We would like to talk more often about Pierre Poilievre for something other than useless polemics and sterile skids.
But we can’t ignore his new misleading statements about the media: he implied that the CBC was a source of misinformation.
Let’s recap: The Conservative leader wrote to Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk on Wednesday, asking him to clarify on his network that the CBC is a “government-funded” outlet.
Taken out of context, this news seems banal.
After all, it is the strict truth. The Canadian government gives more than a billion dollars to the CBC.
But what you have to understand is that a name like this is extremely pejorative on Twitter.
It’s a bit like the letter A that the heroine of the novel must wear, sewn on her dress. The scarlet letterbecause he is accused of adultery.
On Elon Musk’s network, a media outlet is usually said to be “affiliated” with a state to make it clear that it is a propaganda organ. This is the fate reserved for the Russian and Chinese media, for example.
It’s like labeling a Twitter account with the letter D, accusing it of misinformation.
The controversy began on Tuesday when Twitter decided to use the term “media affiliated with the American state” to present the accounts of National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States.
Of course, NPR executives denounced the change, which lumped them together with China’s Xinhua News Agency and other dictatorship-affiliated media.
Elon Musk’s network quickly decided to change its label slightly and now uses “government funded media”. Not enough change for NPR, which announced its departure from Twitter on Wednesday morning because the network’s actions “undermine” its “credibility”.
Pierre Poilievre not only intervened to demand the addition of this mention for the CBC, but he argued that it was necessary to “protect Canadians against misinformation and manipulation by state media”.
As if the journalism we practice at the CBC was less rigorous because the network was funded by the Canadian government.
As if this medium is less credible than others.
As if he was not guided, above all, by the public interest.
Let’s be clear: the CBC is a reliable and valuable source of information. By claiming otherwise, Pierre Poilievre intentionally misinforms the public.
Alas, he may have found an ally in Elon Musk, who also enjoys attacking the media.
In fact, for some time, journalists who write to Twitter’s media relations team have automatically received the poop emoji as their response.
Beyond the fact that it’s time for Elon Musk to step out of his anal stage, such disregard is abhorrent.
Within dictatorships, freedom of the press is generally suppressed. Journalists become the parrots of the regime in place.
In democracies, the many politicians now following in the footsteps of authoritarian populists need to be more cunning and dexterous.
This is why they often attack journalists with the aim of discrediting them.
They know that confidence in the journalistic profession is no longer what it used to be and they take advantage of this to shoot at the ambulance.
In this, Pierre Poilievre seems to be inspired by Donald Trump and other rogue politicians in the United States and elsewhere who break sugar on the backs of journalists who don’t eat out of their hands.
It is clear that some statements by CBC/Radio-Canada President Catherine Tait, who has criticized the Conservative leader in recent months, were clumsy and misguided.
But that in no way excuses the relentlessness that Pierre Poilievre shows towards journalists in general and those of the CBC in particular.
One cannot at the same time brandish freedom like a standard and scratch the freedom of the press.