. Closer to home, I do a regular survey for the Fraser Institute's Canada Clock. It asks a panel of 19 experts from across the country--seasoned observers, political scientists, former public servants--for their forecasts on the likelihood of Quebec independence.

Last fall, their average estimate of the probability of the country breaking up was 46 per cent. The spring survey is now coming in, and the Quebec experts in particular are noticeably more pessimistic. Yet on this biggest story in the land you will hardly hear a word, except from francophone journalists.¹

Suppose there were a 46-per-cent chance of an asteroid hitting Canada in the next five weeks. Do you think we might see a national story or two on how to prevent it and how to prepare for likely damage if it landed in Vancouver or Montreal or--God forbid--Ottawa? Not with this press corps,¹ not if the Liberals were somehow responsible.

(text of February 25, 1997 Globe and Mail column)

[FOR A SHORT PROFILE OF COLUMNIST GORDON GIBSON , TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.]

¹-link to whathefound thing with links to press responses and TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.

²-WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT THIS BEYOND LEAVING IT FOR VISITORS TO MY AWARD-WINNING WEBSITE TO DECIDE IF THEY AGREE THAT THE ULTIMATE PRODUCT OF THIS (CANADIAN) PRESS INDIFFERENCE MAY BE WHAT I PERCEIVE TO BE LICENSE FOR FORMER CANADIAN JUSTICE MINISTER AND PRESENT PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA JEAN CHRÉTIEN TO DISPLAY WHAT SEEMS TO BE SOME SORT OF A BIZARRE SENSE OF HUMOUR?
I MEAN, REALLY.
TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE AND FOLLOW THE PARTICULAR LINK THERE TO WHAT "THE TWO OF THEM [ONE, OF COURSE, A "PROFESSIONAL JOURNALIST"] ARE UP TO IN THE 21ST CENTURY"...

³-WELL, ACTUALLY THERE WASN'T..
AFTER BRITISH COLUMBIA'S NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION 'SOLIDARITY' TOOK FLIGHT IN 1983--AS WAS ANTICIPATED BY THE BRITISH COLUMBIA AUTHORITIES INVOLVED WHEN I WROTE THE PROPOSAL TO LEONID BRESHNEV IN 1978 OF THE SOVIETS ALLOWING A "FREE TRADE UNION" IN ITS POLITICAL BLOC--AND I EVEN ADVANCED THE NAME FOR IT OF "SOLIDARITY" --here's a spot to explain that the Vatican, in that month while "all of us" are waiting for Clinton to get his, er, thumb out of his bum, will be asked to dig through their files to find their documentation about this and how the insanity in response to it may be having repercussions in the Balkans and all over the world/EXPLAIN WHAT B.C. PRESS WASN'T GIVEN COPY OF VANDER ZALM LETTER--"IRANGATE", 56 REG. LETTER LIST, AND SUBS. TO CANADIAN AUTHORITIES AND "PRINCIPLE" THAT THE ONLY OFF-WEBSITE LINKS ARE TO FREE HONG KONG-BASED WEBSITE SERVER AND KOSOVO CHATROOM. ALSO EXPLANATION FOR WHY I DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING IN MORDECAI'S BOOK AT "><> I ASKED HIM ABOUT PRONOUNCING "lO BEKOAM ETC." WHICH IS AT NETANYAHU LIST

⁴-MR. GIBSON OBVIOUSLY CHOSE HIS OWN SIMILE TO INVOKE HERE. BUT COINCIDENTALLY, ON THE SUBJECT OF "SHOES" AND MR. MULRONEY--WHO WAS PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA AT THE TIME I WROTE IT--THERE IS TO CONSIDER WHAT YOU FIND IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE...SOMEWHAT RELEVANT STILL, I WOULD SAY, TO THE APPARENT PRODUCT OF SUCH PRESS INDIFFERENCE: THE RENEWED "ANARCHY" MOVEMENT IN THE WORLD.

DON'T THINK THE WISDOM OF THOMAS JEFFERSON IS PASSÉ YET IN WHAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO FROM YOUR GOVERNMENT? LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD: TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE TO SIGN MY GUESTBOOK.

TO CONSIDER ANOTHER ENLIGHTENING COLUMN BY THE FORMER LEADER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA'S LIBERAL PARTY, TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.