Dispatch from the Front Line: Election Week 1 - Trudeau's unnecessary she-lection
Our gutted media, our wretched Greens, our boosters and our bribes.
Good morning, readers. We hope you were not too perturbed by the lateness of today's dispatch. We received a compelling piece from Kevin Newman that demonstrated — better than any piece we've read to date — the on-the-ground situation for former Canadian interpreters and staffers trying to escape Afghanistan. We had to run it.
So we decided to hold off on our weekly Friday night dispatch until this morning.
Besides, many of the key points we wished to make about the opening week of this election campaign were offered in Jen Gerson's column on Friday, which you can expect to be a regular weekly feature during the writ period. We would offer only a few addendums to those two pieces below.
Firstly, on Afghanistan; in addition to Newman's harrowing piece, we couldn't help but note something else about the situation currently unfolding: the lack of Canadian reporters on the ground. To our knowledge, there is not a single Canadian journalist in Afghanistan right now, and the coverage feels the lack. We're totally dependent on second-hand accounts, stringers, global wire services, and American or British journalists for insight into what is actually happening there. We have no criticism of these non-Canadian journalists, except that they are coming at this story from a totally different frame of reference. And that means no one is on the ground keeping an eye on the bureaucratic chaos of the Canadian evacuation, for example.
So when Justin Trudeau makes claims like: “Unless the Taliban shift their posture significantly — which is something the international community and Canada are working on — it's going to be very difficult to get many people out,” it's hard to challenge him with on-the-ground facts.
We're not arguing that the Taliban are all popsicles and lollipops, here. But some of the most significant hurdles to getting our people out seem to be Canadian paperwork requirements and our own general disorganization.
As the Globe's Robyn Urback put it:
We at The Line can't help but wonder: would this bureaucratic mess be unfolding as it is if the IRCC knew that Blatchford and the late Matthew Fisher and CP and a gaggle of embattled CBC reporters were up their collective asses in Kabul right now?
If you want to understand the depth of the collapse of Canadian media capacity wrought by decades of business failures, it is unfolding right before you. We're half-blind on a global story because nobody had the resources or the ability to station a single body in Afghanistan.
Yes, we understand that it's nigh-on impossible to parachute anyone into Kabul now. The question is: where the hell were we weeks ago? The speed of Kabul's collapse may have been surprising, but we all knew it was probable. U.S. President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of American troops back in April; and things were starting to look bleak month ago. Why wasn't anyone there before it was too late? Sky News is there. CNN was there. The BBC is there.
We’re not there.
The answer is that (almost) nobody had the resources to station a Canadian in Afghanistan. Sending one of the few remaining trained, equipped and experienced foreign reporters to a country that only might become an international story is an expensive prospect, and few outlets have the cash on hand for those kinds of gambles anymore. Especially ahead of an election campaign which is drawing down what limited resources are available.
The only outlet in the country that, arguably, did have the resources was the CBC. Yet the Ceeb either lacked the material wealth, the staff, or the foresight to prioritize this story. Was the collapse of Afghanistan brought up at an editorial meeting at any point over the summer? Was everybody just on vacation? Was this story deemed a non-priority? Was the organization too risk averse to send someone? Did we lack the operational security? Was there even anyone qualified left to go?
We honestly don't know. (If you do, email us!)
What we are confident in noting is that 10 years ago, we would have had Canadian journalists on the ground. Now we don't. Most outlets can be forgiven for their absence due to their profoundly reduced financial circumstances. However, we're not quite as convinced that the CBC has this excuse. And we’re worried that as this continues, it will become harder to make, out of hard experience, the next Blatchfords and Fishers.
Hindsight is 20-20, of course. Public interest in Afghanistan has long been on the wane, and between an imminent election and a global pandemic, maybe it just got lost in the shuffle. Hey, it happens. But let’s also be frank.
More than 40,000 Canadians served in Afghanistan, and 158 were killed. The recapture of the country by the Taliban is probably the most significant foreign story for Canadians since we pulled out a decade ago. To have nobody on the ground when it happened is a failure. We’re not asking for clairvoyance: forward planning and asset allocation are fundamental functions of senior editorial leaders. This is what newsrooms do. And the CBC has missed an opportunity to demonstrate the value of a publicly funded broadcaster — one that can afford to do the kinds of journalism that private outlets have abandoned. Click on the CBC's main site right now: is it really so hard to find resources and journalistic talent spent on projects and stories that are a mite less important than the fall of Kabul?
