You are correct Kristin....Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat or non-voter...all of us should condemn the hateful behaviour you describe.
You are wrong, however, in casually tossing Poilievre into your piece. You topic was harassment--not this week's "nom du jour"-- and the thin link to his well-deserved media attacks weakened it.
Journalists must face reality: mainstream media behaviour and taint have debased your trade. You must re-earn the credibility and trust once automatic to journalists.
Thanks Nicole, good column, right on the mark. In my own comment today, I referred to the far right folk's ill tidings. The c2c column reminded me that I'm equally repulsed by the woke-left folk at work. Many of these are columnists and editors which earn the enmity of the reading public.
Respectfully disagree. Silence is not violence, it is simply silence. Or maybe his comments against it were not reported by the main stream media.
I do lots of reading and one thing that is obvious are the gaps in reporting creating a one-sided view and bias in our media. There are two main themes when it comes to politics: the first are the attempts to tie PP's politics to Trump and the second is the narrative that if you are not a Liberal (or any non-Conservative party) supporter, you are a far right fascist.
Perhaps you should read the article in the link provided by Nicole Scheidl in the comment above. You will find that PP doesn't need to inflame people against MSM, they are taking care of that all by themselves.
The fact that you refer to them as 'con' tells me that you have no interest in listening to anything I may have to say. You just reinforced my previous statement that the left believe that if you are not with them, then you are indeed a fascist, or worse, a conservative.
If he had any character at all… I believe the appropriate phrase would not be ‘character assassination’ but ‘character suicide’… a concept you seem to be intimately familiar with…
Terry, you need to back up that extraordinary claim with some evidence. “Do your own research” is just evidence that you don’t have anything to back that claim up.
Inflaming people against the MSM is hardly a crime… in some ways it’s a service.
My ideal would be to have police investigate these threats and issue warnings to the people who’re making them. People seem to feel emboldened to make threats online for the same reason they swear and rage at other drivers when in their cars: a feeling that they’re anonymous and can utter threats to vent their spleen without consequences. This needs to be supported by legal requirements to associate social media, messaging, and email profiles with a verified identity. (This would be great for anti-spam and anti-scam efforts too - no verification, and they’re simply blocked.). Finally, when police speak to these people, I’d like them to do it at a workplace or other venue where others can learn what they’ve been doing. Shame can work wonders at checking bad behavior.
Social media is not that anonymous. If the police want to find out who made a posting, they can, despite anonymity. Unless you are using a full set of privacy capabilities, including burner phones, which seems unlikely for a social media ranter.
Anonymity serves the important purpose of allowing people to express themselves without fear of cancellation, and allows whistleblowers to reveal critical facts. In our current climate of intense media and social media censorship, it is essential.
I agree with the second paragraph not the first. Not that I even disagree with the first, but on one hand you bemoan the money the Libs spend but now you want the police or CSIS or someone to go after the a$$holes online. Maybe pull the computer cops who are looking for purveyors of child porn/traffickers.
But we all hate Bill C-11 too.
It's not difficult to write an algorithm to pick out hot words on various platforms. But the sheer immense weight of it is astounding and them compile it into a list of something useful to a human? And then somehow narrow it down to a specific threat towards a specific person that can be used by the police and the courts.
Computers (phones etc) are ubiquitous, easy and powerful but not infallible. It would be better I think if people, real people who know the perpetrator of vile attacks on women and others, publicly shame the person. Call him out in public (politely?) List him online with other jerks with similar bents. Word of mouth obviously still thrives today. Email his boss. Email his partner. They won't stay anonymous forever. They will want the adulation of like-minded creeps.
You realize that uttering threats is illegal, right? This isn't the case of having police follow up because somebody holds an unpopular opinion.
Ironically, one of the major reasons for the secret ballot is *also* intimidation and threats. When people voted in a public assembly, violence and threats were pretty common with partisans trying to literally strong-arm people into voting for their candidate.
Law enforcement just doesnt' seem to take these threats seriously and I'm not sure why. If groups of people were standing in a downtown area, harrassing people they didn't agree with, I doubt police would just ignore it. Yet, we live a lot of our lives now in digital spaces where that's exactly what happens.
These laws exist for a reason -- it's hard to live your life when people can continually harrass and threaten you.
I totally agree. If you tell someone to their face that you are going to kill them you will be arrested and charged with Uttering Death Threats (or whatever the actual wording is). If you do this on-line nothing seems to happen. I think police are not used to acting on internet threats or the perpetrator has masked their identity/location and it is difficult to get them. Political leaders of all stripes need to call this out clearly and loudly. People used to say these things in their kitchen or bar stool. They got it off their chest and it never went any farther. Posting on-line for the world to see you venting the puss in your soul is new and really toxic. This has to change!
I agree issuing threats is different then calling someone an idiot so to speak , but what do you make of a PM who says “what do we do with those people” - I considered that a threat to those who did not agree in complying with his mandates???
It is verbal violence in general at journalists in general . They are being targeted i believe because of the mindset that is happening today over the actions of our PM who has caused more division in our country and the media who have supported it for the last 2+ years
Not bad ideas at all. But the police simply do not have the manpower to do so. There is a lot more of it out there than is reported (gee, why is that?) We hear of threats occasionally. Even more seldom do we get the video. CF harasser was defended heatedly when it was learned that the police were investigating. Most of those brave souls are hidden deep in their anonymity and only when they repeatedly spew their hate, misogyny, bigotry, and anger and occasionally become physical do we finally learn who they are. Maybe after they are arrested for beating their wife and kids. And then the sentence never fits the crime.
Violence against women has always been with us. It seemed for a while that maybe women were getting the supports they needed and some men were getting the message. Now with the ability to hate on people flung wide open, women are getting it again by big tough guys (including women who think they are big tough guys) who think it's their right to do so. Free speech and all that.
I completely agree with this... such harassment from anybody, directed to anybody, is totally unacceptable. I would point out, though, that while the case made by the article is non-partisan and non-political, institutional media itself is not. Frustration and anger directed against journalists that takes this form is inexcusable; but what gives rise to it is journalists' wilful disregard of exactly the same virtues of decency and fairness the article lauds, and their embrace of the very hypocrisy and partisan unfairness the article denounces.
Far from being neutral observers above the fray, reporting factually on the culture wars, journalists now try to win those wars for one side or the other and shape their narratives accordingly. This is not the proper role of information providers; and the exasperation of people who lack platforms themselves, and see their access to information--information they need in order to form their own judgment--compromised in this unethical way, is understandable.
To be clear, I'm not defending threats. I'm suggesting that admonishing people for behaving badly without acknowledging what's provoking them is itself a form of 'blindness,' resulting in an article that, while good and very welcome, is not as complete as it might have been.
Disagree. First of all many (perhaps not you) don't seem to be capable of understanding the difference between reporters and opinion writers. By confusing the two, I often see people railling about 'bias' in news outlets, pointing to opinion pieces! SMH.
Journalists are going to be biased, even when they try not to be. Editing, by it's nature, means choosing what details to highlight and what to leave out and that's going to be informed by a whole bunch of things -- including what you think will be interesting to your audience. But, the whole system we've created means there are lots of journalistic voices to choose from; you can (and should) get news from a variety of sources and that helps one both see the bias from different outlets and 'account' for it.
More importantly, journalists need to hold people in power to account, especially politicians. That means they have to ask uncomfortable questions that politicians don't want to answer. They have to be agressive to even get the opportunity to ask those questions. To demand that journalists 'go easy' on politicians you agree with is to ask them to not do their job.
If you don't find a reporter/outlet's coverage useful, you don't have to read them.
As it happens, I'm a retired reference librarian who dealt with information issues his entire career, and has ongoing concerns about the reliability of information sources and the current state of the information commons... concerns shared by many who don't need anything like my background to see something is wrong. They aren't nearly as confused about the difference between reporting and opinion-writing as this generation of journalists seems to be; but if you want to inform yourself more fully about the steady erosion of what were once considered basic journalist principles of objectivity and fairness, there are plenty of good books available (Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc. provides an accessible historical overview and is quite readable). I would disagree that the range of choice you speak of exists within institutional (or 'legacy,' or 'corporate,' or whatever you wish to call it) media: one needs to go online to outflank official gatekeepers, and this involves perils of its own. It's also becoming a harder trick to perform in the face of transparently politicized Big Tech censorship and obvious bias at Wikipedia.
