Matt Gurney: Freeland knows better than this. Or at least, she used to

Jewish Canadians need reassurance and moral clarity. What they got sounded like a malfunctioning LPC chatbot that is stuck in beta testing.

Screencap from Chrystia Freeland’s press event in Montreal on Monday.

By: Matt Gurney

By all accounts from people close to her, whose opinions I trust, Chrystia Freeland is a pleasant, intelligent, widely read and naturally curious person. A hell of a dinner party companion. Also, while we’d no doubt disagree on some policy matters, on the big-picture view of the deteriorating state of the world, I think our deputy prime minister and finance minister and this humble Line editor would basically see eye to eye. 

But good Lord, is she ever terrible at politics. And this is, alas, not a small thing, when one is a politician. Particularly at times like these.

In fairness, noting that Freeland, she of the infamous Disney+ flop, is bad at politics is not an original observation. I confess that. But, still. Yikes! What the hell was that?!

I’m referring to Monday’s unfortunate gaffe. Freeland was in Montreal doing post-budget stuff with the small business minister, and after touring a business, took questions from reporters. Sarah Leavitt from the CBC asked a question related to a particularly vile eruption of overt antisemitism at a protest in Ottawa last weekend. A man leading the crowd in chants said “Our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free … Oct. 7 is proof that we are almost free. Long live Oct. 7, long live the resistance, long live the intifada, long live every form of resistance.”

Oct. 7, of course, means the Hamas rape-and-murder pogrom of Oct. 7.

By the time Leavitt quizzed Freeland, the comments in Ottawa had already been widely disseminated and, critically, condemned. Among the condemners: Freeland's boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He’d commented via Twitter a day before Freeland faced Leavitt’s question. This ought to have been an extremely easy exchange for Freeland.

As it turns out, though, not so much, actually.

In the interests of transparency, let's simply see in full both what Leavitt asked, and how Freeland replied.

The question was clear enough: "Over the weekend, protesters in Ottawa were heard chanting, among other things, 'Long live October 7' and 'October 7 is proof that we are almost free.' Is this hate speech?"

Onto Freeland's response. Many of you might have seen a clip of her reply making the rounds on social media; I'm going to put that part in bold. I'm also going to include what she said after that, though, because the full answer is worth analyzing. 

Here’s Freeland:

I wasn't in Ottawa over the weekend. And I'm not aware of those specific reports. And so it would be just wrong of me to comment on something that I am not specifically aware of. What I will say is, today is a time in Canada, when antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. When we have a lot ... there are a lot of Canadians who are not feeling safe. In my own riding of University-Rosedale, the JCC, a really important centre for Jewish Canadians but also for all Canadians, has faced a lot of pressure. And I've been there to meet with people there. There's also a mosque in my riding that faced pressure and attacks and I've met with the leaders there. Hate speech is absolutely not acceptable. Glorifying ... I mean, I can't even say the word because it's ... you shouldn't. It's too terrible. And what happened on October 7 was a heinous terrorist attack. People were killed. People were raped. Women, men, children ... totally unprovoked attack on civilians. That is not acceptable. Canada recognizes Hamas as a terrorist entity and our government is very, very clear on that. We have also been really clear that there needs to be a ceasefire, that a humanitarian catastrophe is happening right now in Gaza, and Canada and Canadians are there to support the people, the suffering people, there, too.

Oh boy.

Let's make an early point so we can move on to the meatier stuff: the idea that the deputy prime minister of Canada would be sent out to a public event where there were going to be reporters, on a date which just happened to be the eve of Passover, one of Judaism’s most important religious holidays, and she hadn't been briefed on the antisemitic statements that had just been chanted to a crowd of thousands in the capital city, is absolutely bonkers. Sending her out hours before Jews began gathering for seders without bringing her up to speed on the horribly antisemitic thing that the PM had decried a full day earlier is just utter political negligence by Freeland's staff. It is also, sadly, the best-case scenario here, because the only other possible explanation is that Freeland lied.

Movin' on.

Freeland's answer, both the bolded part that was clipped for social media and the full answer from the press conference, is an absolute masterclass in how our politicians, particularly those of the Trudeau government, are trained to respond to questions. Freeland did not flub the question for lack of preparation. She’s just bad at it, is all.

Let's walk through her answer, putting her reply into the discrete points she’s been trained to hit.

Phase One: Ass covering. "I wasn't in Ottawa over the weekend. And I'm not aware of those specific reports. And so it would be just wrong of me to comment on something that I am not specifically aware of."

Phase Two: Banal statement that favours no group in particular but mentions the key stakeholders. "What I will say is, today is a time in Canada, when antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. When we have a lot ... there are a lot of Canadians who are not feeling safe. In my own riding of University-Rosedale, the JCC, a really important centre for Jewish Canadians but also for all Canadians, has faced a lot of pressure. And I've been there to meet with people there. There's also a mosque in my riding that faced pressure and attacks and I've met with the leaders there."

