Tag: ctv

PMO pushes, CTV pushes back, and I give a small shove for good measure

From Susan Delacourt’s blog:

Yesterday, at the end of CTV’s Question Period broadcast, there was some strong and remarkable evidence of journalists pushing back against the Prime Minister’s Office. Rather than explain the story, why don’t I just put the transcript here? I would imagine we’ll be hearing more about this in the days to come:

JANE TABER: Craig, we’ve got to address a complaint. We received a complaint from the Prime Minister’s director of communications Sandra Buckler about something you said on the show about the fact the Environment Minister or the Finance Minister would not come on to talk about Dion’s green plan.

CRAIG OLIVER: And it was accurate for me to say they had both turned us down. However, they did offer us Jason Kenney, the Minister of Multiculturalism, to attack the government’s green plan, and we said, sorry, we’re not talking about multiculturalism, we’re talking about taxation or we’re talking about environment. And so they’re insisting that we should take their person. And the question really is who’s producing the show? Are we producing the show or is the Prime Minister’s office producing the show? Would somebody tell me?

…

First Jason Kenney gets rebuffed by CTV and then Craig Oliver mistakes the Liberals for the government (and Stephane Dion as the Prime Minister by extension)

ADDENDUM: Why wouldn’t Jason Kenney be permitted to speak for the government? After all, he was the first one quoted on the Conservative “Will You Be Tricked” ad campaign in Sun Media. He’s been quoted in just about every Conservative Party press release attacking Dion’s Tax Shift plan. Kenney has also been the government point man in QP answering all of the questions put forward by the Liberals on the topic of the environment during this latest Tax Trick/Green Shift arc. Kenney also had a press conference at the National Press Theatre to give the government’s reaction to Dion’s plan. It sets a horrible precedent for journalists to choose who can respond on behalf of the government.

“Controversial” civil rights

In every struggle for civil rights, there is controversy. By its very definition, a right implies not permissibility, but rather that permissiveness is not only inherently offensive to the concept of rights, but that this frame is at the root cause of the struggle. When one has the right, it is without question.

Controversy has existed in every struggle for human rights, for without controversy there is no struggle and without struggle there is no assertion of rights.

In the fight for racial and gender equality there has been controversy. In the struggle for equality in sexual orientation, there has been controversy. For those fighting for reproductive choice and those fighting for the right to life there has been controversy.

If controversy is definitively intertwined with the fight for any civil right, isn’t it redundant to say?

In fact, when it is used selectively for some rights struggles versus others is there a values judgment and a betrayal of impartiality to one side of a rights debate versus the other?

Consider CTV’s eulogy of Charlton Heston:

“Now to the death of Charlton Heston. As an actor, he parted the Red Sea, painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, won a chariot race and survived an earthquake. But his most controversial role was played off-screen lobbying for gun rights as president of the National Rifle Association.”

Canadian news reports thankfully would not do Martin Luther King Jr. disservice and would not describe him playing a “controversial role” for civil rights, nor would they describe the Famous Five’s role as “controversial” when they asked the Supreme Court of Canada, “are women persons?” The fight for free speech has caused controversy, yet no self-respecting Canadian journalist would selectively describe such a struggle as “controversial”.

Since all rights struggles are controversial, why do some merit the qualifying (and effectively disqualifying) label?

Bali conference partisan and ideological?

The media narrative of the Bali climate conference has been the “obstructionism” and “sabotage” of the talks by Canada’s government (note to Stephane Dion: outside of our borders, the “Harper/Conservative government” becomes your government too. Canadians have given the Conservative Party, not you, a mandate to speak for us on the world stage.)

We’ve heard reports that Environment Minister John Baird has been so audacious to even suggest that future climate treaties include caps on developing nations such as China and India, a truly offensive suggestive shared by the unoffensive new Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd. We’ve heard that Baird “ran away” from a meeting of environmental activists, “Canadian youth” and Svend Robinson!

CTV reports:

Baird was supposed to explain Canada’s position at a meeting with non-governmental activists attending the conference. He showed up for the meeting, but quickly left before speaking.

Canadian activists and others waited for the minister to return. But they were later told Baird had to attend negotiations and would not be back.

“The minister who was supposed to address us was AWOL. He ran away,” said Olivier Lavoie of the Canadian Youth in Action.

Lavoie said the minister probably did not want to confront young activists critical of Canada’s stand.

How can Baird turn a blind eye to good people that are non-partisan, non-ideological and simply concerned about the coming worldwide devastation?

Unreported by CTV and undeclared by Lavoie is this “activist” and leader of the “Canadian Youth in Action” was also president of the Liberal campus club at McGill.

So was Baird simply avoiding a meeting with people who see so much green that they see red when they see blue?

Was he avoiding a partisan ambush by a group of NDP and Liberal activists?

When can we get some honest reporting on the merits of Baird’s plan and what interests some have in blocking it?

At its core, Canada and Australia’s vision for a future climate treaty is rooted in environmental concern.

The intent of Baird’s position is that no matter what country in which you emit CO2, you pay the same cost. All worldwide CO2 would be declared equal if Baird and Rudd had their way. However, the intent of “social” environmental activists is to shift the burden on developed nations. If China and India and other “developing” countries get a better deal on their CO2 emissions, economic development and manufacturing of companies headquartered in Canada or the US, for example, will shift to developing countries because of their lower CO2 costs. The effect of this is redistribution of wealth.

If we are concerned about CO2 emissions, then all CO2 should be costed the same. If it is not, the effect will be the creation of CO2 havens. CO2 production will be shifted rather than reduced. Perhaps what Baird is doing is calling on the warming warriors to show their cards. Is all of this noise really about CO2 or is it about the redistribution of wealth and production?