Perhaps this is taking place because the public opinion polls that show Trudeau losing the next election are finally causing much of the media that is being currently subsidized to consider how they will survive in a post-Trudeau world. Photo Credit: The Hill Times.
Ever since the Trudeau government started spending hundreds of millions of our tax dollars (excluding the $1.3 billion wasted annually on the CBC) on largely print media, the majority of that media and its affiliates have given the Liberal government a very easy time on scandals and missteps for which another government would have been pilloried. Issues Conservative governments faced, such as the infamous $16 orange juice that ended Bev Oda’s Cabinet role and Mike Duffy’s misspent $90,000 that didn’t even cost taxpayers a dime, dominated headlines for months.
Much more serious scandals and much bigger ticket items under the Trudeau government were glossed over, such as the SNC Lavalin scam, Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna’s missing billions, the explosion of wasted funds on a wide range of pandemic-related projects that were directed to Liberal friends who often produced nothing for the money spent, the WE fiasco and the shutting down of many Parliamentary Committees because embarrassing information was about to be disclosed on the quick and unexplained exit of Chinese scientists from a Winnipeg microbiology lab, Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, the many Trudeau ethical breaches, multiple blackface incidents and so much more. Any one of these issues would have dominated headlines for months if another government had been in office.
Although media generally in Canada, the US and other developed countries has been shown to lean left for decades, Trudeau’s bribery of the media with our money further worsened that bias. Another factor that contributed to selective reporting of events is the growing concentration of media in large corporate hands over the last couple of decades. Where there used to be a range of independent newspapers, radio stations and other media, they have been increasingly consolidated into large corporate entities with the permission of the federal government.
This has led to a uniformity of opinion and an unwillingness to rock the boat and criticize government even before the subsidies were doled out. When Bell Media recently laid off several hundred employees, Trudeau’s manufactured outrage was a little much considering that his government had been complicit with permitting the continued concentration of media ownership. The good news is that, as the ownership of so-called legacy media became more concentrated, a number of new independent media sprung up that were not subsidized by government and did not tow the Liberal party line. These new outlets are still relatively small but have had considerable success as news consumers increasingly distrust the MSM (mainstream media) and are willing to support alternate news sources.
All this being said, it seems that recently even some of the MSM players have become more willing to criticize the Trudeau government. The considerable amount of attention that has been paid in all media to the scam around the ArriveCan app and its dodgy financing is the most recent indication. There have been previous scandals where much more money was involved (several of the pandemic contracts that produced nothing cost hundreds of millions, the WE scandal was set to cost just under a billion, the many expensive environmental boondoggles, SNC Lavalin involved hundreds of millions, etc.) but ArriveCan at a cost of about $60 million has been more diligently covered by media and for a longer time.
Some of the MSM also appears to be more willing to criticize several of the keynote Liberal policies on the climate and immigration front than they have been in the past. For instance, the Liberal plastics ban has seen more criticism in recent weeks than it had in months prior, as has the carbon tax after it was treated with kid gloves by most media for years. Trudeau’s immigration policy has always been sloppy and ill-managed, yet again media criticism has grown only recently.
Perhaps this is taking place because the public opinion polls that show Trudeau losing the next election are finally causing much of the media that is being currently subsidized to consider how they will survive in a post-Trudeau world. Maybe it’s happening as the true weight of all the Liberal government’s misdeeds have come home to roost, although if so this should have happened years ago. It could also be a reaction to the growing indications that Canadians no longer trust the legacy media, but it’s going to be very difficult to counteract that now.
We also see Canadian courts reversing various Liberal policies such as the ban on plastics and Bill C-69, the so-called “no more pipelines” bill. It may be that the courts are more inclined to rule against a government that is very unpopular with Canadians than it would be with a popular government. Perhaps the carbon tax once again could be appealed to the Supreme Court and see if the decision would be the same under current circumstances, as it had some serious jurisdictional questions involved as did C-69.
If the Trudeau government does decide to hang in until the bitter end – October 2025 – and if their partners in the NDP permit them to do that, it will be interesting to see if media continue to be more prone to criticizing the Liberals than they have been for the past eight years. Because usually when the worm turns, there is no going back.
She has published numerous articles in journals, magazines & other media on issues such as free trade, finance, entrepreneurship & women business owners. Ms. Swift is a past President of the Empire Club of Canada, a former Director of the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Youth Business Foundation, SOS Children’s Villages, past President of the International Small Business Congress and current Director of the Fraser Institute. She was cited in 2003 & 2012 as one of the most powerful women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network & is a recipient of the Queen’s Silver & Gold Jubilee medals.