Oh, and speaking of media and the election.
One of us, just a couple of days ago, was standing around in our increasingly tattered casual wear and making a sandwich with the TV on in the background. A local news channel was showing Green party leader Annamie Paul speaking. So we changed the channel, because the Greens are irrelevant. But the next channel was also showing the same feed. We tried two others. It was all the same goddamned feed. And two of those networks were national. Viewers from coast to coast had a chance to hear, for an extended period, from a woman so thoroughly doomed that she's not even pretending to run a national campaign. All she can muster is an attempt to win her seat in downtown Toronto.
Look, we don’t know who needs to hear this, but at the national level, the Greens are zeroes. Sorry, not sorry. Frankly, the Greens have long gotten too much attention in Canadian politics, which is a result of a few quirky things all aligning in their favour: Elizabeth May's admittedly effective relentless self-promotion, the coffer-stuffing effect of the per-vote-wage subsidy, and, the politeness of Canadian media leaders who felt awkward saying no to Lizzie.
This is not to say that there are not serious Greens, nor that the Green party has not put forward some serious policy proposals. There are, and they have. The issue is that under our electoral system, the Greens don’t matter. And their strident complaining about their irrelevancy doesn't actually make them relevant.
We glanced at recent vote tallies. The Greens generally get around five per cent or so, sometimes a point or two higher, sometimes a point or two lower. That ain’t nothing. But it is not enough to make them a meaningful electoral force in anything but a tiny handful of seats — or in really weird, bizarre vote-splitting scenarios, and those are very rare. We don’t believe there’s some magic level of popular support at which a party deserves serious consideration or not, it all depends on the context. The Bloc doesn’t get a ton of votes, either (though never less than the Greens), but since they only run candidates in Quebec, their efficient vote means they have a pretty consistently good chance of winning enough seats to matter in parliament. The Greens ... don't.
And that is in normal times. These aren’t normal times. Annamie Paul is a perfectly serious, credible person. The fact that her party is trying to back a cement truck over her in full view of 38 million witnesses simply confirms our instinct to ignore the party she leads. Most elections, you could argue that it’s a shame that the Greens don’t have an actual chance. This election, we’re thanking God for it.
Deciding how much attention to give a candidate or party is usually pretty easy. Outside Quebec, the big three — Tories, Liberals and NDP — get proper coverage, within the context of local circumstances and the dynamics of individual campaigns (ignoring a CPC also-ran in deepest Toronto isn't going to break any hearts, nor the sacrificial Liberal in rural Alberta). The gamut of weirdo fringe parties are basically ignored. In Quebec, the Bloc warrants consideration alongside the big three.
What screws all this up, though, are the Greens and the People's Party. They don't warrant serious consideration, per se, but they will draw a fair number of voters. What to do with these?
Again, it's a judgment call ... but it's not just a judgment call. Canada's broadcast sector is regulated, and there are special regulations that kick in during elections. This includes common-sense protections to ensure that the parties are allowed to purchase advertising on an equal footing, and receive allotments of free time on certain television and radio networks. But it also, more interestingly, includes provisions for equitable news coverage.
It’s a neat word, "equitable." It sounds a lot like "equal," but it isn’t. The CRTC regulations explicitly do permit the use of editorial common sense. The regulations are intended to prevent egregious abuses; for instance, take a small town with only one radio or television station, imagine a scenario where that station's owner is a fervent partisan supporter of one party, and the others get completely ignored. Yeah, that is where the CRTC could come in.
That’s fair, and as a smart person who knows his way around these regulations told us on background, the rules can basically be summarized as: "Don't be a dick." Absent any overt dickishness, there would always be considerable deference to local editorial judgment and circumstances.
In any case, there is room for Canadian news directors to make some hard decisions about how much attention the Green party deserves. We’d like to put ourselves on record as saying that, outside any riding where there’s a realistic chance a Green candidate may win, the amount should be as little as possible. For national coverage, none.