In any event, this is somewhat wide of the point my post was making. I'm pretty sure if the article's author saw a man goading a dog, and the dog finally retaliated by biting him, the author wouldn't hesitate to assign the man a considerable portion of responsibility for his own fate. It's one thing to hold people in power to account, quite another to craft supposed 'news' narratives that at bottom are always telling you the same thing, and which relentlessly, every hour of the broadcast day, demonize half the population. This isn't journalism but propaganda, and if the demonized happen to be people you don't see eye-to-eye with politically you may be perfectly comfortable seeing them howl with outrage, and even construe the howls as evidence such people deserve to be targeted. But you shouldn't be. In the end, propaganda that claims to speak for you is just as destructive to the information commons as propaganda that speaks against you. You should always want to know the truth, even when you don't find the truth congenial or particularly flattering for your team.
I agree with a lot that you say and I respect your expertise in this area but you aren't the one who is attacking women journalists with threats and vile, violent words and sometimes actions. That's the fear, the possibility of violence against themselves and their families. If it was just words, that would be one thing, but the words being used have nothing to do with what they actually write or say.
I also disagree with half the population being demonized but I don't know where you get that impression from. I know where "I" could find information that does that but I don't buy into it.
If America's president calling MAGA supporters fascists and domestic terrorists, and CNN and MSNBC endorsing every word, doesn't qualify as demonization then give us another word for it. It doesn't sound like a dinner invitation.
My concern here is what it's always been. Our judgment is only as reliable as the data that inform it, and when institutional information sources that purport to serve everybody's needs and best interests deliberately edit data to push people in the direction of judgments they wouldn't have made if they'd been less selectively 'informed,' what you have is propaganda or misleading advertising, not ethical journalism, and the sense-making process essential to judgment consequently becomes sabotaged.
Obviously, protest against such journalistic irresponsibility shouldn't take the form of threats; but it's disingenuous not to acknowledge the extent to which protest of some kind is warranted. If the demonized are mad as hell and not prepared to take it any more, journalists can hardly wash their hands and say, "This has nothing to do with us: the protesters are simply against freedom of the press." No, their grievance is against the abuse of press freedoms, by people whose agenda clearly isn't to inform but to engineer social-political outcomes. If you've decided that's your mission, start a think tank and promote your cause but don't masquerade yourself as a journalist; the subterfuge merely antagonizes those who know better (which surveys of press credibility suggest comprise a fairly large set).
Why do you care about what is happening south of the border. Does it affect us here? You watch MCNBC and CNN every day to hear what might offend you?
Canadians are angry because Trump lost the election? Jan 6th was peaceful?
Fox's Tucker, Hannity and the rest are unbiased and honest?
You paraphrase from an old movie but I don't think you actually watched it and you don't specify what freedoms the press is abusing. How is the press social/political engineering? Who benefits? Who should start a think-tank. What surveys? You have said a great deal but you have not said anything clearly.
"Why do you care about what is happening south of the border. Does it affect us here?"
This is a strange question for a Canadian to ask. Canada's history is unintelligible except in the context of centuries' worth of conflict between England and France, and developments south of the border (you realize Confederation itself was a response to America's Civil War, yes?) . Bereft of its international drivers, our history would be a series of unconnected events glimpsed through a window that offered no view of the street, apart from what was right in front of our fixed field of vision. Because of humanity's essential temporality we're always obliged to take the historical point of view; so, yes, when you fail to grasp your own history this can be said to "affect" you.
"You watch MCNBC and CNN every day to hear what might offend you?"
Haven't watched them for years, or CBC either. I'm not masochistic enough to gather data in such a perversely tedious way (talk about an unfavourable noise to signal ratio!).
"Canadians are angry because Trump lost the election?"
The Toronto Star has been angry for half a decade because he won one. Its editors are part of "The Resistance" that's determined he should never win another. The Globe and Mail is more subtle but totally onside with the same project.
"Fox's Tucker, Hannity and the rest are unbiased and honest?"
Tucker is honest to the point where I sometimes fear for his safety; but what makes you think I exempt Fox from the general criticisms levied against corporate media? Fox pioneered audience siloing, but the network is now so ridiculously outnumbered by left-dominated outlets that singling out its transgressions wouldn't qualify as representative. Isolated as Fox is, Big Tech, CNN, Slate and the rest still strive to stifle, distort and discredit any heretical dissent emerging from it.
"...you don't specify what freedoms the press is abusing."
(?) On the contrary, I've told you exactly that. Under the guise of playing a central role in information diffusion, institutional media is preaching a social gospel. That's an appropriate task for activists, perhaps, but not for journalists.
"How is the press social/political engineering?"
I explained that too: via selective editing that preemptively substitutes the judgment of editors for what should properly be the judgment of viewers and readers.
"Who benefits?"
The aspiring engineers would say everybody. The lessons of history say nobody.
"You are muddleheaded."
Well, we're all somewhere on the muddleheaded continuum. You may need to invest in a bit more background reading before accurately situating us in relation to each other becomes a live possibility for you on this particular topic. With the best will in the world, I can't bring you up to speed on the relevant literature with a Vulcan mind meld.
Exactly! Op-eds abound and are constantly quoted as if they were not someones opinion. It happens in here a lot! It could be political, medical, a natural disaster, a protest, anything but they never see the small (sometimes large) print at the top that says "OPINION." ARRGGHHH!
We need to be careful about how we define harassment. Threats of violence are criminal and should be dealt with firmly by police. Gender based or racial slurs are offensive and nobody should be making them.
Ongoing accusations of lying, laziness, bias, being shills for the government, or being corrupted by state funding for media are appropriate for many journalists, and should be expected. Poilievre's treatment of David Akin was appropriate and long overdue.
On David Akin: what Poliviere did is a great tactic (used by politicians of all stripes), whining about having to face media scrutiny. But, it's simply an attempt by a politician to control the coverage they recieve. If you do an annoucement, you have to face the questions (or appear defensive, which is how Poliviere came off to me). But, his fundraising email was in my inbox shortly afterwards!
We'll see. I am hoping it is a tactic to anger media types enough to have them obviously misbehave. (Notice Poilievre accused Akin of being a Liberal "heckler", not just unfair. A reporter would regard this as demeaning in a way that accusations of bias are not)
I see Poilievre's best strategy not as appealing to the "centre" (ie, people who think things are basically ok, media is basically fair, bureaucrats are basically honest and trying their best), but as convincing some people who are currently "centre" to conclude that Canada is in a disastrous state, media are mainly dishonest lying hacks, and the bureaucracy puts itself and its ideological commitments (eg, climate change) ahead of Canadians' welfare. In media/Liberal parlance, this is defined as "extremism", and the campaign will depend on converting, say, 10-20% of "centrists" into "extremists", as defined by the legacy media. Obviously taking this line would also encourage some PPC voters to support the CPC, but that is secondary.
Angering the media enough to get them to show their bias clearly is one way to do this.
Global warming is an ideological commitment? Really? Have you not noticed the weather around the world changing in unpleasant and expensive ways? It's kind of like needing roof repairs. Sure it's money you don't want to spend but if you ignore it it's going to cost you a lot more in the future.
Also I think a lot of things DO need improving but we are not near "disastrous" yet. Some people may want to convince you of that for their own gain, though.
That Canada should do anything about CO2 emissions is absolutely an ideological commitment. Our emissions being a tiny fraction of the world's emissions, anything we do will have no measurable effect on our climate. The only reasons we should do anything are things like "showing leadership" or "doing our share" - pure ideology.
Well, the original point of doing all of this was part of a global effort to reduce GHG emissions. We've made various international committments to reduce GHG emissions as have partner countries (e.g. Paris Agreement, UNFCCC). The real goal of our committment is to get others to make similar committments as international buy-in is the only way to really address the problem.
The challenge is that most of the committments are voluntary and there isn't really an enforcement mechanism in place. But, the point isn't what our individual contribution will be; it's part of an international effort where everyone agrees to make some reduction.
I would agree that there is a LOT missing from these agreements, particularly that there's no way hold anyone accountable other than shaming! But, politics is about the art of the possible and these voluntary agreements were probably about the best we could do -- it's not adequate, but its a start.
Now, do we need to pursue further international agreements? Sure. If oil producing provinces want preferential treatment for more 'ethical oil' -- that needs to be codified in international agreements. Likewise, getting international buy-in for carbon pricing (or better, carbon trading) could create a lot more positive impact compared to our current national regime. And, yes, it bothers me that none of this seems to be a priority.
A binding treaty that actually constrained the big emitters might not be ideology. But everything we are actually doing is, because the big emitters won't agree to be constrained.