Phase Three: Attempt to sound like you're engaging with the actual question, even though you are not. "Hate speech is absolutely not acceptable. Glorifying ... I mean, I can't even say the word because it's ... you shouldn't. It's too terrible. And what happened on October 7 was a heinous terrorist attack. People were killed. People were raped. Women, men, children ... totally unprovoked attack on civilians. That is not acceptable."

Phase Four: Pivot back to approved talking points. "Canada recognizes Hamas as a terrorist entity and our government is very, very clear on that. We have also been really clear that there needs to be a ceasefire, that a humanitarian catastrophe is happening right now in Gaza, and Canada and Canadians are there to support the people, the suffering people, there, too."

This is how the PM answers questions, too. It’s a pattern that, once seen, will never been unseen. The problem for Freeland is that the PM is better at it. He's smoother and quicker on his feet. His evasive non-answers sound more natural, but have begun to get old in recent years, as foreign journalists are generally better at pointing out than Canadian ones. Freeland has never been comfortable doing talking-point politics, and has always sounded extremely unconvincing when she tries. 

In another setting, where she was off the record and not trying to shoehorn her thoughts into a government communications template, Freeland would undoubtedly be able to speak thoughtfully and at length about the issues facing the Middle East. But instead, we got a clunky attempt to rattle off a collection of bromides that, when added up in their totality, cancel each other out. It's like one of those math puzzles you see online where, after a complicated equation involving exponents and BEDMAS and all the rest, the answer is whatever number you started with. Her answer ultimately nets out to zero.

And that’s the ideal government statement for these guys. Lots of words. No meaning. Every box is ticked: Oct. 7 was bad, antisemitism is bad, Islamophobia is bad, I talk with the Jews and the Muslims in my riding, ceasefire now! Thanks for the question, next!

But the actual question being asked — whether those bad comments qualified as legally actionable hate speech — and it was kind of an important question, goes unanswered. And that kind of silence is deafening.

And that is just a dreadfully embarrassing place for Freeland to be. She has enormous power and influence. She will probably never have as much of either as she has right now, and polls suggest she won’t have either for much longer. In a moment that calls for clear statements of moral clarity from those critical people in positions of real power, from one of those very people, we got that? That's her message for posterity?

Some of Freeland's defenders were quick to note that the premise of the reporter's question was unfair — it was asking an elected official to comment on whether someone had broken the law. I agree with that defence of Freeland. She shouldn't have answered the precise question Leavitt asked. That would have been inappropriate.

But good Lord, people. There are a hell of a lot of things she could have said other than what she did. All she had to say was that while it wasn’t appropriate to comment on the legality of the matter, it would obviously be wrong to glorify the Oct. 7 attacks, and that she’d condemn anyone who did. That would be an actual clear, direct answer, free of scripted talking points, and one that would have been welcomed by many Canadians and avoids entangling Freeland in a legal matter. It also doesn't sound like a new Liberal Party press conference AI chatbot that is having a hard time getting out of the beta-testing stage.

Alas.

None of Trudeau’s cabinet sound particularly bright or inspiring when doing this sort of song-and-dance, when their actual thoughts are crowded out by a messaging plan. But Freeland, God bless her, sounds worse than most of them, because she's never mastered the skill — and it really is a kind of skill — of the political non-answer. I suppose that is a compliment and a critique rolled into one.

So, in the interests of fostering positive change, here's two pieces of advice for the deputy PM and her staff, offered up with total sincerity.

First, just let Freeland speak. Some ministers probably do need to be tightly scripted, but applying that as a blanket policy to every minister, especially the ones that are terrible at delivering scripted talking points, isn't helping your messaging efforts. It's hurting.

Second, and this is the more important point for Freeland and her staff: don’t let message discipline blind you to the moral imperative of this moment. Answers like what Freeland gave on Monday are a waste of her power and influence and a dereliction of moral duty.

Freeland noted, correctly, that “There are a lot of Canadians who are not feeling safe." And do you know what's directly contributing to their feeling unsafe?

People like Freeland responding to legitimate (if imperfect) questions with useless convoluted gobbledygook that punts on whether celebrating Oct. 7 is bad. Sorry, Minister, but at least some of that call is coming from inside your own house.

Freeland later tweeted about the chants, of course, and disavowed them. But it was too little, too late. The damage-control tweet won't be long remembered, but Freeland's refusal to usefully respond to the question she was asked got global attention and won't soon be forgotten.

And you know what? One day, once her political career is behind her, I have a hunch that no one will be more surprised and dismayed by what she said on Monday than Freeland herself. She knows better. Or did, once.

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