We know this will annoy many Greens. And we can only say in our defence that you should lean into your anger at us, and really embrace it, because as long as you're pissed at The Line, you probably won't have the time or emotional energy to keep burning your own party to the ground. You're welcome.
Oh, and just a little note here: Ken Boessenkool’s column here this week, recapped below, led to some interesting comments by journalists at The Globe and Mail. We offer no comment, beyond suggesting that you might enjoy reading the exchanges for yourself.
Now, on a non-election related note, the latest small debate on the COVID-19 file caught our attention this week: booster shots. Ontario is offering a third shot to vulnerable populations, and your Line editors remain somewhat divided on the subject. Or, more specifically, we remain divided on the issue of vaccine equity. Most of our population has been inoculated; and those who are not have either chosen to remain unvaccinated, or simply haven't prioritized it. This has resulted in, overall, good news. While our case rates are increasing, our hospital and ICU rates remain at a fraction of what they were at this point in previous waves — indicating that we are probably highly vaccinated enough to avoid some crippling shut down of the health-care system. Fingers crossed!
However, vaccines aren't perfect, and there is some evidence to suggest that a third shot may offer additional protection, especially for vulnerable populations who may not have enjoyed a robust immune response to the first two.
That said, the prospect of boosters — especially if they are widely distributed — raises some significant questions around global vaccine equity. How, exactly, do we justify sapping more juice out of the global vaccine supply at a moment when the developing world is still scrambling to offer its own citizens first doses? While we have no doubt that a booster may help our own outcomes, there's no question that we're hitting diminishing returns; that is, a third dose is much less likely to save a life than a first dose. While we're still dealing a limited supply, that means our booster shots are almost certain to leave people in the developing world vulnerable unto death.
Secondly, we actually have a vested self interest in seeing the developing world vaccinated. We are all concerned about the potential for COVID variants that may prove more deadly, transmissible, or even vaccine immune. Looking for these variants to show up in places like Alberta is myopic; a truly dangerous variant is more likely to develop in a densely populated third-world nation with a vaccination rate of 20 per cent than a first-world population with a vaccination rate of 80 per cent. Our most dangerous known variant to date — the Delta variant — appeared in India when that country's vaccination rate was close to nine per cent and COVID was running absolutely rampant there.
By all means, triple-jab the extremely vulnerable. But this is one of those rare cases where nationalistic self-interest is best served by international benevolence. It’s a hard sell, and we aren’t betting the farm on that we’ll put the needs of foreigners ahead of our own preferences. But it’s the right call.
Lastly, Line editor Jen Gerson made passing note to the one-time payout of $500 to seniors over the age 75 in her recent column for the CBC. We at The Line are perfectly aware of the fact that all political parties find ways to incentivize their particular voting demographics; child benefits, boutique tax credits, etc. Even so, there really was something breathtakingly cynical about mailing an actual cheque to seniors a week into the election. (Yes, we know it was announced in July. But if you think the election wasn't in the works then, too, well we expect you'll believe anything this government tells you.)
Look: it's vote buying.
Worse, it's buying off the elderly — the very people we just shut our entire society down to save — at the expense of the young. Again. Because we live in a vampiric gerontocracy that prioritizes the profit and well-being of the country's wealthiest demographic by age over the needs of literally everyone else. We would also like to note here that most seniors are not Greatest Generation WWII veterans. There are only about 22,000 Second World War veterans still living, and their average age is 95.
We also understand that not every senior who will receive this cheque is well off. But remember, this isn't a means-tested program, it's just a bribe. To those who are poor, it's hardly enough, and the rest won't need it.
So if you are among the cohort who will use that money to buy groceries, accept our blessing and goodwill. But if you're a senior who doesn't need the money and knows it, we at The Line want you to cash that cheque — and we want you to feel bad about it. The Liberals have costed your integrity at $500 minus taxes, and we're reasonably sure that they've priced it about right. We want you to feel every penny of that cash drip into your account, and we want you to know that it is being helpfully redistributed from the fat, tiny fingers of your grandchildren — babies who have been out of school for more than a year to save your life. Children who will enjoy a fraction of the wealth and opportunity that you enjoyed. Young people who will never see a defined-benefit pension; who will probably live to witness many of our social safety nets stripped to the bone or made bankrupt before they can take advantage of them. Infants who will grow up to spend their summers choking on ash.