The idea of setting a moral example for China, India, the US and Russia is laughable.
That's a pretty conventional "change agent" campaign. As a voter, it doesn't appeal to me, mostly because I fall closer to "things are generally ok" part of the spectrum, albeit with a *lot* of concerns that no political party is really invested in.
My reality -- and the reality for most of the admittedly fairly privledged people I know is that, particularly coming out of the first global pandemic of this scale in my lifetime, is that things are reasonably ok all things considered. For all the online concern about 'wokism' or 'skyrocketing costs of living' or whatever hot topic-- none of that is really a huge concern in my day-to-day life. Do I notice things are more expensive? Sure. Is my variable-rate mortgage becoming more expensive? Yes, but I never expected ultra-low rates to be the norm and the discounted rate was good. Most of the stuff people are continually shouting about online don't really resonate for me at a gut, lived experience level.
So, the question for the campaign is -- are there that 10-20% of centrist voters available? And, will pursuing those voters alienate people like me enough that we 'hold our nose and vote Liberal'? I think the Poliviere brain trust is banking on two things -- that they probably don't need to conver 10 - 20% as long as they don't alienate me enough that I end up voting Liberal and either stay at home (I won't but lots of other people might) or vote another party.
You are reading too much onto Akin being a Liberal heckler. I'm pretty sure David is way more thick skinned that Skippy.
I learned today as I was out and about that PP has not answered ANY questions from the press since June. (I am not sure I believe that there has been very little) So allowing only 2 questions in the Press Gallery and then turning it into a fundraiser seems very contrived.
Yes, the wannabe PM wants to anger the media. Sound like a winning idea to me. /s
Now sure what this is a reply to, but I think of the woke left as people who believe the most current progressive ideas, including, for example, the idea that Canada is a racist country or that we are currently committing genocide. I won't go into all the other ideas, because that will broaden the discussion too much even for me.
There's no woke right, but many people do use the term "awake", which I actually hate. A good indication of being awake would be believing that our media and social media landscape is heavily censored.
PP said the woke left. But people keep saying he is not the divisive one.
Who said we are racist or committing genocide? Of course we have racists, bigots, misogynists etc and I don't think we are currently wiping anyone off the map though a good try has happened in the past.
It seems to me if the man who would be PM can clump (smear, it wasn't meant nicely) more than half the population of Canada (currently about 38 million of us) as the woke left (sounds like an oxymoron) what do we call the rest of them?
I didn't know what PP and Akin did or said. I guess because I'm on Coast time which is in another dimension from the rest of you. But, it didn't take long. Andrew Lawton (why does he say irreverent?) tells me that PP was heckled the very first time he stands up as the leader of the Cons in the Press Gallery. So what? PP has never been heckled in the PG before? Many people seem to be upset by this. I checked Akin, and he apologized. But then I found this:
You won't believe this. It happened to me.
Today I was delivering a statement about how Trudeau's inflation was hurting everyday Canadians when someone started shouting.
First they hurled obscenities and then they started shouting at me.
Was it some left-wing protester or Liberal MP or staffer?
NO, IT WAS A MEMBER OF THE MEDIA.
That's right, David Akin from Global Media was swearing, shouting and heckling. He wasn't interested in what I had to say, and he certainly wasn't interested in reporting it in an unbiased way.
THIS IS WHAT WE"RE UP AGAINST.
It's not just the Liberal....blah blah.
It's the media who is no longer interested in pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.
But we have a secret weapon.
You and hundred of thousands of other Conservatives across this country....CBC Liberals Trudeau blah blah.
We can't count on the media to communicate our messages to Canadians. We have to go around them and their biased coverage.
We need to do it directly....(list of old school electioneering (cheaper than media buys))
Chip in to help us go around the biased media (donate button)
Thank you,
Pierre Polievre
PS We can't take on the Liberals and the media and win without your help. Chip in here http://donate...
PP says nothing himself regarding the incident. Of course not, no news is bad news but a fundraising opportunity. Somehow he couldn't do that with Bitcoin though. But #PierrePolievre is trending, as is Akin. Also most of the responses are, but Trudeau is worse much worse and he did this and that and something else.
I am worried about Andrew Lawton.
It's going to be a long long haul to the next election and I know he will not shut up.
A member of the media asking "a hostile question" about something that Poliviere said *is* what holding elites to account looks like. Poliviere is the leader of the opposition and wants to be PM -- you don't get a lot more elite than that!
Poliviere could just calmly answer the question (there are answers about how the government can and does direct monetary policy) but I suspect this is a little political theatre on Poliviere's part; his fundraising email hit my inbox within hours. That probably pleases his supporters but it makes people like me roll my eyes.
Well said. It is quite literally the least people on all sides should do. I don’t know if Covid is to blame or if it’s been a result of watching the show to our south but somehow a large number of our fellow citizens have forgotten what a self imposed filter and/or common decency are in this time period. The anonymity of the internet has surely not helped. I also fear this is not just a battle against women journalists or politicians but has become a war against women in general. I neither condone nor understand it and cannot consider supporting politicians of any stripe who do through omission or action.
I would prefer it if Chrystia didn’t get harassed.
On the other hand her government threatened and harassed people to get a vaccine they did not want. They threatened the loss of their livelihood and in a lot of cases executed that threat. They harassed those who opposed these measures by accusing them of being Nazi’s etc.
So sure it would be great if our politicians could board elevators in peace but wouldn’t it be nice if our fellow citizens could freely choose to get a vaccine or not without threats to their livelihood or being called a Nazi? The scale of these things are not the same.
So you still want to pretend that we haven't been in the worst global health emergency in a century for the last years? The media didn't take anything away form anyone. They reported on the advice given by public health....their job. It as individual employers that demands vaccination far more than governments did....probably on advice from their lawyers. That the government followed the advice of their experts cannot be wrong. It's not like the Minister of Health has a clue how to deal with a pandemic. Then your comment stepped off the absurdity cliff.........
So you are claiming that people who did not get the vaccine needed to be fired from their job. That the government was justified in using force to do this.
Personally I was happy to get the vaccine and think it saved millions of lives.
I just have principles about the use of government force. I think there need to be limits to it. I think a mandate and the use of the threat of force can be counterproductive in even achieving the ends it claims it wants to deliver.
I work in a federally regulated industry that if you didn’t get jabbed you lost your job. Some have just now come back to work who refused to get the shot.
It is quite possible that the mandate saved lives by increasing uptake in the vaccine but that gain didn’t come without costs. More public distrust. Making a mandate that says you need to get this vaccine to keep your because it will increase your immunity to virus but if you have a recent case of covid that does not count and you still will lose your job is just one such inconsistency that sows distrust.
There were so many of these types of inconsistencies in public health I am a little shocked there is anyone has faith in these people any more in setting public policy.
So you agree the vaccine was important and saved millions of lives. Do employers have a responsibility to provide the safest possible workplace? When the vaccines first came out, how could that best be accomplished? Do employers not have the right to make certain demands of their employees in the interests of everyone who works there? The government is far from the only ones who made this demand of their employees or a requirement to be hired. Does it matter as much since OMICRON came out? Probably not (that's for you Mark). But when the vaccines first came out, I would expect every employer to demand it of their staff both to reduce the risk of the business shutting down, to reduce liability risk in case someone caught it at work, and ass you also decided, it was the socially responsible thing to do.
Public distrust came about because of the serial lying US president at the time, the sea of misinformation propagated by the vitamin industry, and a seas of lies on YouTube. Decisions always come with consequences. The vaccines are safe and they work(sorry Mark, it's true). Public health was dealing with a moving target. Science still is which is why bivalent vaccines are only coming out now. But how many comments do you see these days using information that's 8 months out of date from people who "did their research"? This was humanity's chance to rise to the occasion. The vast majority did. Those that didn't can live with the consequences....or in numbers way above their percentage of the population, die with them.
My employer did not require it. They were forced to fire employees only when the government made it impossible to employ them.
I am guessing you think that you think that employers need to provide the safest possible workplace. So maybe you are in favor or government mandates for future covid boosters. Maybe you think flu vaccines should be mandated. After all if everyone is forced to take them they will save lives.
Maybe they should monitor how much I eat during work so that I can maintain a healthy weight and not put undue strain on the healthcare system due to my obesity.
What are the limits of government force when some do gooder feels like with they can wield the iron fist of government to achieve some goal that seems good?
I appreciate your goal is to save lives on net. Nothing wrong with that. I guess we just disagree the extent that government force should be used to that end on the possible downsides of that effort.
