Conservatives need to convince Canadians that they are centrist enough to be trusted in government. But linking themselves to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson will not reinforce that sentiment.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 29, 2024.

OTTAWA—He was too toxic for Fox News. But Tucker Carlson was welcomed with open arms by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last week.

The pair enjoyed a private dinner before they shared the stage at a sold-out Carlson appearance.

The premier featured in a photo with two other Carlson wannabees: Conrad Black and Jordan Peterson.

Carlson was in the province for two speaking events, engaging 4,000 attendees in Calgary and 8,000 in Edmonton.

Carlson, who spent the fall on tour to countries governed by extreme right-wingers, told the media he was coming to Canada to liberate the country from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

While Carlson attracted thousands of people to his events, more than 17,000 people signed a petition calling for the cancellation of those appearances because of his hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community.

Carlson has also spoken out vociferously against support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

Carlson says he would rather liberate Canada from Trudeau than liberate Ukraine. He has compared the Canadian prime minister to Hitler, and said Canada was turning into a totalitarian state because of its legalization of medically-assisted deaths.

Since the MAID legislation was introduced in 2016, almost 45,000 medically assisted deaths have been recorded in Canada, much to the chagrin of Carlson, who claimed that these deaths were evidence that Canada was slipping into totalitarianism.

While Carlson and Smith were linking arms on issues like their opposition to COVID vaccinations, the federal Liberals were meeting in caucus to figure out how they may be able to dig themselves out of their political hole.

Trips like that of Carlson are fodder for Liberal strategists who think the way to beat Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is to link his party to the Trumpian-inspired anti-government movement in the United States.

Like Carlson, Poilievre refused to fund war assistance for Ukraine, calling it a faraway foreign land when they voted against financial assistance in the House.

Like Carlson, Conservative Members of Parliament such as Leslyn Lewis are calling for Canada to drop out of the United Nations.

Conservatives need to convince Canadians that they are centrist enough to be trusted in government. But linking themselves to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson will not reinforce that sentiment.

Peterson was another speaker at the Carlson roadshow. He was listed as an author.

Peterson has failed to meet professional standards in psychology, and has been required to undergo social media communication coaching.

In refusing to do so, Peterson went to court, but his appeal was denied by a three-judge divisional panel in August. Their decision was recently upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeals, and refusal to comply means Peterson will soon lose his right to practise.

Peterson teaches that chaos is a feminine trait, and that “confused gay kids are being convinced they’re transsexual.”

Peterson says women’s studies should be banned from university, and claims that the pay gap between women and men could be “predicated on competence.”

Peterson says the rise of Donald Trump is a response to a collective push to “feminize” men, claiming that if men are pushed too hard, they will become more and more interested in fascist ideology.

Poilievre has been promoting the defence of Peterson on X (formerly Twitter).

At the same time that the Conservative leader attacks “woke Liberal-NDP mayors,” he defends Peterson’s decision to ignore a court order on his professional misconduct charges.

Before Carlson appeared on the stage with Smith last week, he joined a webinar with Peterson and Canadian businessman Brett Wilson.

Liberals were quick to tie Poilievre to the Tucker event, with Edmonton Centre Member of Parliament and minister Randy Boissonnault leading the charge.

Boissonnault, a gay MP, said Carlson’s appearance in his riding in downtown Edmonton had caused a lot of fear in the LGBTQ+ community.

Boissonnault was joined by fellow ministers Pascale St-Onge, Pablo Rodriguez, and Steven Guilbeault in Ottawa last week. They all called on Poilievre to denounce the presence of Carlson, and make it clear that his caucus is not aligning their views with those of Smith and Carlson.

The Carlson appearance was limited to Alberta, and chances are he may not be invited elsewhere in Canada as he continually referred to Toronto as an “atrocity,” a great crowd-pleaser.

He laughed at gays and defended white anglos who are being undermined in Canada.

The decision by the Alberta premier to invite Carlson will certainly provide political fodder to those who question what kind of Canada conservatives really want.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In reaching out to Elon Musk, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre left the impression he’s trashing Canadian broadcasters while aligning himself with a billionaire who has turned the social media world upside down.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 24, 2023.

OTTAWA–BuzzFeed News is shutting down and Twitter users are fleeing the platform in droves. Fox News has been hit with a $787.5-million lawsuit for publishing false information about Dominion Voting Systems presidential election count in 2020. The media world—social and otherwise—is roiling.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre reached out to Elon Musk, the current owner of Twitter, to ensure the company identifies the CBC as a government-funded media outlet. Political parties are lining up on one side or the other of the media divide.

To fight back, CBC has joined the “Global Task Force for Public Media,” whose aim is to underscore the fact that editorial independence is protected by law. No government has any influence on what to cover. The task force is accusing Twitter of misrepresenting their editorial independence.

While the Fox saga was unfolding in the United States, it involved Dominion, a Canadian-founded company.

In Canada, last week’s media attention was largely focused on the Twitter fight between Poilievre and the CBC.

Poilievre went hard after the CBC in English, but was strangely silent in French. He has pledged to fully defund the CBC, but at the same time, he says the Radio-Canada arm of the organization should remain.

His call to defund the CBC cites the total annual $1.24-billion federal government subsidy. That promise has created a tidal wave of opposition in Quebec.

The Twitter attack succeeded in drawing attention to the Conservatives’ plan to cancel funding for the CBC, which may not have been in the party’s game plan.

Defunding the CBC is obviously very popular with Poilievre’s base. But the same cannot be said for the rest of the country.

In Quebec, Radio-Canada is untouchable, and Poilievre’s Twitter attack woke the province up to his plan, but not in a good way.

Both the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois attacked Poilievre. His decision to make a “government-funded” tagline plea to an American billionaire raised the ire of just about everyone.

That outreach also hurt him in the rest of the country, even with those who are not the strongest supporters of the CBC.

It left the impression that Poilievre was trashing his own country’s broadcasters while aligning himself with Musk, who has turned the social media world upside down with his Twitter changes.

While Poilievre’s popularity numbers remain competitive, he cannot win the election with a wipeout in Quebec.

And a campaign promise to cancel funding for Radio-Canada will certainly gain him no friends in La belle province.

In response to the “government-funded” tagline, the CBC announced it would no longer be using Twitter to cross-pollinate radio and television stories.

Other users have also been dropping off en masse, but it is unclear at this point which alternate social media site will fill in the gap left by the Twitter exodus.

South of the border, what could be the world’s largest defamation decision made waves in media outlets everywhere, except on the Fox News Channel.

The culpable channel only broadcast the Dominion payout three times, with a total of about six minutes of coverage.

While the financial outcome of the case was stunning, the agreement did not force Fox media personalities to apologize or acknowledge the lies. Instead, a statement issued by the corporation was the only recognition that multiple lies were repeated on the network in an effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

A Fox statement acknowledged “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

Legal trouble in pursuit of the truth does not end there. Dominion is also following up on defamation cases against other news outlets and Trump lawyers and supporters, including Rudy Giuliani.

Meanwhile, Fox’s Tucker Carlson has just produced a documentary suggesting the United States should move in to take over Canada and liberate it from Justin Trudeau’s communist tyranny.

Carlson may not realize it, but Poilievre should know that a Fox attack on the Liberal leader will actually push more people into Trudeau’s corner.

By allying himself with Musk, the Tory leader runs the risk of alienating Canadians.

The media landscape is changing rapidly, in Canada and globally. The Dominion defamation suit reaffirms that the truth matters when it comes to broadcasting, but Twitter can hang a false handle on the CBC with impunity.

Musk’s rocket blew up last week. So may Twitter.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.