The PMO restricted the Canadian reporters present — about 15 of us — to a total of two questions, one of which would be put to him in French and one in English. No follow-ups. For years now, this has been the standard operating procedure for “media avails” when this PM hosts a foreign leader. Two questions. No followups.
Though there are 300+ journalists accredited to the Parliamentary Press Gallery and Prime Minister Stephen Harper spends the majority of his working month on Parliament Hill, these are the only chances reporters get to ask the PM questions. While he takes questions from reporters when he travels outside the nation’s capital, he has not had a press conference where he has taken more than two questions from reporters since early December 2012 when Canada approved the sale of Nexen to a Chinese state-owned company. Because of the size and significance of that deal, that press conference was almost entirely about the deal.
In any event, at every one of these press conferences, reporters choose a) what the question will be and b) who will ask the questions. The PMO has no role in either a) or b) and the PMO is only told ahead of time who is asking the questions but never told what is being asked.
By contrast, a press conference was given earlier in the day in the National Press Theatre. For press conferences there (this one happened to be the Justin Trudeau-Eve Adams presser but the following applies for any one from any party in the NPT), each reporter decides to ask whatever they want, another member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery picks each questioner (usually on a first-come, first basis after seeing people put their hands up), each questioner is usually permitted one question and one follow-up (though CBC’s Julie Van Dusen is notorious for one question and seven follow-ups), and instead of a limit based on the number of questions, the limit is a time limit usually, 30 minutes. So we get as many questions as we can squeeze into 30 minutes. Sometimes a reporter leaves without getting his or her question answered but there is no “consensus” questions and, I don’t think I’m spilling any beans to say, the press gallery much prefers this way of doing things. Our promise here to politicians is: You give us 30 minutes and we will run an orderly press conference in which we choose the questions and questioners but the answers are all up to you.
The Harper PMO has long chosen to go a different route. So: Given the parameters dictated to us by the PMO, the reporters present for the Merkel-Harper media avail all agreed one question should be on Ukraine and one on the Eve Adams defection. There is often disagreement among some reporters when we do this choosing-by-consensus approach but I was not aware of any dissent last night and I supported the choice of both topics. (I don’t always.) Having decided on the topics, we worked out ways to ask a question on each topic. We had a lively discussion about the best kind of question to ask on each topic in order to get the best kind of response from the PM. And when I say “best” kind of response, we mean one in which we hope the prime minister will not answer ‘yes’ or ‘no” or dismiss the question but one which will encourage him to consider a full answer that is
frank, from the heart, and, we hope, provides a pithy quote.
In this case, as I had suggested part of the formulation of the Adams question, the group agreed that I would put the Adams question to him and Manon Globensky of Radio-Canada would put the Ukraine question to him. We informed the PMO that they were to call on Akin and Globensky. They did so in that order.
Reaction on my social networks to my question was decidedly mixed:
Typical of the angry responder:
Why Cnd journos suck-Merkel/Harper presser abt #Ukraine etc-@davidakin Sun News asks first question abt #EveAdams #cdnpoli@nspector4 #Hurl
— Mark Collins (@Mark3Ds) February 10, 2015
Typical of the “well-done” view ..
Way to go @davidakin! Ask the tough questions he doesn’t want to answer. #cdnpoli
— maureen dawson (@moeyd64) February 10, 2015
And, indeed, he did not want to say anything about the Dimitri Soudas defection. (See transcript below).
Here’s a press gallery member jumping in with an important point:
Re: grumbling over @davidakin‘s Q for the PM on Eve Adams the only pressers the PM has in Ottawa are with visiting foreign leaders.
— kady o’malley (@kady) February 10, 2015
Here’s the transcript of my Adams question:
AKIN: Prime Minister, Chancellor, good evening. Sorry, Chancellor, a domestic politics question for the Prime Minister first, if you wouldn’t mind. A bit of a party matter. Prime Minister, we’re wondering why you wouldn’t go to bat for Eve Adams as she struggled to find a riding to run in. And on the flip side, we understand Dimitri Soudas, who of course we all know was pretty much inseparable from you for a decade, helping you in your political success, do you feel betrayed by the fact that he’s now going to campaign against your government? And are you worried he may betray more secret information to the Liberals?HARPER: Well, look, on the first subject, I’ll just say this. I think the situation’s very simple. The National Council of our party is responsible for an honest, clean nomination process. It informed MP Adams some 10 days ago that she could not be a candidate for the party, for reasons that I think everybody understands. And that’s obviously the reality of the situation, and that’s the sole reason we obviously have the development we have today.Pour le répéter, c’est le Conseil national du parti qui est responsable pour le processus d’investiture, un processus qui est démocratique et propre et ce qu’on s’est informé la députée Adams qu’elle ne sera pas candidate pour notre parti, pour des raisons bien connues par tout le monde. Et c’est une décision nécessaire et je n’ai pas aucun autre commentaire. Mais évidemment c’est la seule raison pour les développements aujourd’hui.
I’ve written a lot about the ‘sausage-making’ that goes into asking the PM question. You may wish to review:
- The time I yelled at the prime minister to produce the cheques at the heart of the Duffy matter. He ignored me. (With video)
- The time I threw a lob ball at the PM — and why I drove 700 km to put such a softie to him.
- How it works between the press and the PMO. (Includes pic of a ‘two-question” press availability that lasted less than four minutes (including the time it took to ask questions.)
Source: blogs.canoe.ca/
Author: David Akin
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