My employer required it both for active staff and new hires.
I don't care what the government thinks. They are not experts on the subject. If that is the advice that experts give them, I would support it. It comes down to this; my doctor...the person I let do all sorts of unspeakable things to me, and their colleague who I let cut me open say the vaccine was and is a good idea. That's enough information for me to get the vaccine. I don't really care about Terry's YouTube video, or Trump hoping it will "magically disappear" (when he knew the exact opposite).
When this began it was a global health emergency. What was accomplished in the first year to get vaccines to slow down what was destroying society, and promised a return to "normal" was magnificent. That Google experts knew better meant they were idiots. Same way the Convoy were idiots.
This is not the flu. No contagious disease has killed like this one did in 100 years. make such a comparison is absurd.
You getting fat affects no one else. COVID patients filling ICU's affected everyone. There is nothing to compare between the to, and it is, again, absurd to compare them.
None of this was some "do- gooder." it was people whose entire lives have been devoted to the study of public health. They have forgotten more than you and I will ever know.
Put play along here.....let's say the government does nothing and lets it run its course. the healthcare system collapses completely. Three times as many people die, and those in car accidents can't get treated at the ERE because it's full, and there's no staff. I'm willing to bet the same people complaining about being told to get vaccinated would be screaming that the government didn't do anything. It's like Children's Aid...they can't win, and you only hear about them when they make a mistake. I think all involved did the best they could with the knowledge they had. Was it perfect? No. Is anything? No. have a nice night.
Well written and timely. One additional thing that comes to mind is the somewhat sad throat clearing that seems to be required for articles like this to pre-empt the inevitable "Oh, you think you have it bad, x has it worse"... It reminds me of a grief group I was part of where a parent was sharing how horrific it was to lose their infant to SIDS. A mother next to her actually said, her grief was worse because she lost two children in a car accident. ?!?!?!?! Its not a competition. Perspective is always an important background variable, but honestly, you should not have to couch "Oh, I only receive x death threats a day and others get 2x." Death threats are well over a line. At some point the plot is lost if the discussion becomes how far over the line it is.
This behaviour is totally unacceptable. Men do this women don’t.
Something is terribly wrong in our society.
There is nothing wrong with being angry, but so many today have never learned to value anger, listen to it and express it without judging or blaming. A failure of how our community functions.
Older societies had ways of teaching, of initiating young males into adulthood. We have lost that custom, that skill even. At the same time, human ingenuity has created so many paths for dysfunctional ways to be angry. Older communities, where people knew each other, where elders, people with a lifetime of experience were in close communication with the young handled anger in far superior ways.
Thank you for your article. I agree that we have lost our common civility and the ability to engage in arguments on substance rather than personal attacks. We need leadership on this from every level - politicians, journalists, and all the Twitter influencers, otherwise we will continue to descend into chaos and it won't be good for anyone.
Let's be clear what these efforts are: they are campaigns. The messaging is typically very aligned and the targeting has a clear goal of intimindating people to change their behaviour. Social media has made delivering these campaigns really, really easy. From what I can see, you don't even need to formally organize people anymore -- just build (or buy!) a following, deliver your talking points, and let the algorithm deliver it to people who will feverishly agree and 'go after' the enemy du jour. It's cheap, easy ... and really bad for Canada.
This only works because we -- the crowd -- stand back and allow it. If you watch someone you disagree with get attacked in this manner and you think: "well, that's extreme, but they kinda had it coming" you are part of the problem! Threatening people is never ok.
We're devolving into a society where people who hold opposite points of view to us are evil, the enemy. Social media amplifies this trend -- anger gets engagement and what gets engagement gets more eyeballs -- but that doesn't excuse the behaviour. Civil society relies on tolerance of people who live and believe things you don't -- of being able to navigate our shared spaces with people very different than you. That's hard and everyone is going to have 'red lines' -- beliefs they cannot tolerate. But, we seem to be *defaulting* to intolerance, which isn't sustainable.
And, before you write about Trudeau being the divider (or Poliviere or whomever) -- it's become part of our political lexicon because it works. It drives fundraising and voting. That's on all of us. Politicians do what they need to do to get elected; if we reward crapping on "the other" we'll get a lot more of it.
If there is any modern trend that gets me upset, it's this one.
There has been a lot of conversation here on why Kristin brought Mr. Poilivre into the essay. A fundraising email went from CPC yesterday saying David Akin was “ swearing, shouting and heckling”. The email concludes by saying “ we are up against the media.” Mr. Akin was doing his job.
Mr. Poilivre chose this strategy of media bashing - don’t question why his name was included in an article about increasing threats to journalists.
They exaggerate Mr. Akin’s behaviour for the purposes of a fundraising letter & deliberately stated - we (CPC) need to fight media. . That was my point.
The growing uncivilized and aggressive behaviour of Canadians is a curse and is fuelled along by social media platforms that allow posts in anonymity. Attaching a real name to racial slurs, taunts and threats of violence is an effective throttle to ignorant and dangerous messaging. Remember, journalists like our hosts at The Line are real people extending their real email addresses, and like all Canadians deserve to be able to earn a living free from harassment.
A commenter yesterday complained that in 3 days since Poilievre ascended, there had been two negative articles; now we're 3 for 4.
Except it isn't! Unless chiding Poilievre for his silence counts. (But, also, Poilievre speaking up would be him accepting the role of the leader of the threateners, perhaps? Probably why he hasn't.)
Nope, the article mostly condemns those actually making the threats. Poilievre's political problem is that great line that dogged Donald Trump: that whatever he said he liked, White supremacists all liked him.
His opponents just have to keep harping on the fact that "he's followed around the Internet by a squad of death-threat-making protectors, who all love his every word", and it'll hurt.
In the States, loud dog-whistles to this crowd, and only the most mealy-mouthed, minimal distancing ("both sides"), worked, bringing in more people from the cold, who'd found their man at last, than it pushed existing voters away. In Canada, that simply will not work; there are not so many of them, and more who will push away. It's a negative-sum strategy, here.
Here, these guys will doom Poilievre if he doesn't figure out how to shut them up.
I'm sure this was happening long before Trump, but he normalized attacks on the media. The idea that people receive death threats for reports facts or opinions is measure of just how far we've fallen as a civilized society, and it's tragic. Ignorance is no bliss, and shooting the messenger doesn't change reality. The far- anything needs a significant reality check, and IMHO, one of the best things that our police forces could be doing is knocking on these people's doors and letting them know the threats they're making are being noted. Social media is the opposite of social, but it seems the tool of choices for this small collection of "tools". That's it's women being threatened speaks to the pathetic frail male ego, and just how stupid we really have become. It's all very sad, and like so many things needs to be addressed by real leaders...which Canada does not appear to have.
I seem to be reading a quite different article than many on here. The author is writing about the receiving of serious threats that are meant to intimidate her and stop her from doing her job. These are not minor.
Below, someone wrote that racial slurs and sexist comments are unpleasant but not serious. No. They are serious. Threats and intimidation are serious. ‘Racial slurs’ are serious. Sexist comments are serious. They are serious because, besides causing stress and alarm for the target, they normalise this behaviour. You can see that for yourself just by reading the dismissive comments below.
This is the second article in a row that has spawned some really odd and unpleasant ideas.
I totally agree!! I have grave concerns about the rise of vitriolic hatred in Canada. This country has lost its sense of civility - for whatever reasons. We need leadership at all levels of government working in consort to restore it.
You are correct Kristin....Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat or non-voter...all of us should condemn the hateful behaviour you describe.
You are wrong, however, in casually tossing Poilievre into your piece. You topic was harassment--not this week's "nom du jour"-- and the thin link to his well-deserved media attacks weakened it.
Journalists must face reality: mainstream media behaviour and taint have debased your trade. You must re-earn the credibility and trust once automatic to journalists.
Just read this article which is remarkably on point. https://c2cjournal.ca/2022/08/objectivity-what-journalists-hate-but-the-public-still-craves/
A really good article. Lots of great points. Too bad an article discussing objectivity had so little of it.
I was referring to the C2C article, not Ms Raworth's, which was really good and clear.
Thanks Nicole, good column, right on the mark. In my own comment today, I referred to the far right folk's ill tidings. The c2c column reminded me that I'm equally repulsed by the woke-left folk at work. Many of these are columnists and editors which earn the enmity of the reading public.
Nicole, loved the karaoke/Pavarotti comparison! My thanks. Tom
Great article, thanks!
