No recent precedent for a major party barring reporters from accompanying campaign

The Conservative national campaign director told media outlets Tuesday their journalists won’t be allowed to travel with leader Pierre Poilievre on his campaign plane and bus during the upcoming election, ending a decades-old tradition of reporters embedding with a prospective candidate to lead the country.

There is no recent precedent for a major federal party barring reporters, producers, camera operators and broadcast technicians from travelling with a leader during a national election campaign.

In the most recent federal campaigns in 2019 and 2021, for example, major broadcasters, including CBC/Radio-Canada, CTV and Global, a number of print outlets and the wire service, The Canadian Press, had journalists with past Conservative leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole throughout the campaign.

  • 🇨🇦 tunetardis
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    13 hours ago

    An election hasn’t even been called yet but I’ve already seen a Conservative attack ad. In it, they refer to “Carbon Tax Carney” as being a sneaky character with conflicts of interest.

    I mean wth. Carney ended the carbon tax as one of his first acts in office. (Not that I had anything against it, but whatever.)

    And let’s talk about conflicts of interest for a moment. Poilievre refuses to get a security clearance to get briefed on foreign meddling in Canadian political campaigns which was deemed urgent by CSIS. They decided to make an exception for him and offered the briefing regardless but he basically screamed LA-LA-LA I don’t have to listen to this!

    The only conclusion I’ve been able to draw from all this is that he and/or his party are the beneficiaries of said foreign interference and he wants plausible deniability in case it surfaces. It would also explain his reluctance to have embedded press following him around digging into things.

    • GreyEyedGhost
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      54 minutes ago

      I’m not sure if it’s plausible deniability or the desire to attack his opponents with insinuation that he wouldn’t be able to use if he had security clearance, and it doesn’t matter to me. Both are putting party over country, and we’ve seen where that leads.

    • HonoredMule
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      12 hours ago

      We’re about one year into a constant deluge of off-season CPC-sponsored attack ads everywhere.

      Well, apparently.

      I need to go give the team behind uBlock Origin a hug, or a beer.

      • Reannlegge
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        11 hours ago

        Yeah I have not seen an CPC-sponsored ad anywhere either, I wish I could give the pi-hole team a hug as well. Not happy with there new update and how it has made it not work with homebridge but I still would be happy to hug them!

    • one_fot_mon@lemm.ee
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      13 hours ago

      Those ads work. My 60yo mother told me, “I don’t know much about him but he just seems sneaky to me for some reason.”

      And then I later saw the intentionally sinister red-washed ads and it all made sense.

  • breen
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    15 hours ago

    Conservatives hate freedom of, well, anything.

  • skozzii
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    13 hours ago

    Do Canadians want Trump lite, because this is how you get a Trump lite.

    • Reannlegge
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      11 hours ago

      I prefer Maple MAGA over trump lite, just my two cents.

      Either way I do not want a CPC majority or minority.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    15 hours ago

    Antagonizing the journalists, what a strategy — it worked so well for Maxime Bernier.

    • Yoga
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      14 hours ago

      If you aren’t willing to get grilled by This hour has 22 minutes you don’t deserve to be PM.

    • Kichae
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      13 hours ago

      Worked very well for Stephen Harper. He told them he wouldn’t take questions from them, and then they covered his press releases with vigour.

    • veee
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      14 hours ago

      To quote a famous political ad, “he’s just not ready”.

  • Yoga
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    13 hours ago

    Not even allowing wire services is peak cowardice. Literally the least biased reporting you can get.

    0 transparency 0 accountability

  • Perhapsjustsniffit
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    14 hours ago

    They’re scared he will say something they don’t want him to say. The puppet masters pull the strings.

    • ninthant
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      14 hours ago

      He’s so slimy that everything he says will hurt him.

  • wirebeads
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    14 hours ago

    I’m hoping Carney keeps up the momentum here. As much as I didn’t want the liberals to rule Canada again, the recent nonsense of the US and PPs week in the knees bend over for Trump, religion and privatization status, we need to nip the Canadian cons in the butt.

    • HonoredMule
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      12 hours ago

      If you nip it in the bud, no one has to do any butt stuff. 😉

      • wirebeads
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        12 hours ago

        My understanding is conservatives love butt stuff, even though publically they deny it.

    • folkrav
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      13 hours ago

      It’s all gonna hinge on the next couple of weeks/months with Trump, IMHO. His (probably perceived) handling of the situation, and how much he can limit the damage for your average voter will probably dictate the results.

  • LimpRimble
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    14 hours ago

    I bet they won’t show up for all-candidates meetings either.

  • Laser
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    15 hours ago

    It’s because pp is a pussy! CANADA DOESN’T NEED A SMALL pp