By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 7, 2023.

OTTAWA—Party conventions are truly places to party. As a political party is a gathering of like-minded individuals, in a sense, it takes on the ethos of a large family.

In every family, there are those who don’t always agree. And sometimes high-octane gatherings like weddings, funerals and conventions can literally blow up.

Organizers for the Conservative convention in Québec City are hoping for what all political operatives seek: internal party peace.

During most of the year, the fighting spirit of a political activist is focused on the opposition. Their policies, their leadership, their direction are all fair game in the political battle for the hearts and minds of voters.

Conventions are the only place where the cannons are turned inward.

Party policy wonks fight for their favoured positions while volunteers try to support the issues that they think are important.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been trying to keep the temperature down at the convention, with good reason.

This is the first gathering of his clan in five years. And it is likely to be their last national confab before a federal election where they are obviously hoping their guy will win.

As happens in every political party, the pragmatists will battle purists on the convention floor.

Some purists will have been pushing the party to adopt a stronger stance on the so-called “woke” agenda.

Three provincial premiers have already adopted some limitations on the use of pronouns in schools by students without parental permission.

Thus far, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has refused to go down that road, but she is under substantial pressure from her own base to do so.

And that base will be very active at the convention.

Journalists have pointed out that there are no abortion resolutions under discussion.

And some observers wisely explain that away as “The smell of power.”

In a pre-convention interview, Dmitri Soudas, the former communications director for then-prime minister Stephen Harper, put it perfectly: “When the polls are good, Members (of Parliament) have nothing but good things to say.”

Those who work for the current leader are hoping for the same serenity.

But the convention wild card is the volunteer base. Many who are not job-dependent on Conservative success at the polls are motivated by religious beliefs that transcend politics.

Some may do their darndest to get touchy issues like abortion and gender reassignment back on the agenda.

The one elephant in the room that convention-goers have not been able to avoid is a convention resolution on defunding the public broadcaster in French and English.

The current resolution calls for an end to funding the CBC and Radio-Canada. That caught the attention of journalists in the heartland of Quebec as Radio-Canada is seen as the lifeblood of Quebec culture and history.

Any party proposing to shut the place down would do so at their peril.

And the second element to the story is the Conservatives need to gain seats in Quebec to have any chance of forming the government.

A promise to abolish Radio-Canada would make Pierre-Karl Péladeau happy, but would not curry much favour with anyone else.

The billionaire owner of Vidéotron has been campaigning for years to abolish federal funding for the public news channel that rivals his own, but no one has yet been convinced.

Politically speaking, it is hard to get positive media from a news outlet that you are planning to put out of business.

One possibility could be a convention resolution to defund the English—but not the French—CBC.

But that would likely face significant backlash as well as a charter challenge.

Poilievre may believe he has managed to build his popularity through social media, and does not really need to care about conventional news services.

But his constant attacks on multiple news platforms, including The Canadian Press, make him vulnerable to a journalistic backlash.

Before elections, the mainstream messaging is most important on Parliament Hill.

But once the writ drops, the focus of the so-called “legacy media” will make or break the outcome.

A happy weekend in Québec City could set the stage for a march toward a Conservative government.

But if that march trashes the voices of journalists at organizations like Radio-Canada and The Canadian Press, Poilievre’s efforts could be stymied.

When then-Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell called the election back in 1993, she was sailing to a clear majority.

A few ill-chosen words turned victory into defeat.

Poilievre needs to take a history lesson before he declares victory.

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.

Poilievre can bash Tait and gain support for his cause. But he would be hard-pressed to attack Rick Mercer or Catherine O’Hara. The other card the CBC has not played is what would Canada’s bilingual landscape would look like without Radio-Canada. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 13, 2023.

OTTAWA—”Defund the CBC” has been the Conservatives’ clarion call for decades.

Just about every leadership candidate promises to cut the public broadcaster’s funding, but as soon as they are elected, their tune quickly changes.

Pierre Poilievre is the exception to that rule. If anything, his anti-CBC rhetoric is getting more virulent.

So much so that the president of the CBC has actually launched her own attack on the Conservative leader.

Earlier this month, Catherine Tait stoked the fires for Tory fundraising by attacking Poilievre’s call to defund the CBC.

Tait told The Globe and Mail there is “a lot of CBC-bashing going on—somewhat stoked by the leader of the opposition.”

That was just the trap the official opposition leader was hoping she would fall into.

Poilievre makes his mark by picking fights. And his followers fund those fights.

So as soon as Tait made her comments, Conservative columnists like Lorrie Goldstein accused Tait of shooting an own goal.

The attack was followed by a fundraising email from Poilievre accusing Tait of being “the president and CEO of Trudeau’s $1.2-billion propaganda arm.”

He said it confirmed that “the CBC is now openly attacking me. They’re not even pretending to be unbiased.”

Tait has not expressed any regret for her comments, saying it is her job to communicate to Canadians –including politicians– the value of the public broadcaster, no matter whether they are Conservative, Liberal, or New Democrats.

However, as president of the public broadcaster, she should be smart enough to stay out of politics.

When Canadians understand the value of the public broadcaster, they reject politicians who muse about defunding the organization.

But Tait’s comments have managed to give life to what was only shadow-boxing until last week.

Her ill-advised comments were part of a wide-ranging interview designed to explain why the CBC was planning to move away from over-the-air television broadcasting in favour of digitalizing all content.

One wonders who is giving Tait communications advice when she thinks the end of over-the-air television is a good piece of news for her to be deliver to a major national newspaper?

If the public broadcaster cannot deliver the signal to all parts of the country, who will?

Tait did not walk back her Poilievre comments, but her announcement on the digital trajectory of the CBC has been clarified.

It won’t happen for a long time.

But the mere mention of ending over-the-air broadcasting has sent the group formerly known as Friends of the CBC into a political frenzy.

Friends used to be known as ‘Friends of the CBC’, but changed their name to simply Friends, and say their mandate is to build a robust Canadian broadcast system.

The notion that rural Canadians or those who still depend on antenna delivery would lose their service does not sit well with public broadcasting supporters.

In an interview, the CBC president has managed to provide oxygen to the Conservative defund initiative and annoy supporters.

Tait defended her anti-Poilievre comments by saying she was not a journalist.

There she is correct. It is her job to defend and promote the values of public broadcasting, but she should be astute enough to avoid opening the door to a political fight with an avowed enemy of the CBC.

Tait needs to promote a positive campaign on why the public broadcaster is worth funding.

She and the CBC board should be engaged in a proactive counterattack, underscoring why government investment has enhanced Canadians’ capacity to know and understand their own stories.

From Schitt’s Creek to Kim’s Convenience, from Rick Mercer to Catherine O’Hara, there are Canadian actors, comedians and storytellers who have garnered an international reputation.

They should be the spokespeople for advocating positively for continued investment in public broadcasting.

Poilievre can bash Tait, and actually gain support for his cause.

He would be hard-pressed to attack Mercer or O’Hara.

The other card that the CBC has not yet played is what would Canada’s bilingual landscape would look like without Radio-Canada.

When Poilievre sends out his fundraising missives, they are targeted to an English-speaking audience. The notion of trashing Radio-Canada would kill his chances of ever forming the government.

Millions of Canadians believe in the importance and power of public broadcasting.

They should be the target of a proactive communication initiative, including the minister of Canadian Heritage and parliamentarians who believe in public broadcasting.

The “Defund the CBC” salvo needs a rebuttal.

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