Fiction and invention are handy tools for politicians. Legacy media often repeats lies with minimal or no fact checking, although perhaps with opposing comments added to suggest balance. That process gives the same standing to false or unsupported claims as it does to well-accepted facts.
American Press Institute’s Letrell Crittenden stated:
Both-sides reporting often leans on quoting those in positions of power and authority, giving less air-time to exploring the humanity of those without power. . . Truth, not perspective, always matters more in news storytelling.
After Pierre Poilievre released a video taken in a Toronto subway station, Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason wrote an incisive opinion piece that skewers the Convoy Party of Canada leader, a man who wants to be Prime Minister. Mason’s commentary is worth sharing widely. Excerpts follow:
And yet, while Mr. Poilievre’s video are doubtlessly effective, albeit over-the-top cheesy, they are often also misleading to the point of being fabulously deceitful.
The Conservative leader blamed Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals for making affordable, safe home impossible. Mason writes:
Even as he says this, Mr. Poilievre knows it isn’t true. The policies of the Trudeau government have had little discernable effect on house prices in Canada, which have been on the ascent for decades as a result of both world-wide trends and decisions by rich investors to prey upon desirable markets such as Vancouver and Toronto.
Poilievre blames government gatekeepers for blocking builders from providing us with roofs over our heads. Mason responds:
Ah, yes, Mr. Poilievre’s famous gatekeepers, which would have to include, on supposes, those of a conservative persuasion, given that high housing prices exist across virtually the entire country, in provinces run by people like Danielle Smith and Doug Ford. Get rid of the gatekeepers and all will be fine, Mr. Poilievre tells us.
But it is a lie. And he knows it.
Poilievre says government are giving up on treating drug addicts and instead, are poisoning them. Mason:
Of the many egregious statements made by the federal Conservative leader in his video, this might be the most outlandish and despicable of them all. Governments are not giving drug addicts the same poisoned drugs that are killing them. . . They are giving addicts clean drugs so they don’t buy the fentanyl-laced narcotics being sold on the street that are killing them.
. . . Expertise is being condemned by someone whose only career has been as a mostly incendiary, conflict-chasing politician.
What Mr. Poilievre is doing is no different than what Donald Trump did in 2016: make outlandish claims that aren’t true, and pledges that he has no honest hope of fulfilling. Yet people bought the false hope and empty promises Mr. Trump was selling.
Mr. Poilievre is hoping Canadians will, too.
Categories: Journalism
in-sights.ca 
Oh dear, dare I.
Trudeau succeeded Harper in 2015. By then the Bank of Canada had been using a rate near zero since 2008/9. This “nothing” central bank rate stayed very low until more recently when folks started getting cranky about inflation . No matter how often it is said that BoC is objective and independent of politics, I just find it difficult to accept.
A few US commentators have been speaking of two economies. The first being real where good and services are traded in arms length transactions. The second economy is a “financial” one where speculation dominates. In the corporate world one tries to “surface value” for shareholders by using the absolute minimum of equity and the max. of debt. This model produces max. return on equity , rewarding executives with bigger bonuses and stock option wins. This model produced “lier’s real estate loans ” that contaminated MBS securities. The rating agencies were complicit.
In Canada the whole population was press-ganged into accommodating “no-bid” commercial bank assets in 2008, with the setting up a special “parking” account at the CMHC. The CMHC folks use the term “temporary measure” but when I asked about “next time” they volunteered that the same accommodation of $150 billion was on offer to the banks in 2019 , about $7 billion was used.
More recently the BoC has established a second citizen “bailout” provision, referred to as the “Standing Term Liquidity Facility”.
This looks like a “pattern” to me where financial loan risks that used to be the responsibility of commercial bank shareholders, now have/are being transferred to all citizens without compensation. If I am correct then the “second” economy is more in control of Canada than I am comfortable with. It is one way of explaining the “real estate” pricing bubble. Since real estate is used extensively to secure loans and mortgages it follows that there could be more measures created to forestall a role-back in unaffordable shelter prices.
Which is the best political brand to navigate this financial mine field is anyone’s guess but in the mean time many folks on fixed incomes and the younger ones beginning their working lives are prey and scared.
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I voted for Trudeau to get rid of Harper.
After 7 years of Trudeau.
I can honestly say.
I will never vote Liberal again (or NDP)
And this is the first time in my life I have ever donated money to a political party (Conservative) .
Trudeau’s obscene, profligate fiscal spending will affect your grandchildren’s lifestyle.
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The role of the Official Opposition is to hold the government to account and conduct itself as a government in waiting. It has a duty, through its shadow cabinet, parliamentary debates and other means, to assist in shaping the best legislation possible in the public interest by scrutinizing and publicizing the actions of the sitting government. This will by definition necessitate criticism of government.
John Diefenbaker put it this way:
“If Parliament is to be preserved as a living institution His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition must fearlessly perform its functions. When it properly discharges them the preservation of our freedom is assured. The reading of history proves that freedom always dies when criticism ends. It upholds and maintains the rights of minorities against majorities. It must be vigilant against oppression and unjust invasions by the Cabinet of the rights of the people. It should supervise all expenditures and prevent over-expenditure by exposing to the light of public opinion wasteful expenditures or worse. It finds fault; it suggests amendments; it asks questions and elicits information; it arouses, educates and molds public opinion by voice and vote. It must scrutinize every action by the government and in doing so prevents the short-cuts through democratic procedure that governments like to make.”
I believe it is fair to say there are many areas where the Trudeau government deserves criticism. Mr. Poilievre and his party would be on solid ground in levelling those criticisms and providing the Canadian public with examples of the alternative solutions they would implement should the government in waiting be promoted through the ballot box. And they would not run out of legitimate opportunities.
Instead, they are letting Canadians (including their own supporters) down by transparently lying in an attempt to create illegitimate opportunities. There is no other word for it.
When these lies become (as they now have) so blatant and so frequent, the boy who cried wolf syndrome affects all who are exposed to them. We no longer can believe a word they say. And so the legitimate criticism gets masked by the haze of general deceit. We all lose when the Official Opposition is ineffective because it is incompetent and untrustworthy. Because then bad governance wins.
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“I believe it is fair to say there are many areas where the Trudeau government deserves criticism. Mr. Poilievre and his party would be on solid ground in levelling those criticisms and providing the Canadian public with examples of the alternative solutions they would implement should the government in waiting be promoted through the ballot box. And they would not run out of legitimate opportunities.”
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True enough.
Unfortunately politicians of all stripes have learned that the 10 second “catchy” sound bite on Twitter has more bang for the buck.
Tough to debate serious issues in an expensive tv commercial when most of the voters have the attention span of a fruit fly circling a bowl of over ripe cherries.
Trudeau and the NDP will just spend and spend aaaaaand spend tax payer dollars.
Bribing us with our own money as it were.
Until the Canadian economy and the Canadian dollar….is on its knees.
But the polls are starting to show a drift Right, no matter how annoying Poilievre’s name is to misspell.
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