Oh, and by the way … remember how we were talking about vaccine equity above? Well, let’s do the math. There’s 3.3 million Canadians 75 or over, so, 3.3 million x $500 = $1,650,000,000. Now let’s do some currency conversion, rounding the Canadian dollar up a penny or two for simplicity’s sake to 80¢ U.S. That’s $1.32 billion American. The BMJ reported earlier this year that a dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine cost about $15 American. So with the money that the Liberals are going to sprinkle on the olds in Canada, they could have bought an additional 88 million doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, enough to fully vaccinate 44 million people. That’s all of Sudan, or Angola, or, ahem, Afghanistan, with doses to spare.
But it’s OK. Trudeau’s sure you’ll spend it on something just as important. Besides, you worked hard, right? So enjoy that money. You deserve it. Maybe it's time for that cruise!
ROUND UP
The Line’s Matt Gurney started the week for us, noting that if the Liberals had hoped for a spell of relative calm where they could sneak in a majority, it must have been a real buzz kill when Afghanistan collapsed in the time it took Justin Trudeau to chat up the new G-G. “The greatest danger to the federal Liberals is not the opposition (though more on them in a minute),” Gurney wrote. “It’s the fact that they have now locked themselves into a five-week countdown during the most turbulent period in geopolitical happenings since the end of the Second World War.”
The week got worse from there, for the record.
Campaign veteran Ken Boessenkool shared a few war stories, and also warned us that the rules that applied to reaching voters as recently as a few elections ago are obsolete in today’s media environment. “Between 2006 and 2011 a few of us wrote a memo suggesting that we forgo these big national tours. In the first place the national media was already becoming a shell of its former self. Local media was also disappearing. Better to take all the money spent on the national tour and redirect it towards advertising, we argued, and just broadcast the leader from a studio in Ottawa. This thinking was probably too far ahead of its time. What brought it up to time was social media.”
Stewart Prest stepped up next and commented on something we’d noticed, too — if any leader has looked ready for prime time this first week, it wasn’t the guy who called the election. It was the leader of the third party. “Singh lacks any of the considerable baggage that Trudeau has acquired over the last six years. His social media presence is effective, particularly on platforms that skew young, such as TikTok,” said Prest. “Moreover, he has a party that by all accounts is united squarely behind him. Questions about party unity that dogged Singh prior to the 2019 campaign are now a distant memory.”
The Line’s Jen Gerson then had some good advice for Justin Trudeau after his low-energy first week: stop trying to be funny. “‘Justin,’ someone needs to say. ‘You ain’t no Dave Chappelle, friend,’” she wrote. “‘Your jokes don't land, and when when you try to defuse a moment of frustration with humour, you almost always come off as condescending, arrogant, or dumb. Take the hit and change the subject.’”
Kevin Newman finished off the week with a powerful piece laying bare Canada’s horrible failure to protect its people in Afghanistan. “These early days of this massive rescue effort by Western countries revealed some unflattering aspects of our national character,” said Newman. “Canada has been slow to react, risk-averse and selfish. We’ve relied on our neighbours more than each other, turned our backs on thousands who’d proved their loyalty to us, and even blamed criminals for our inability to protect people we know are in real fear of being murdered.”
OK, folks, that’s it for this week. This is our second reminder to you — in three weeks, these dispatches are going behind the paywall. If you enjoy them, great. We love writing them. But we don’t love working for free. So please subscribe today.
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Good to see you come out in favour of global vaccine equity. More people need to be talking about this, or even doing something about this.
20 years ago I was a huge CBC supporter and if any political party questioned funding or thought about scaling it back that would have been a red line for me. Now I think it should just be completely shut down and something else should start from scratch. There is such a huge need for local and international coverage that really only somebody like the CBC could do but now I think they are the last people that should be doing it. They are beyond dumpster fire. They are the smoldering ashes of a dumpster fire