Justin Trudeau was in NYC last month doing important United Nations stuff and squeezed in a visit to the Ed Sullivan Theater to wave the flag while shooting the shit with Stephen Colbert in front of a friendly audience. The Canadian prime minister is on a desperate charm offensive after his nosediving Liberal Party lost yet another former safe spot in a recent byelection — in his hometown of Montreal, no less — and the country’s Most Eligible Bachelor admitted as much after the host asked if people even watch “The Late Show” up north.
“That’s kind of why I’m here,” he said in no-duh response. His main opponent, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, is currently trying to force an early election after his NDP counterpart, Jagmeet Singh, tore up his party’s agreement to prop up the minority Trudeau government in exchange for a teaspoon of policy goodies.
The softball interview might’ve been more entertaining if the host was still doing his rightwinger schtick from the old “Colbert Report” days on Comedy Central, but Trudeau declined the bait when asked about the man who “has been called Canada’s Trump” and pointed out authoritarianism is making a comeback in plenty of other Western democracies as well.
Comparisons to the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist are rarely helpful because nobody comes close to his unique cocktail of every imaginable character flaw, and Poilievre doesn’t even share an interest in the one thing Dear Leader is said to be reasonably good at: golf. But he definitely shares Trump’s habits of both shamelessly lying and calling the fourth estate enemies of the state. He took his ongoing issues with the Canuckistan lügenpresse up a notch last week, banning elected party members across the country from speaking with CTV News. That’s due to a clip seeming to imply Peewee wants to overthrow the minority Liberal government through a non-confidence vote over a subsidized dental care program — instead of the REAL reason, which is he is super-mad about the growing carbon tax on fossil fuels brought in by the Liberals to at least try to do something about the, you know, existential climate crisis.
It wasn’t a great look for one of the country’s largest news networks which — full disclosure — I briefly worked for several years ago, but mistakes happen in newsrooms just like every other workplace. Especially in ones operating on a skeleton crew after being cut to the bone by their hemorrhaging corporate overlords, in this case Bell Media, who’ve let go more than 4,800 employees this year alone while still lining C-Suite executives’ pockets obv.
Two unnamed CTV staffers were added to the list and sent packing for deleting a sentence fragment from an answer he gave at a recent press conference on Parliament Hill.
“That’s why it’s time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election” is the reason Poilievre declared for wanting to force Canadians to the polls a year ahead of schedule, but alas the “for a carbon tax election” part was removed, which also came shortly after a reporter said there are “questions” about dental care’s “future” in the broadcast.
CTV quickly issued a mea culpa for taking the comment out of context:
A misunderstanding during the editing process resulted in this misrepresentation. […] We unreservedly apologize to Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada.
It’s a cliche Canadians are always offering apologies but this one didn’t cut the mustard for the offended party, and the Conservatives’ media relations guy — the wonderfully named Sebastian Skamski — took to the generic social media platform you’d expect to demand more concessions.
“This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding,” he posted. “Until they explicitly acknowledge their malicious editing and omission of context to undermine Pierre Poilievre, Conservative MPs won’t engage with CTV News and its reporters.”
His boss took it a step further and went after Bell’s CEO, Mirko Bibic, in the House of Commons during Poilievre’s failed first attempt to bring down the current ruling party via a vote of sitting MPs. (Team Fuck Trudeau lost the first round 211-120 and another one Tuesday 207-120.) He also suggested Bibic was personally involved in the decision:
“The reason why he and his other cronies at that company are going after me is because he knows that I’m standing up for the people against the crony capitalists and insiders like him.”
He went on to call Bibic “overpaid” and added he “empties the books to pay his wealthy friends,” both of which are objectively true. It’s fun when autocrats turn on each other because you so rarely get to see it! But the notion the CEO would be looking over the shoulder of video editors instructing them to cut footage in the hope of making Peewee look even worse than he does all on his own is ludicrous. He’s probably still just pissy Bibic donated to his main rival in the Conservative leadership nomination, the sensible Jean Charest, instead of him.
Although it’s pretty rich the Tories would clutch their pearls over words taken out of context given these are the same folks who hit the fainting couch after Trudeau referred to newly minted Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who is Black, as “a twofer” as in two-for-one, and insisted this was somehow racist without mentioning the part where he added afterward Jivani is “both an ideologue and an insider.” Calling him an insider is kind of a weird thing to say in its own right given Jivani is a former card-carrying Liberal who is brand-new to elected office, but then again he is also besties with Republican veep candidate and up-and-coming stochastic terrorist JD Vance from their salad days at Yale together.
It’s worth noting the Conservatives haven’t said anything about what they would do about adding visits to the dentist to the country’s universal healthcare system but they certainly didn’t move on this file when they had a majority government under Stephen Harper earlier this century. They probably think it serves low-income Canadians right for growing teeth in the first place if they can’t afford to pay for them and are perhaps workshopping catchy slogans like their beloved “axe the tax” for carbon. “Forswear oral care!” could be an option.
The Canada Dental Benefit providing services to citizens with a family income less than $90,000 CAD was first rolled out two years ago and was one of the main reasons the lefty NDP were willing to get into bed with the Libs in the first place but it’s currently still limited to toothholders under 18 or over 65, and the scheduled expansion of the program has been postponed until the end of next year.
Speaking as someone who makes well under ninety grand who just forked over $1000 to give my neglected pearly-adjacent whites some TLC, I’m as frustrated as Singh is with the progress but certainly not enough to bite the bullet and vote Conservative.
The Tories currently have 119 seats, the Bloc Québécois has 32 and the NDP 24. The three parties could theoretically team up to take out the Grits 175-152 if everyone bothers to show up to work on the same day. Time will tell if repeated attempts will eventually hit paydirt for Peewee or if this will end up being another gong show like the GOP trying their best to nominate a new House Speaker.
But my fingers are crossed Poilievre will start hitting the late-night talk show circuit himself and find out firsthand if it’s as easy as the telegenic Trudeau makes it look.
[CBC / National Post/ Global News]
