Last week Canada Free Press columnist Garth Pritchard wrote that "Stephen Harper is dying the death of a thousand cuts — all orchestrated by the Canadian media."
Well, with all respect to Mr. Pritchard, that not entirely true; a significant proportion of these cuts are self-inflicted.
Harper and the Conservative Party have to realize that this is Canada. It is not alberta or an american "red" state. The fact that the mainstream Canadian media is pro small "l" and capital "L" liberal is a given. The media are not going to change. If Stephen Harper ever wants to move into 24 Sussex Drive, he and those who surround him are going to have to accept that fact and work around that fact. Complaining about the media, or worse, ignoring them, is not going to get the Tories anywhere.
For weeks, the Liberals have been accusing the Conservatives of being in bed with the Bloc and working to break up Canada simply because the Tories joined with the separatists in an attempt to bring down Paul Martin’s Liberal minority government, clearly the most corrupt government in our history. What Harper does not seem to understand that if he says that two plus two equals four, and Gilles Duceppe gives the same answer, he’s not going to be given credit by the media for his mathematics skills; he will be accused of trying to break up the country.
Harper was handed a perfect opportunity to counter the "he’s in bed with the separatists" line. The Liberals joined with the Bloc to force closure and pass the budget last week (that’s the Jack Layton budget, not to be confused with Ralph Goodale’s budget). Harper and the Tories had a chance to hammer home the fact that either Martin and the Liberals were in bed with the separatists by joining with them in the motion for closure or alternatively, argue that voting with the Bloc on matters of independently arrived at mutual interests has nothing to do with breaking up the country or "siding with the separatists". But Harper, showing a lack of simple common sense made the comment that if the separatist Bloc was out of the equation, the remaining federalists would vote down the same sex marriage bill. While this might be technically true, the reality is that if the Bloc disappeared tomorrow, they would be replaced by Liberals and adam and Steve would still be able to walk down the aisle anywhere in Canada. By making that statement, Harper allowed both the Liberals and their media supporters, with some justification, to argue that Harper was blaming the passage of same sex legislation on Quebeckers and feed into the commonly held belief (thanks again to the liberal media) that the Conservatives are anti-Quebec. What could Harper possibly have been thinking when he made those comments?
Last weekend Harper came to the GTa to speak to a Muslim conference and addressed the gathering about their shared opposition to same sex marriage. The Conservative leader chose to make one of his infrequent forays into Ontario on the same weekend that the huge Gay Pride Week marches were taking place. No one would expect Harper to attend those festivities. But by placing himself so close to the Gay Pride events, he gave the liberal media the chance to say that he was here but didn’t go; something that never would have happened had he been in another part of the country. This is perhaps a trivial matter, but it shows that the Conservatives’ ability to properly handle the pro-L/liberal media is severely lacking.
Harper’s letter to the editor of the National Post wherein he berated the newspaper for not being conservative because they criticized him for not being conservative enough shows the lack of ability that he and the Conservatives have to properly deal with the fourth estate, as biased as much of them are. as Post columnist adam Radwanski later chuckled, you don’t argue with the media because they always have the last word.
Until Stephen Harper and the Conservatives learn how to deal with a mainly hostile liberal media, their hopes of gaining power will elude them. Yes, Stephen Harper is has received cuts from the Canadian media; but he must bear a lot of the responsibility for the treatment that he has been getting.