Thanks for that link.
Can you provide links to where PP has called for violence against women?
Google is your friend. PP has attacked women journalists. But he attacks all media when he doesn't like what they have to say.
Respectfully disagree. Silence is not violence, it is simply silence. Or maybe his comments against it were not reported by the main stream media.
I do lots of reading and one thing that is obvious are the gaps in reporting creating a one-sided view and bias in our media. There are two main themes when it comes to politics: the first are the attempts to tie PP's politics to Trump and the second is the narrative that if you are not a Liberal (or any non-Conservative party) supporter, you are a far right fascist.
Perhaps you should read the article in the link provided by Nicole Scheidl in the comment above. You will find that PP doesn't need to inflame people against MSM, they are taking care of that all by themselves.
The fact that you refer to them as 'con' tells me that you have no interest in listening to anything I may have to say. You just reinforced my previous statement that the left believe that if you are not with them, then you are indeed a fascist, or worse, a conservative.
If he had any character at all… I believe the appropriate phrase would not be ‘character assassination’ but ‘character suicide’… a concept you seem to be intimately familiar with…
Terry, you need to back up that extraordinary claim with some evidence. “Do your own research” is just evidence that you don’t have anything to back that claim up.
Inflaming people against the MSM is hardly a crime… in some ways it’s a service.
What does Poilievre think of junior female reporters?
Just asking.
Check his twitter feed.
My ideal would be to have police investigate these threats and issue warnings to the people who’re making them. People seem to feel emboldened to make threats online for the same reason they swear and rage at other drivers when in their cars: a feeling that they’re anonymous and can utter threats to vent their spleen without consequences. This needs to be supported by legal requirements to associate social media, messaging, and email profiles with a verified identity. (This would be great for anti-spam and anti-scam efforts too - no verification, and they’re simply blocked.). Finally, when police speak to these people, I’d like them to do it at a workplace or other venue where others can learn what they’ve been doing. Shame can work wonders at checking bad behavior.
Social media is not that anonymous. If the police want to find out who made a posting, they can, despite anonymity. Unless you are using a full set of privacy capabilities, including burner phones, which seems unlikely for a social media ranter.
Anonymity serves the important purpose of allowing people to express themselves without fear of cancellation, and allows whistleblowers to reveal critical facts. In our current climate of intense media and social media censorship, it is essential.
I agree with the second paragraph not the first. Not that I even disagree with the first, but on one hand you bemoan the money the Libs spend but now you want the police or CSIS or someone to go after the a$$holes online. Maybe pull the computer cops who are looking for purveyors of child porn/traffickers.
But we all hate Bill C-11 too.
It's not difficult to write an algorithm to pick out hot words on various platforms. But the sheer immense weight of it is astounding and them compile it into a list of something useful to a human? And then somehow narrow it down to a specific threat towards a specific person that can be used by the police and the courts.
Computers (phones etc) are ubiquitous, easy and powerful but not infallible. It would be better I think if people, real people who know the perpetrator of vile attacks on women and others, publicly shame the person. Call him out in public (politely?) List him online with other jerks with similar bents. Word of mouth obviously still thrives today. Email his boss. Email his partner. They won't stay anonymous forever. They will want the adulation of like-minded creeps.
George you hit the nail on the head. Get rid of the anonymity and you'll reduce the crap by 98%. The other 2% will always be with us unfortunately.
That's scary, George.
Why do some institutions have elections with secret ballots?
Apples and oranges. Voting is anonymous. Social media posting should not be.
You realize that uttering threats is illegal, right? This isn't the case of having police follow up because somebody holds an unpopular opinion.
Ironically, one of the major reasons for the secret ballot is *also* intimidation and threats. When people voted in a public assembly, violence and threats were pretty common with partisans trying to literally strong-arm people into voting for their candidate.
So, one verified social media account for making threats, and another social media account for expressing unpopular opinions.
We're not talking about dissent, we're talking about threats. Uttering threats is already illegal under the Criminal Code: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-264.1.html.
Law enforcement just doesnt' seem to take these threats seriously and I'm not sure why. If groups of people were standing in a downtown area, harrassing people they didn't agree with, I doubt police would just ignore it. Yet, we live a lot of our lives now in digital spaces where that's exactly what happens.
These laws exist for a reason -- it's hard to live your life when people can continually harrass and threaten you.
I totally agree. If you tell someone to their face that you are going to kill them you will be arrested and charged with Uttering Death Threats (or whatever the actual wording is). If you do this on-line nothing seems to happen. I think police are not used to acting on internet threats or the perpetrator has masked their identity/location and it is difficult to get them. Political leaders of all stripes need to call this out clearly and loudly. People used to say these things in their kitchen or bar stool. They got it off their chest and it never went any farther. Posting on-line for the world to see you venting the puss in your soul is new and really toxic. This has to change!
I agree issuing threats is different then calling someone an idiot so to speak , but what do you make of a PM who says “what do we do with those people” - I considered that a threat to those who did not agree in complying with his mandates???
And that has what to do with violence against women journalists? Or journalists in general?
It is verbal violence in general at journalists in general . They are being targeted i believe because of the mindset that is happening today over the actions of our PM who has caused more division in our country and the media who have supported it for the last 2+ years
I would upvote this many times if I could.
Not bad ideas at all. But the police simply do not have the manpower to do so. There is a lot more of it out there than is reported (gee, why is that?) We hear of threats occasionally. Even more seldom do we get the video. CF harasser was defended heatedly when it was learned that the police were investigating. Most of those brave souls are hidden deep in their anonymity and only when they repeatedly spew their hate, misogyny, bigotry, and anger and occasionally become physical do we finally learn who they are. Maybe after they are arrested for beating their wife and kids. And then the sentence never fits the crime.
Violence against women has always been with us. It seemed for a while that maybe women were getting the supports they needed and some men were getting the message. Now with the ability to hate on people flung wide open, women are getting it again by big tough guys (including women who think they are big tough guys) who think it's their right to do so. Free speech and all that.
They have no shame.
Yes and maybe starting with Trudeau as the example who really send the right message across our country, don’t you think?
I completely agree with this... such harassment from anybody, directed to anybody, is totally unacceptable. I would point out, though, that while the case made by the article is non-partisan and non-political, institutional media itself is not. Frustration and anger directed against journalists that takes this form is inexcusable; but what gives rise to it is journalists' wilful disregard of exactly the same virtues of decency and fairness the article lauds, and their embrace of the very hypocrisy and partisan unfairness the article denounces.
Far from being neutral observers above the fray, reporting factually on the culture wars, journalists now try to win those wars for one side or the other and shape their narratives accordingly. This is not the proper role of information providers; and the exasperation of people who lack platforms themselves, and see their access to information--information they need in order to form their own judgment--compromised in this unethical way, is understandable.
To be clear, I'm not defending threats. I'm suggesting that admonishing people for behaving badly without acknowledging what's provoking them is itself a form of 'blindness,' resulting in an article that, while good and very welcome, is not as complete as it might have been.
Disagree. First of all many (perhaps not you) don't seem to be capable of understanding the difference between reporters and opinion writers. By confusing the two, I often see people railling about 'bias' in news outlets, pointing to opinion pieces! SMH.
Journalists are going to be biased, even when they try not to be. Editing, by it's nature, means choosing what details to highlight and what to leave out and that's going to be informed by a whole bunch of things -- including what you think will be interesting to your audience. But, the whole system we've created means there are lots of journalistic voices to choose from; you can (and should) get news from a variety of sources and that helps one both see the bias from different outlets and 'account' for it.
More importantly, journalists need to hold people in power to account, especially politicians. That means they have to ask uncomfortable questions that politicians don't want to answer. They have to be agressive to even get the opportunity to ask those questions. To demand that journalists 'go easy' on politicians you agree with is to ask them to not do their job.
If you don't find a reporter/outlet's coverage useful, you don't have to read them.
As it happens, I'm a retired reference librarian who dealt with information issues his entire career, and has ongoing concerns about the reliability of information sources and the current state of the information commons... concerns shared by many who don't need anything like my background to see something is wrong. They aren't nearly as confused about the difference between reporting and opinion-writing as this generation of journalists seems to be; but if you want to inform yourself more fully about the steady erosion of what were once considered basic journalist principles of objectivity and fairness, there are plenty of good books available (Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc. provides an accessible historical overview and is quite readable). I would disagree that the range of choice you speak of exists within institutional (or 'legacy,' or 'corporate,' or whatever you wish to call it) media: one needs to go online to outflank official gatekeepers, and this involves perils of its own. It's also becoming a harder trick to perform in the face of transparently politicized Big Tech censorship and obvious bias at Wikipedia.
