You came away knowing not much more than the fact that both men love their jobs. Good for them.
As usual, Harper had his way with a host referred to inside the grandiose and troubled zones of the CBC — where even Mr. Mansbridge has been quizzed by the brass — as the ‘Chief Correspondent’, or CC. That’s a very funny title.
In reality, Mansbridge reads teleprompters and provides colour commentary on a lot of parades and ceremonies. He licks a lot in his one-on-one interviews. He is a Canadian news bureaucrat beyond compare. And he gives speeches — lots of speeches.
Or at least he did until he ran into an ethical brick wall named Andrew Mitrovica. ‘Mitro’ forced the corporation to recognize a fundamental conflict-of-interest: You can’t have your ‘stars’ both reporting on, and taking cheques from, the oilpatch and other well-heeled fans. Rex Murphy apparently is still flogging his tonsils to the Salvation Army. No, Rex, you didn’t charge the Kettle People, not at Christmas? Surely not even a stage-Newfoundlander would do that.
But back to CC. He lobbed question after question up to the net, and a happy PM batted them back like a cat playing with a shuttlecock.
Inscrutably, Mansbridge began with a barrage of questions about Harper’s well-known preoccupation with improving relations with Cuba. CC went after the Canadian contribution to the stunning and long-overdue thaw between the U.S. and Cuban relations … you know, Steve the world statesman. (It turned out we provided a few meeting rooms and a bowl of potato chips. Not even allowed to listen at the door.)
Now, if CC had done a little more research, he might have asked a better question. Something along these lines:
“Prime minister, in 2012, the meeting of the Organization of American States ended without issuing a joint communique mostly because you opposed the attendance at these meetings of Cuba. With today’s developments, do you now regret that decision?”
CC did touch on climate change and the environment. He reminded the PM that he once said climate change was the biggest challenge facing the planet. CC even asked about Harper’s serial broken promises on regulating the oil and gas sector.
Sadly, CC allowed himself and his viewers to be completely snowed by the answers. The PM replied that Canada’s emissions were going down and reiterated that protecting the oil and gas industry from regulation was more important than anything else. He boasted about coal. CC said nothing. Fact? The regulations are in place for coal — but they don’t come into effect until 2015. All that boasting is, therefore, BS.
Here, CC could have used studio-craft. He could have had a monitor handy, playing a clip of Harper saying back in 2006 that he would regulate the energy sector, including the oil and gas industry. Then he could have cut to Harper saying in 2014 that such regulation would be “crazy.”
After that, he could have asked this question:
“Prime minister, such welcome and unwelcome things at once, ’tis hard to reconcile! You say our emissions are coming down, but every other expert says expansion of the tarsands is driving them up. In fact, your own Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner, Julie Gelfand, says you have no plan to regulate the fastest growing emitters in the country. Accordingly, emissions from the oil and gas sector will be 27 megatonnes higher in 2020 than they were in 2012. The Washington-based Centre for Global Development reported last year that Canada ranked dead last among twenty-seven wealthy nations in protection of the environment.
“Is Canada, as former Canadian diplomat Daryl Copeland put it, the ‘idiot boy’ of the climate change crisis? Have you made us into the North Korea of the environment, as Elizabeth May contends?”
I know, you don’t give a foot massage by squeezing someone’s bunions. I withdraw the question and defer to the masseur. I loved the question CC asked about the prime minister’s “personal experience” on the day a mentally unstable man murdered a soldier at the war memorial and then shot up Parliament. The prime minister did not much want to talk about that — even when Mansbridge wrapped his question in cotton wool.
A normal interviewer would have come to the point: “Prime Minister why did you hide in the closet after the shooting began in Parliament? Why didn’t you join your colleagues in barricading the doors and fashioning home-made weapons of self-defence? After all, you are their leader.”
Instead, Mansbridge’s performance was all reverse-gear deference. I thought for a moment the PM was resorting to humour when he suggested that he ended up in that closet because of his RCMP training. And, oh yes, because of his special knowledge of threats against himself and Canada.
It wasn’t humour after all. It was an attempt to turn cowardice into protocol. Why, he was practically forced to dive into that closet and pull the door shut behind him while his colleagues faced God knew what. He had to keep governing you see, yes — even from that closet he had to govern until he could completely decamp and continue to lead by retreating. Why, you’d almost think he was head of state — which he isn’t.
Mansbridge also allowed the PM to disgrace Canada by not challenging his unproven innuendo that this country’s two tragic deaths involving soldiers last October were connected terrorist acts. The proper response to the PM’s baseless musings would have been something like this:
“If you have proof that these events were connected terrorist acts, produce it. Produce the Michael Bibeau video. Produce the autopsy results. Produce any of the ‘secret stuff’ you know about. And if you don’t have proof, follow the example of Prime Minister Abbott in Australia, who refuses to politicize these tragedies and who stands behind Muslims in his county as innocent bystanders. If you have proof, show us. If you don’t, why do you float these theories without evidence, knowing they discredit and endanger all Muslims in this country?”
What was in CC’s interview pales beside what was not in it. Here are some questions that might have helped Canadians better understand the man who has his hand on the rudder as we approach Christmas Day 2014.
“Prime minister, both your newly appointed leaders in the Senate have been mentioned in the Charbonneau corruption inquiry in Quebec. The head of the PC Canada Fund was elevated by you to the Senate when he was under investigation for election cheating. Your former parliamentary secretary, Dean Del Mastro, has been convicted of election cheating — just like your former cabinet minister, Peter Penashue. Former PC party worker Michael Sona has been convicted for cheating in the 2011 election, though that conviction is under appeal.
“You put Arthur Porter in charge of oversight of our civilian spy agency and now he’s in prison in Panama fighting extradition to this country, where he faces multiple charges. Your former energy policy czar is facing multiple criminal charges and he had a criminal record when you hired him. What do you say to those people who could conclude from all this that your government has a major corruption problem?”
Finally, CC, how could you not ask a single question about the granddaddy of all political developments in Canada — the destruction of the parliamentary system by which we have been governed for our entire history? It’s not as if those that know have been silent.
“Parliament has become so undermined it is almost unable to do the job that people expect of it.” — Sheila Fraser, former auditor general.
“We operate under Westminster rules — an honourable understanding that you will play within the rules and by the rules. Mr. Harper has not played within the rules. Having attained absolute power, he has absolutely abused that power to the maximum.” — Robert Marleau, former Clerk of the House of Commons and Information Commissioner
“The PM seems to have forgotten that the government is the servant of the House. And that is all governments.” — Peter Milliken, former Speaker of the House.
CC probably had a lot of Christmas parties to go to on the Hill. That’s why he gave a free pass to the PM on omnibus bills, prorogation, time allocation, the muzzling of public servants, the Unfair Elections Act, the unconscionable attack on unions, and a foreign policy that is perfectly designed for Buzzfeed.
After all, what else do you give to a man who has everything … for now?
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
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