Posted at 5:00 a.m.
We are in the eighth week of the boycott of the press gallery by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, Pierre Poilievre.
You probably haven’t heard of it, because journalists always have a little embarrassment about putting themselves forward as a news subject. And they know you don’t like it when they “play the victim”…
So let me take it on my shoulders as a press boss: the new Conservative leader has been boycotting parliamentary correspondents since his election on September 10th.
His party denies that it is a “boycott” as such, since he gives rare interviews on occasion, but the facts are stubborn: he did not hold a single press conference at the podium of the press since he became chief, almost two months ago, thus breaking with decades of tradition in the country.
And that is bad… for you.
There’s a good reason why Pierre Poilievre, Danielle Smith, Maxime Bernier and other libertarian-leaning politicians go after the media like this, and the harsh reality is that you pay the price.
Of course, at the base there is a political strategy aimed at representing the so-called “real world” against the establishment. But there is more than that, as the journalist from the New York Times Maggie Haberman in the excellent Donald Trump bio coming out these days, Confidence Man.
Populist leaders attack the reputation of journalists so that citizens stop believing what they publish… especially when it comes to negative news about them.
This maneuver is therefore a sort of preemptive attack aimed at casting doubt in advance on critical reporting.
And if you don’t believe me or the reporter from New York Times, hear what Trump himself confessed in 2018 to NBC host Lester Holt when asked why he was attacking the media: “You know why I do this? I do this to discredit you and put you down so that no one will believe you when you write negative stories about me. »
This is the populist version of scorched earth politics.
A strategy that may bring short-term partisan gains, but harms democracy and people’s confidence in its institutions in the long term.
Look at the state of American politics and the growing hostility towards journalists.
We are not there yet in Canada. But the boycott of Pierre Poilievre brings us closer to it, like the incessant attacks of populist politicians, like many other small gestures which aim to situate the media on the side of a “system” which would be against the “people”.
Take the decision of the Conservative leader to refuse to participate, on October 19 in Ottawa, in the traditional dinner of the Press Gallery which brings together parliamentarians and media representatives once a year. It is still a question of showing that he is not part of this world, so far from you, the citizens.
As if journalists were of a special caste, which did not work for “honest citizens who work hard”, to use the cliché.
Let’s face it, Mr. Poilievre is not the first elected official to attack the media. It’s even been a tradition in politics since the world began. But what is becoming increasingly clear is that the new Conservative leader is not content to criticize coverage that he considers biased, he is attacking the very integrity of journalists.
In this sense, Mr. Poilievre brings us to the terrain of the American Republicans.
His former colleague Jason Kenney also recently deplored the growing influence that Donald Trump has on the Canadian right. The former minister of Stephen Harper and premier of Alberta was worried about it a few months ago in an interview with the podcast of journalist Paul Wells.
Difficult to see there an exaggeration or a bitterness of Mr. Kenney after being shown the door of the government by a libertarian fringe of the electorate. Just look at the newsletter sent to members of the Conservative Party after Mr. Poilievre’s election: members were invited to donate in order to counter the media, “who don’t even want to pretend to be impartial anymore”. “They want us to lose. »
Pierre Poilievre thus places us, the media, in a delicate position: either we say nothing, and we condone this aggressive and harmful dynamic against journalists; or else we respond, as I do here, and we give the impression of opposing right-wing elected representatives… thus confirming their claim!
We are thus progressing quietly on the ground opened up by the Trumps and other Éric Zemmour, who have taken the habit of depicting “the media” as a monolithic bloc against which they are supposedly at perpetual war, on both sides.
“Whereas in fact, when they say they are against the media, they are not so much against the media in general, they are against the media which do not fully support them”, concludes Professor Philippe Bernier Arcand, who has just published the test fake rebels, on the new right-wing movement. “They are against those who leave room for pluralism and criticism. »
He thus recalls that Donald Trump was able to count on support in the wall street journal and Fox. That Zemmour received praise from Current values, CNEWS and Figaro Vox. And that Pierre Poilievre was entitled to the support of major media, such as the Post and the newspapers Sunas well as a journalistic treatment neither more positive nor more negative than what his rival Justin Trudeau is currently entitled to.
In short, these populist politicians invent a scarecrow against which to position themselves, a posture that is all the more convenient as it allows them to cast doubt on anything that is not entirely favorable to them.