In any event, this is somewhat wide of the point my post was making. I'm pretty sure if the article's author saw a man goading a dog, and the dog finally retaliated by biting him, the author wouldn't hesitate to assign the man a considerable portion of responsibility for his own fate. It's one thing to hold people in power to account, quite another to craft supposed 'news' narratives that at bottom are always telling you the same thing, and which relentlessly, every hour of the broadcast day, demonize half the population. This isn't journalism but propaganda, and if the demonized happen to be people you don't see eye-to-eye with politically you may be perfectly comfortable seeing them howl with outrage, and even construe the howls as evidence such people deserve to be targeted. But you shouldn't be. In the end, propaganda that claims to speak for you is just as destructive to the information commons as propaganda that speaks against you. You should always want to know the truth, even when you don't find the truth congenial or particularly flattering for your team.
I agree with a lot that you say and I respect your expertise in this area but you aren't the one who is attacking women journalists with threats and vile, violent words and sometimes actions. That's the fear, the possibility of violence against themselves and their families. If it was just words, that would be one thing, but the words being used have nothing to do with what they actually write or say.
I also disagree with half the population being demonized but I don't know where you get that impression from. I know where "I" could find information that does that but I don't buy into it.
If America's president calling MAGA supporters fascists and domestic terrorists, and CNN and MSNBC endorsing every word, doesn't qualify as demonization then give us another word for it. It doesn't sound like a dinner invitation.
My concern here is what it's always been. Our judgment is only as reliable as the data that inform it, and when institutional information sources that purport to serve everybody's needs and best interests deliberately edit data to push people in the direction of judgments they wouldn't have made if they'd been less selectively 'informed,' what you have is propaganda or misleading advertising, not ethical journalism, and the sense-making process essential to judgment consequently becomes sabotaged.
Obviously, protest against such journalistic irresponsibility shouldn't take the form of threats; but it's disingenuous not to acknowledge the extent to which protest of some kind is warranted. If the demonized are mad as hell and not prepared to take it any more, journalists can hardly wash their hands and say, "This has nothing to do with us: the protesters are simply against freedom of the press." No, their grievance is against the abuse of press freedoms, by people whose agenda clearly isn't to inform but to engineer social-political outcomes. If you've decided that's your mission, start a think tank and promote your cause but don't masquerade yourself as a journalist; the subterfuge merely antagonizes those who know better (which surveys of press credibility suggest comprise a fairly large set).
Why do you care about what is happening south of the border. Does it affect us here? You watch MCNBC and CNN every day to hear what might offend you?
Canadians are angry because Trump lost the election? Jan 6th was peaceful?
Fox's Tucker, Hannity and the rest are unbiased and honest?
You paraphrase from an old movie but I don't think you actually watched it and you don't specify what freedoms the press is abusing. How is the press social/political engineering? Who benefits? Who should start a think-tank. What surveys? You have said a great deal but you have not said anything clearly.
You are muddleheaded.
"Why do you care about what is happening south of the border. Does it affect us here?"
This is a strange question for a Canadian to ask. Canada's history is unintelligible except in the context of centuries' worth of conflict between England and France, and developments south of the border (you realize Confederation itself was a response to America's Civil War, yes?) . Bereft of its international drivers, our history would be a series of unconnected events glimpsed through a window that offered no view of the street, apart from what was right in front of our fixed field of vision. Because of humanity's essential temporality we're always obliged to take the historical point of view; so, yes, when you fail to grasp your own history this can be said to "affect" you.
"You watch MCNBC and CNN every day to hear what might offend you?"
Haven't watched them for years, or CBC either. I'm not masochistic enough to gather data in such a perversely tedious way (talk about an unfavourable noise to signal ratio!).
"Canadians are angry because Trump lost the election?"
The Toronto Star has been angry for half a decade because he won one. Its editors are part of "The Resistance" that's determined he should never win another. The Globe and Mail is more subtle but totally onside with the same project.
"Fox's Tucker, Hannity and the rest are unbiased and honest?"
Tucker is honest to the point where I sometimes fear for his safety; but what makes you think I exempt Fox from the general criticisms levied against corporate media? Fox pioneered audience siloing, but the network is now so ridiculously outnumbered by left-dominated outlets that singling out its transgressions wouldn't qualify as representative. Isolated as Fox is, Big Tech, CNN, Slate and the rest still strive to stifle, distort and discredit any heretical dissent emerging from it.
"...you don't specify what freedoms the press is abusing."
(?) On the contrary, I've told you exactly that. Under the guise of playing a central role in information diffusion, institutional media is preaching a social gospel. That's an appropriate task for activists, perhaps, but not for journalists.
"How is the press social/political engineering?"
I explained that too: via selective editing that preemptively substitutes the judgment of editors for what should properly be the judgment of viewers and readers.
"Who benefits?"
The aspiring engineers would say everybody. The lessons of history say nobody.
"You are muddleheaded."
Well, we're all somewhere on the muddleheaded continuum. You may need to invest in a bit more background reading before accurately situating us in relation to each other becomes a live possibility for you on this particular topic. With the best will in the world, I can't bring you up to speed on the relevant literature with a Vulcan mind meld.
Reply to Mark Kennedy:
Excellent, well thought out post.
Thank you.
Exactly! Op-eds abound and are constantly quoted as if they were not someones opinion. It happens in here a lot! It could be political, medical, a natural disaster, a protest, anything but they never see the small (sometimes large) print at the top that says "OPINION." ARRGGHHH!
We need to be careful about how we define harassment. Threats of violence are criminal and should be dealt with firmly by police. Gender based or racial slurs are offensive and nobody should be making them.
Ongoing accusations of lying, laziness, bias, being shills for the government, or being corrupted by state funding for media are appropriate for many journalists, and should be expected. Poilievre's treatment of David Akin was appropriate and long overdue.
On David Akin: what Poliviere did is a great tactic (used by politicians of all stripes), whining about having to face media scrutiny. But, it's simply an attempt by a politician to control the coverage they recieve. If you do an annoucement, you have to face the questions (or appear defensive, which is how Poliviere came off to me). But, his fundraising email was in my inbox shortly afterwards!
We'll see. I am hoping it is a tactic to anger media types enough to have them obviously misbehave. (Notice Poilievre accused Akin of being a Liberal "heckler", not just unfair. A reporter would regard this as demeaning in a way that accusations of bias are not)
I see Poilievre's best strategy not as appealing to the "centre" (ie, people who think things are basically ok, media is basically fair, bureaucrats are basically honest and trying their best), but as convincing some people who are currently "centre" to conclude that Canada is in a disastrous state, media are mainly dishonest lying hacks, and the bureaucracy puts itself and its ideological commitments (eg, climate change) ahead of Canadians' welfare. In media/Liberal parlance, this is defined as "extremism", and the campaign will depend on converting, say, 10-20% of "centrists" into "extremists", as defined by the legacy media. Obviously taking this line would also encourage some PPC voters to support the CPC, but that is secondary.
Angering the media enough to get them to show their bias clearly is one way to do this.
Global warming is an ideological commitment? Really? Have you not noticed the weather around the world changing in unpleasant and expensive ways? It's kind of like needing roof repairs. Sure it's money you don't want to spend but if you ignore it it's going to cost you a lot more in the future.
Also I think a lot of things DO need improving but we are not near "disastrous" yet. Some people may want to convince you of that for their own gain, though.
That Canada should do anything about CO2 emissions is absolutely an ideological commitment. Our emissions being a tiny fraction of the world's emissions, anything we do will have no measurable effect on our climate. The only reasons we should do anything are things like "showing leadership" or "doing our share" - pure ideology.
Well, the original point of doing all of this was part of a global effort to reduce GHG emissions. We've made various international committments to reduce GHG emissions as have partner countries (e.g. Paris Agreement, UNFCCC). The real goal of our committment is to get others to make similar committments as international buy-in is the only way to really address the problem.
The challenge is that most of the committments are voluntary and there isn't really an enforcement mechanism in place. But, the point isn't what our individual contribution will be; it's part of an international effort where everyone agrees to make some reduction.
I would agree that there is a LOT missing from these agreements, particularly that there's no way hold anyone accountable other than shaming! But, politics is about the art of the possible and these voluntary agreements were probably about the best we could do -- it's not adequate, but its a start.
