During
election night coverage
, some CBC pundits dropped much of the pretense of impartiality as soon as an “at least Liberal minority” was predicted shortly after 10 p.m. ET. At this point, the national broadcaster’s hosts and commentators could breathe a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t be delivering their own eulogy.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre campaigned on defunding the English service of CBC, which, post-election, would have been forced to be self-reliant, rather than propped up by government and Canadian taxpayers despite poor viewership and constant complaints about anti-conservative bias. And if this didn’t give CBC pundits cause to celebrate, the Conservatives’ projected loss meant that not only would CBC not be defunded, it’d be accepting a boost of $150 million from Mark Carney’s Liberals. A few CBC pundits’ sudden shift of tone and election night commentary made this conflict of interest painfully obvious. The CBC’s subsidy is already a whopping $1.4 billion.
Under their “Protect Our Shared Canadian Identity for a Change” section of their platform, Poilievre’s Conservatives promised savings to Canadians through “defunding the CBC and reforming Crown corporations while maintaining Radio-Canada services.” Their main argument is one shared by many Canadians, including CBC pundit Andrew Coyne, that: “English-language CBC should be a Canadian-owned, self-sufficient media organization that is a not-for-profit and supported by listeners, donations, sponsorships, ad revenue, and licensing revenue.”
There are good reasons to support such a change, including CBC’s viewer/readership levels, exorbitant bonuses paid to executives despite its poor performance, and the fool-headed notion that a Crown media corporation should even exist (for obvious political reasons), let alone be concerning itself with defining national identity in terms of what it deems “
predominantly and distinctively Canadian.”
As well, CBC, as a Crown corporation, puts every private broadcaster, newspapers such as National Post and the Globe and Mail, as well as online-only outlets at a huge disadvantage. A strong argument can be made that CBC’s free online news articles and broadcasts are hobbling private media and causing the need for labour subsidies for these outlets in the first place. As it stands, the Liberals have decided you have to pay for a CBC subscription by default. Conservatives simply believe you should have the autonomy to make that decision yourself. If Canadians couldn’t wake up and hop onto CBC news online or on television for free, they would possibly have to buy a subscription. Isn’t journalism worth paying for, and shouldn’t it, ideally, be independent from government?
Perhaps most damaging for national unity, though, and more specific to what was witnessed on election night, are the
constant and increasing complaints of CBC anti-conservative bias, illustrating they are failing at their own mandate to reflect Canadians. This is because, while its mandate mentions representing English and French, multiculturalism and multiracialism, as well as national and regional perspectives, nowhere is there a promise to reflect ideological diversity. And while this is arguably not a necessity for private, independent media — take a look at France and the U.K., which have strong liberal and conservative outlets serving as accepted counterweights in society — surely, a taxpayer-funded, government-owned Crown media corporation, should have to be held to such an ideal if it wants to be seen as both credible and legitimate.
CBC’s editor in chief Brodie Fenlon
promised
“equitable treatment of the parties” near the beginning of the campaign. He even tried to head off the obvious conflict of interest the broadcaster was in, having been promised boosted funding by Mark Carney’s Liberals, asking and answering his own question, “How are we going to cover ourselves as an election issue?” He continues, “As for covering the CBC, well, yes, the CBC’s funding, and whether it should exist, will likely be an election issue. There’s an inherent conflict of interest in us covering that, but we’ll manage it. We’ve reported on the CBC before as a corporation, and we’ll treat this story like we would the funding of any other Crown corporation. That’s a promise.”
Fenlon misses the point. CBC’s anti-conservative bias existed long before this new funding promise, and would not be solved by his three pillars of “live,” “local,” and “listening.” There’s no evidence CBC has listened and become less anti-conservative. Being live does not address bias if reporters are biased, it amplifies such bias in real-time. There’s also no evidence that focusing on local communities will solve the issue of bias either. These communities have been consuming free CBC bias for decades. So, if they interview someone who gets all their news from CBC, the public broadcaster will simply end up reflecting a bias loop in which they feed a community bias, and a community member reflects their biased coverage back to them.
