Poliviere’s Distaste for traditional media: Will it work in the long run?

Patrick Gossage • November 2, 2023

The Leader of His Majesty’s loyal opposition, Pierre Poilievre is well known for avoiding traditional print, radio and TV media represented by the Parliamentary Press gallery. In fact, the most durable part of this national platform which gets cheering support whenever he speaks is a promise to defund the best staffed media group of them all, the CBC – not Radio Canada but CBC English. At times he has even refused to take questions from CBC reporters. His preferred direct-to-Canadians avenue for his well-developed anti-Trudeau views is his finely produced YouTube mini documentaries and social media feeds. 

Yet, Angus Reid Institute polled our news consumption habits in July showed an ongoing decline in use of traditional media, but nevertheless showed its ongoing influence: “…as recently as 2016, two-in-five (42%) Canadians said they read a print publication daily for their news. Now that figure has halved (19%). Television (71% to 52%) and radio news (57% to 45%) have also declined in prominence, though they remain important sources of information for majorities of Canadians over the age of 54. In their place, nearly all (89%) Canadians turn to the internet for news.” 


So, TV and online is where it is at despite the threats from Google and Facebook to block Canadian news as a response to the government’s attempt to force them to pay news outlets for using their material. Fear not, Poilievre's powerful well-crafted clips always make the evening and national TV news even if he rarely scrums with reporters. Admittedly the clarity and force of his TV personality contrasts with Trudeau’s more complex and diffuse manner of answering questions or performing in the house. 


Questions remain about the long-term effectiveness of this strategy. The first relates to which news organizations actually can set the political agenda. There is no doubt that the veteran, well-staffed bureaus of the Globe and Mail, Star, Canadian Press and CBC and CTV wield an out-of-proportion influence in setting the political agenda, whether the breaking of the SNC Lavalin affair or the influence of the Chinese. It is also their reporters who comment on widely watched daily political broadcasts. For Poilievre's office to ignore this fact is to cede to the Liberal’s their strategic use of these influencers. When I was in the Prime Minister's Office, I quickly became aware of the enormous national reach of Canadian Press (CP) into every newsroom in Canada. We advantaged them whenever we could, ensuring they were well briefed or even got valuable interview opportunities.  Poilievre ignores CP.


Another question relates to how Poilievre interacts with journalists when he in his irregular media availabilities. It goes without saying that Ottawa journalists don’t particularly like him, or Trudeau for that matter. But in Poilievre's case their distrust has a lot to do with his ill thought out and outspoken views, and thin policy solutions, not the least of which is endless blaming the Bank of Canada and Trudeau’s overspending for the crisis in affordability. Not only that, he has engaged in direct media baiting. This is the recent subject of a whole opinion article by the influential Globe and Mail columnist and television commentator Andrew Cohen. The video of him nonchalantly eating an apple while a local reporter stumbles through accusatory questions such as, “people say you are taking a page out of Trump’s book” to which Poilievre retorts “which people?” and so on, thereby demolishing the journalist. It has gone viral. The poor journalist becomes a “media baiting prop” as Cohen says.


It’s a given that in political media relations which I practiced, a government has an advantage in denying the opposition – the government can actually announce new policies that affect people’s lives like the three year moratorium on heating fuel carbon tax. Nevertheless, there are proven ways of turning confrontational interviews to one’s advantage without demeaning the questioner. I had notable success with the grouchy BC TV personality the late Jack Webster. The gruff Scotsman’s morning TV show had a huge audience and I persuaded Pierre Trudeau that it could be a good experience if he set out to enjoy it and humour him. It worked and my boss’s bemused asking of Jack’s first tough parry “Jack do you really believe that?” set the tone. He became a regular whenever we were out west. 


The elder Trudeau became a patient professor when asked a tough question, taking the journalist into his thinking. This would be a good lesson for his son, who is regularly nontransparent and vague in his answers. I tried to teach his father to have respect for the serious journalists of which there are always several. And in years of training politicians and businessmen for media appearances, I always advised them to listen seriously to the question and respect where it was coming from, even if I also advised them to bridge to key messages. 


I was also convinced that if you did not treat the Ottawa press gallery with respect, the gang mentality could turn against you and help defeat you – which it did in its mockery of Joe Clark. If I was advising Poilievre I would take seriously veteran Star columnist Robin Sears who said that his media bashing and CBC threats “…is a very dark hole that Poilievre is taking his party down…Attacks on Canadian journalists so far are mainly restricted to insults and death threats on social media. Inciting hate for the media makes it a small step for an enraged partisan to act on those threats.” In June, National Post’s Michael Taube compared coverage by major media of the four by-elections that split between Liberals and Conservatives and concluded that the media couldn‘t wait for Poilievre to fail. Poilievre is unlikely to get many breaks from influential national media and over time this could affect public perceptions. 


Radio and television producers still are influenced in their choices of guests and news lineups by what the national print and TV are featuring. You either are attuned to their world or you’re not. Poilievre is not and in the end it could cost him. His distaste for traditional media signals a major change in how a would-be PM interacts with them, and in the long run could benefit Trudeau.   

Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"

A New Canada to Fight for Our Survival

By Patrick Gossage • December 29, 2025
There has been nothing like the mobilization of our country since we went to war against Hitler “for King and Country.” Now we are mobilizing in a new war against Trump’s depredations with renewed patriotic fervour. Our building a resilient sovereignty against the word’s most irrational and powerful regime - who believe we have no right to exist - will require an enormous dedicated and concentrated effort to redefine our nation. . Make no mistake. We are not seen as important in Washington, a lesson I learned as the Minister of Information at our embassy in the Reagan years. Like Trump’s disparaging attitude to Justin Trudeau, Reagan had little use for his crusading father, Pierre Ytudeau. The difference is that with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney r Reagan actually became a key figure in establishing the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), signed in 1988. Ironically, it is precisely the success of this pact that led to 75% of our trade going to the US, a dangerous dependence which is now under extreme threat. The future of the successor to the FTA is at dtake. The US Canada Mexico Agreement (USMCA) is about to be renegotiated and is by no means secure. Bilateral trade discussions on the sectorial tariffs that are destroying our steel, automobile, aluminum and lumber industries were going well but were cancelled on October 23 after Trump, in a fit of pique was annoyed by Ontario TV ads using a Reagan clip to decry tariffs. Prime Minister Carney clings to the hope that these issues will be addressed in the context of the USMCA talks. They are supposed to begin in January. We live in hope. Make no mistake. Trump recently suggested that USMCA’s future was not certain. His strong belief that Canada would be better as a US state _ “and there would be no tariffs” – seems unshakeable. Perhaps the most striking evidence of what low repute Canada is held in the White House comes from Vice President Vance. He has publicly criticized Canada's our generous immigration policies, blaming them for the country's "stagnating" living standards and referring to our approach as "immigration insanity". Vance pointed to a chart from IceCap Asset Management showing that Canada's GDP per capita growth has fallen behind that of the U.S. and the U.K. in recent years. He argues this stagnation is a direct result of Canada's approach to immigration and not U.S. trade policies. He specifically targeted Canada's multiculturalism model, contrasting it with the U.S. "melting pot". Vance claimed that "no nation has leaned more into 'diversity is our strength’... immigration insanity “ than Canada". The White House recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) which also note how immigrants can destroy our democracies. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist signaled this: “It cites activities by our sister European democracies that “undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence. “‘Should present trends continue,” it goes on, “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” These views are totally inimical to Canadian values.  As is this, Trump’s most outrageous recent anti- immigrant outburst as reported by NBC : “For a second day in a row, President Donald Trump launched into a hate-filled rant against Somalia and Somali immigrants living in the US, saying they’ve “destroyed Minnesota” and “our country.” Minnesota, Trump said, is “a hellhole” right now. “The Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country.“ The NSC also can affect Canada in its focus on the Western hemisphere. an area to be dominated by US interests. The US will secure critical supply chains in its own interests; and insists on the right of the US to have access to “strategically important locations.” The US National Security Council is to identify strategic points and resources in the Western hemisphere with a view to their protection and joint development with regional partners. Obviously, Canada as a source of critical minerals, will be under US scrutiny. Some observers fear that Trump wants Canada to become a “vassal state”. A December Toronto Star editorial states coldly that “Thanks to Donald Trump, we know that nothing about our country is guaranteed anymore, not our sovereignty, our democracy, our prosperity.” We now know the Canadian policies standing in the way of a new USMCA agreement. US Trade representative Jamieson Greer said our online Streaming Act, which will make profitable US streaming services support Canadian programming is a major irritant as is our sacrosanct supply management regime for dairy and poultry products. These both are very difficult bargaining chips for Canada to play. Trump’s love affair with tariffs is unlikely to subside so Canadian products may continue to be frozen out of the US. Prime Minister Carney’s ambitious strategy of finding alternate markets for these may work. And his new policy framework for rebuilding a successful economy, major infrastructure projects and attracting important foreign investment is a significant redefinition of our national political priorities. He enjoys wide public support for his strategy which also receives good business and media support. There is already some optimism about the economy in 2026 - take Bank of Montreal’s recent outlook paper: “We’re looking for a stronger economy in 2026 than 2025. Consumer spending has helped prop up the economy. The “Buy Canadian” campaign has helped, and more people are travelling closer to home. Also, there’s no question that federal government spending has also supported economic growth. As we move into the latter part of the year—boosted by firmer economic growth and lower population growth—we expect the unemployment rate to fall in the second half. “Canada’s position in the trade dispute isn’t as bad as it appeared earlier in the year. The average Us tariff rate on imports of Canadian goods is between 6% and 7%, compared to the 17% rate the U.S. charges the rest of the world on average. (these rates are goods under the existing CUSMA) Sectorial tariffs are heavily focused on certain targeted industries, such as steel and aluminum, lumber, and auto imports and non-USMCA auto parts. These are important sectors, but they represent a relatively narrow slice of the economy. “ In addition there is good news on the overall trade front. Canada’s trade swung to a surplus of C$0.15 billion in September 2025 from a C$6.3 billion deficit the month before and well above expectations for a C$4.5 billion deficit, Exports rose 6.3 C$ 64.231 billion, the largest monthly increase since February. Nine of 11 product sections posted gains. Metal and non-metallic mineral product exports jumped 22.7% driven by a 30.2% surge in unwrought gold; aircraft and other transportation equipment rose 23.4% and crude oil exports climbed 5.8%. We just may have a more resilient economy than we thought. Nevertheless, we cannot count on Trump agreeing to a new trade regime that is as good as the original NAFTA – and the cost of reducing tariffs on key sectors may be too high, Trump’s love for tariffs and distain for us won’t change. We can only hope that a smart, well connected and determined Prime Minister can rebuild an economy that will be immune to the vagaries of our neighbour.
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