Now, do we need to pursue further international agreements? Sure. If oil producing provinces want preferential treatment for more 'ethical oil' -- that needs to be codified in international agreements. Likewise, getting international buy-in for carbon pricing (or better, carbon trading) could create a lot more positive impact compared to our current national regime. And, yes, it bothers me that none of this seems to be a priority.
A binding treaty that actually constrained the big emitters might not be ideology. But everything we are actually doing is, because the big emitters won't agree to be constrained.
The idea of setting a moral example for China, India, the US and Russia is laughable.
That's a pretty conventional "change agent" campaign. As a voter, it doesn't appeal to me, mostly because I fall closer to "things are generally ok" part of the spectrum, albeit with a *lot* of concerns that no political party is really invested in.
My reality -- and the reality for most of the admittedly fairly privledged people I know is that, particularly coming out of the first global pandemic of this scale in my lifetime, is that things are reasonably ok all things considered. For all the online concern about 'wokism' or 'skyrocketing costs of living' or whatever hot topic-- none of that is really a huge concern in my day-to-day life. Do I notice things are more expensive? Sure. Is my variable-rate mortgage becoming more expensive? Yes, but I never expected ultra-low rates to be the norm and the discounted rate was good. Most of the stuff people are continually shouting about online don't really resonate for me at a gut, lived experience level.
So, the question for the campaign is -- are there that 10-20% of centrist voters available? And, will pursuing those voters alienate people like me enough that we 'hold our nose and vote Liberal'? I think the Poliviere brain trust is banking on two things -- that they probably don't need to conver 10 - 20% as long as they don't alienate me enough that I end up voting Liberal and either stay at home (I won't but lots of other people might) or vote another party.
You are reading too much onto Akin being a Liberal heckler. I'm pretty sure David is way more thick skinned that Skippy.
I learned today as I was out and about that PP has not answered ANY questions from the press since June. (I am not sure I believe that there has been very little) So allowing only 2 questions in the Press Gallery and then turning it into a fundraiser seems very contrived.
Yes, the wannabe PM wants to anger the media. Sound like a winning idea to me. /s
Mark, you would know. Who is the woke left? And is there such an animal as a woke right? Divisions.
Now sure what this is a reply to, but I think of the woke left as people who believe the most current progressive ideas, including, for example, the idea that Canada is a racist country or that we are currently committing genocide. I won't go into all the other ideas, because that will broaden the discussion too much even for me.
There's no woke right, but many people do use the term "awake", which I actually hate. A good indication of being awake would be believing that our media and social media landscape is heavily censored.
PP said the woke left. But people keep saying he is not the divisive one.
Who said we are racist or committing genocide? Of course we have racists, bigots, misogynists etc and I don't think we are currently wiping anyone off the map though a good try has happened in the past.
It seems to me if the man who would be PM can clump (smear, it wasn't meant nicely) more than half the population of Canada (currently about 38 million of us) as the woke left (sounds like an oxymoron) what do we call the rest of them?
I don't like awake either. It sounds pompous.
I didn't know what PP and Akin did or said. I guess because I'm on Coast time which is in another dimension from the rest of you. But, it didn't take long. Andrew Lawton (why does he say irreverent?) tells me that PP was heckled the very first time he stands up as the leader of the Cons in the Press Gallery. So what? PP has never been heckled in the PG before? Many people seem to be upset by this. I checked Akin, and he apologized. But then I found this:
You won't believe this. It happened to me.
Today I was delivering a statement about how Trudeau's inflation was hurting everyday Canadians when someone started shouting.
First they hurled obscenities and then they started shouting at me.
Was it some left-wing protester or Liberal MP or staffer?
NO, IT WAS A MEMBER OF THE MEDIA.
That's right, David Akin from Global Media was swearing, shouting and heckling. He wasn't interested in what I had to say, and he certainly wasn't interested in reporting it in an unbiased way.
THIS IS WHAT WE"RE UP AGAINST.
It's not just the Liberal....blah blah.
It's the media who is no longer interested in pretending to be unbiased. They want us to lose.
But we have a secret weapon.
You and hundred of thousands of other Conservatives across this country....CBC Liberals Trudeau blah blah.
We can't count on the media to communicate our messages to Canadians. We have to go around them and their biased coverage.
We need to do it directly....(list of old school electioneering (cheaper than media buys))
Chip in to help us go around the biased media (donate button)
Thank you,
Pierre Polievre
PS We can't take on the Liberals and the media and win without your help. Chip in here http://donate...
PP says nothing himself regarding the incident. Of course not, no news is bad news but a fundraising opportunity. Somehow he couldn't do that with Bitcoin though. But #PierrePolievre is trending, as is Akin. Also most of the responses are, but Trudeau is worse much worse and he did this and that and something else.
I am worried about Andrew Lawton.
It's going to be a long long haul to the next election and I know he will not shut up.
The video out today on Twitter shows that Akin started off his rant with a hostile question about firing Tiff Macklen.
This validates my theory that this proposed example of accountability is in fact driving the elites crazy. I hope Poilievre presses on with it.
A member of the media asking "a hostile question" about something that Poliviere said *is* what holding elites to account looks like. Poliviere is the leader of the opposition and wants to be PM -- you don't get a lot more elite than that!
Poliviere could just calmly answer the question (there are answers about how the government can and does direct monetary policy) but I suspect this is a little political theatre on Poliviere's part; his fundraising email hit my inbox within hours. That probably pleases his supporters but it makes people like me roll my eyes.
Well said. It is quite literally the least people on all sides should do. I don’t know if Covid is to blame or if it’s been a result of watching the show to our south but somehow a large number of our fellow citizens have forgotten what a self imposed filter and/or common decency are in this time period. The anonymity of the internet has surely not helped. I also fear this is not just a battle against women journalists or politicians but has become a war against women in general. I neither condone nor understand it and cannot consider supporting politicians of any stripe who do through omission or action.
I would prefer it if Chrystia didn’t get harassed.
On the other hand her government threatened and harassed people to get a vaccine they did not want. They threatened the loss of their livelihood and in a lot of cases executed that threat. They harassed those who opposed these measures by accusing them of being Nazi’s etc.
So sure it would be great if our politicians could board elevators in peace but wouldn’t it be nice if our fellow citizens could freely choose to get a vaccine or not without threats to their livelihood or being called a Nazi? The scale of these things are not the same.
So you still want to pretend that we haven't been in the worst global health emergency in a century for the last years? The media didn't take anything away form anyone. They reported on the advice given by public health....their job. It as individual employers that demands vaccination far more than governments did....probably on advice from their lawyers. That the government followed the advice of their experts cannot be wrong. It's not like the Minister of Health has a clue how to deal with a pandemic. Then your comment stepped off the absurdity cliff.........
So you are claiming that people who did not get the vaccine needed to be fired from their job. That the government was justified in using force to do this.
Personally I was happy to get the vaccine and think it saved millions of lives.
I just have principles about the use of government force. I think there need to be limits to it. I think a mandate and the use of the threat of force can be counterproductive in even achieving the ends it claims it wants to deliver.
I work in a federally regulated industry that if you didn’t get jabbed you lost your job. Some have just now come back to work who refused to get the shot.
It is quite possible that the mandate saved lives by increasing uptake in the vaccine but that gain didn’t come without costs. More public distrust. Making a mandate that says you need to get this vaccine to keep your because it will increase your immunity to virus but if you have a recent case of covid that does not count and you still will lose your job is just one such inconsistency that sows distrust.
There were so many of these types of inconsistencies in public health I am a little shocked there is anyone has faith in these people any more in setting public policy.
So you agree the vaccine was important and saved millions of lives. Do employers have a responsibility to provide the safest possible workplace? When the vaccines first came out, how could that best be accomplished? Do employers not have the right to make certain demands of their employees in the interests of everyone who works there? The government is far from the only ones who made this demand of their employees or a requirement to be hired. Does it matter as much since OMICRON came out? Probably not (that's for you Mark). But when the vaccines first came out, I would expect every employer to demand it of their staff both to reduce the risk of the business shutting down, to reduce liability risk in case someone caught it at work, and ass you also decided, it was the socially responsible thing to do.
Public distrust came about because of the serial lying US president at the time, the sea of misinformation propagated by the vitamin industry, and a seas of lies on YouTube. Decisions always come with consequences. The vaccines are safe and they work(sorry Mark, it's true). Public health was dealing with a moving target. Science still is which is why bivalent vaccines are only coming out now. But how many comments do you see these days using information that's 8 months out of date from people who "did their research"? This was humanity's chance to rise to the occasion. The vast majority did. Those that didn't can live with the consequences....or in numbers way above their percentage of the population, die with them.