Election night coverage was not an improvement, at least from the perspective of hoping to see balanced coverage of the Conservatives, as well as the Liberals. Overall, the commentary and physical mannerisms from CBC panelists and hosts throughout the evening communicated distaste for a Conservative party win. Both hosts Rosemary Barton’s and David Cochrane’s tone appeared to turn ecstatic once a Liberal victory was projected. On the flipside, when, earlier in the night, the outlook for the Liberals looked sour, pundits took on that
gloom
in their own mannerisms — speech slowed, mood dired — laughs and giggles were nowhere to be seen.
Barton weighed in subjectively when she told viewers that “
British Columbia could be awfully important
” in terms of Mark Carney forming government, smiling and clucking, while raising her fist to Mark Carney hanging in as prime minister and beating Charles Tupper’s record of 68 days.
During the coverage, which should have included serious political commentary, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney was
the lone voice for Canadian conservatism.
The At Issue panel of journalists, which Kenney joined at times, contained all progressives, and yes, this includes Andrew Coyne, who at one time may have served as a contrarian voice.
Kenney did his best to try to explain some of the strategy behind Poilievre’s campaign and inject something positive about the Conservative party, countering the dismissiveness of other panelists. He noted some of Poilievre’s successes: his ability to identify issues that matter to Canadians, growing support among working-class and younger voters that the NDP had forgotten, generally broadening the Conservative base, and Poilievre’s effectiveness as opposition leader. Barton’s response to Kenney was to laugh and point out that Poilievre got rid of the things that helped him, including Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax.
When Kenney pointed out that Poilievre “pointedly opposed the Quebec Bill 21 law against religious symbols in Quebec,” he was interrupted by both Chantal Hébert, who said “don’t go there, he didn’t,” and Althia Raj, who ultimately conceded “he says he’s opposed to it,” even if he hasn’t said whether or not he would intervene. What would it take for these pundits to take Poilievre at his word? A blood oath?
Around the same time, several pundits chose to mock Conservative MP Jamil Jivani for expressing anger at Ontario PC Premier Doug Ford, calling him a “hype man for the Liberal party,” comments made after Jivani won his seat, but also after it was clear his party lost. Ford, and his own campaign manager Kory Teneycke were highly critical of the federal Tories during the campaign.
Instead of focusing on the content of Jivani’s complaints, they attacked his
demeanor
, which was admittedly angry. The CBC’s Adrienne Arsenault
commented
: “If only he would speak his mind …., I mean, it’s so unfortunate that he’s so vague about his views.” Coyne called Jivani’s comments a “tirade,” accusing the Conservatives of “scabrous negativity.” Hébert called his complaints a “rant.” Raj described Jivani as having “an aggressive tone.” None of them engaged with the substance of his complaints against Ford.
At one point in the evening, Coyne
jumped in
to “hope” that there would not be any “conspiracy theories” about advance voting after the Liberal win. The suggestion seemed to imply that conservative Canadians are not capable of accepting election results, tying this suggestion to the refusal of Donald Trump and some Americans to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. There were also some people who initially refused to believe that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016. Can we please stop pretending Canada is the United States?
More
conspiratorial suggestions
came from Hébert who said after Poilievre’s concession speech, “The first thing I’ll note, is that there was not a hint that he thinks the election result isn’t what it is, and I think it matters these days the person who loses says this result is legitimate.” There’s no evidence this is at all necessary in Canada. Again, it is bringing American concerns into a Canadian election and tying Canadian Conservatives to American Republicans, despite their obvious differences. Why even suggest the refusal to accept results as a possibility? Did Hébert suggest it for NDP leader Jagmeet Singh when he lost his seat? Nope. Would she have for Mark Carney, if he had lost? I’m guessing not.
Election night coverage showed that CBC still has not gotten the message that conservatives exist in Canada, making up around as much of the voting population as liberals, and that upholding principles of fair journalism as a Crown media outlet would require including that ideological diversity without gloom when Conservatives do well or laughter when they do not.
National Post
tnewman@postmedia.com
X: @TLNewmanMTL