My employer did not require it. They were forced to fire employees only when the government made it impossible to employ them.
I am guessing you think that you think that employers need to provide the safest possible workplace. So maybe you are in favor or government mandates for future covid boosters. Maybe you think flu vaccines should be mandated. After all if everyone is forced to take them they will save lives.
Maybe they should monitor how much I eat during work so that I can maintain a healthy weight and not put undue strain on the healthcare system due to my obesity.
What are the limits of government force when some do gooder feels like with they can wield the iron fist of government to achieve some goal that seems good?
I appreciate your goal is to save lives on net. Nothing wrong with that. I guess we just disagree the extent that government force should be used to that end on the possible downsides of that effort.
My employer required it both for active staff and new hires.
I don't care what the government thinks. They are not experts on the subject. If that is the advice that experts give them, I would support it. It comes down to this; my doctor...the person I let do all sorts of unspeakable things to me, and their colleague who I let cut me open say the vaccine was and is a good idea. That's enough information for me to get the vaccine. I don't really care about Terry's YouTube video, or Trump hoping it will "magically disappear" (when he knew the exact opposite).
When this began it was a global health emergency. What was accomplished in the first year to get vaccines to slow down what was destroying society, and promised a return to "normal" was magnificent. That Google experts knew better meant they were idiots. Same way the Convoy were idiots.
This is not the flu. No contagious disease has killed like this one did in 100 years. make such a comparison is absurd.
You getting fat affects no one else. COVID patients filling ICU's affected everyone. There is nothing to compare between the to, and it is, again, absurd to compare them.
None of this was some "do- gooder." it was people whose entire lives have been devoted to the study of public health. They have forgotten more than you and I will ever know.
Put play along here.....let's say the government does nothing and lets it run its course. the healthcare system collapses completely. Three times as many people die, and those in car accidents can't get treated at the ERE because it's full, and there's no staff. I'm willing to bet the same people complaining about being told to get vaccinated would be screaming that the government didn't do anything. It's like Children's Aid...they can't win, and you only hear about them when they make a mistake. I think all involved did the best they could with the knowledge they had. Was it perfect? No. Is anything? No. have a nice night.
TY David :)
You lose. (NAZIS)
Well written and timely. One additional thing that comes to mind is the somewhat sad throat clearing that seems to be required for articles like this to pre-empt the inevitable "Oh, you think you have it bad, x has it worse"... It reminds me of a grief group I was part of where a parent was sharing how horrific it was to lose their infant to SIDS. A mother next to her actually said, her grief was worse because she lost two children in a car accident. ?!?!?!?! Its not a competition. Perspective is always an important background variable, but honestly, you should not have to couch "Oh, I only receive x death threats a day and others get 2x." Death threats are well over a line. At some point the plot is lost if the discussion becomes how far over the line it is.
This behaviour is totally unacceptable. Men do this women don’t.
Something is terribly wrong in our society.
There is nothing wrong with being angry, but so many today have never learned to value anger, listen to it and express it without judging or blaming. A failure of how our community functions.
Older societies had ways of teaching, of initiating young males into adulthood. We have lost that custom, that skill even. At the same time, human ingenuity has created so many paths for dysfunctional ways to be angry. Older communities, where people knew each other, where elders, people with a lifetime of experience were in close communication with the young handled anger in far superior ways.
Thank you for your article. I agree that we have lost our common civility and the ability to engage in arguments on substance rather than personal attacks. We need leadership on this from every level - politicians, journalists, and all the Twitter influencers, otherwise we will continue to descend into chaos and it won't be good for anyone.
Let's be clear what these efforts are: they are campaigns. The messaging is typically very aligned and the targeting has a clear goal of intimindating people to change their behaviour. Social media has made delivering these campaigns really, really easy. From what I can see, you don't even need to formally organize people anymore -- just build (or buy!) a following, deliver your talking points, and let the algorithm deliver it to people who will feverishly agree and 'go after' the enemy du jour. It's cheap, easy ... and really bad for Canada.
This only works because we -- the crowd -- stand back and allow it. If you watch someone you disagree with get attacked in this manner and you think: "well, that's extreme, but they kinda had it coming" you are part of the problem! Threatening people is never ok.
We're devolving into a society where people who hold opposite points of view to us are evil, the enemy. Social media amplifies this trend -- anger gets engagement and what gets engagement gets more eyeballs -- but that doesn't excuse the behaviour. Civil society relies on tolerance of people who live and believe things you don't -- of being able to navigate our shared spaces with people very different than you. That's hard and everyone is going to have 'red lines' -- beliefs they cannot tolerate. But, we seem to be *defaulting* to intolerance, which isn't sustainable.
And, before you write about Trudeau being the divider (or Poliviere or whomever) -- it's become part of our political lexicon because it works. It drives fundraising and voting. That's on all of us. Politicians do what they need to do to get elected; if we reward crapping on "the other" we'll get a lot more of it.
If there is any modern trend that gets me upset, it's this one.
There has been a lot of conversation here on why Kristin brought Mr. Poilivre into the essay. A fundraising email went from CPC yesterday saying David Akin was “ swearing, shouting and heckling”. The email concludes by saying “ we are up against the media.” Mr. Akin was doing his job.
Mr. Poilivre chose this strategy of media bashing - don’t question why his name was included in an article about increasing threats to journalists.
Let’s be clear here. Mr. Akin is accused of swearing, shouting and heckling at a presser, but is doing his job?
I find a lack of decency and decorum sadly lacking on both sides. Everyone needs to smarten up, and Global News benefits from the controversy too.
They exaggerate Mr. Akin’s behaviour for the purposes of a fundraising letter & deliberately stated - we (CPC) need to fight media. . That was my point.
The growing uncivilized and aggressive behaviour of Canadians is a curse and is fuelled along by social media platforms that allow posts in anonymity. Attaching a real name to racial slurs, taunts and threats of violence is an effective throttle to ignorant and dangerous messaging. Remember, journalists like our hosts at The Line are real people extending their real email addresses, and like all Canadians deserve to be able to earn a living free from harassment.
A commenter yesterday complained that in 3 days since Poilievre ascended, there had been two negative articles; now we're 3 for 4.
Except it isn't! Unless chiding Poilievre for his silence counts. (But, also, Poilievre speaking up would be him accepting the role of the leader of the threateners, perhaps? Probably why he hasn't.)
Nope, the article mostly condemns those actually making the threats. Poilievre's political problem is that great line that dogged Donald Trump: that whatever he said he liked, White supremacists all liked him.
His opponents just have to keep harping on the fact that "he's followed around the Internet by a squad of death-threat-making protectors, who all love his every word", and it'll hurt.
In the States, loud dog-whistles to this crowd, and only the most mealy-mouthed, minimal distancing ("both sides"), worked, bringing in more people from the cold, who'd found their man at last, than it pushed existing voters away. In Canada, that simply will not work; there are not so many of them, and more who will push away. It's a negative-sum strategy, here.
Here, these guys will doom Poilievre if he doesn't figure out how to shut them up.
I'm sure this was happening long before Trump, but he normalized attacks on the media. The idea that people receive death threats for reports facts or opinions is measure of just how far we've fallen as a civilized society, and it's tragic. Ignorance is no bliss, and shooting the messenger doesn't change reality. The far- anything needs a significant reality check, and IMHO, one of the best things that our police forces could be doing is knocking on these people's doors and letting them know the threats they're making are being noted. Social media is the opposite of social, but it seems the tool of choices for this small collection of "tools". That's it's women being threatened speaks to the pathetic frail male ego, and just how stupid we really have become. It's all very sad, and like so many things needs to be addressed by real leaders...which Canada does not appear to have.
I seem to be reading a quite different article than many on here. The author is writing about the receiving of serious threats that are meant to intimidate her and stop her from doing her job. These are not minor.
Below, someone wrote that racial slurs and sexist comments are unpleasant but not serious. No. They are serious. Threats and intimidation are serious. ‘Racial slurs’ are serious. Sexist comments are serious. They are serious because, besides causing stress and alarm for the target, they normalise this behaviour. You can see that for yourself just by reading the dismissive comments below.
This is the second article in a row that has spawned some really odd and unpleasant ideas.
I totally agree!! I have grave concerns about the rise of vitriolic hatred in Canada. This country has lost its sense of civility - for whatever reasons. We need leadership at all levels of government working in consort to restore it.