September 2, 2002
If anyone ever had any uncertainty whether or not The National Post changed since Izzy Asper acquired ownership of the daily from Conrad Black, there should be no doubt after August 22. That was the day after Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced that he would not be running in the next election and that he would be leaving office in February 2004. All the media was naturally saturated with articles, features and stories about Chrétien and, given the fact that he has been in Parliament for almost 40 years, much of that time holding important cabinet portfolios as well as the top job, that by itself was to be expected. What was unusual was that the National Post devoted 19 out of 24 pages of its front section to the prime minister. The topics of the articles and columns were:
Chrétien’s resignation 10
Reactions to resignation 4
Leadership rivals 5
Chrétien's life 2
Aline Chrétien 1
Op/Ed and Editorials 4
"Shawinigate" 0
The massive coverage in the Post was typical of what you would expect to see in a newspaper the day after Chrétien's death. Since Chrétien is not only still alive, but plans to remain in the prime minister’s office for another 18 months, the coverage was totally overdone considering the events of the day before.. No other media outlet neglected other news to devote so much space to the Prime Minister.
The Post seemed to extend the principle of not saying anything ill of the dead to not speaking ill of someone who is retiring in 18 months. The National Post, under Conrad Black’s Hollinger, was criticized, with some justification, for devoting too much time to Shawinigate and other scandals that plagued the Chrétien government. But now under the auspices of Izzy Asper, Chrétien's good friend, and a loyal Liberal, there were no articles in the 19 pages concerning the scandals that caused a majority of Canadians to view their government as corrupt. Slowly but surely the Post is evolving into another L/liberal newspaper.
It hurts the children
Out of 72 school boards in the Province of Ontario, three, including the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) decided not to balance their budgets for the years 2002-3, thereby breaching the balanced budget requirement of the Ontario Education Act. As a result of this failure, forensic accountant, Al Rosen, was appointed to investigate the financial affairs of the Toronto board.
On August 19, Rosen submitted his report to the Ministry of Education, which consisted of 290 pages as well as an eight page executive summary. In the summary Rosen found that the Toronto board made no effort to reduce expenses, spent money on things that could not be properly called "education" and, in his words, was dysfunctional.
The refusal to balance their budget and the Rosen report were big news, especially in the Toronto area. Much of the media was sympathetic to the trustees and the left-wing members of the board who voted en masse not to defy the law and not pass a balanced budget. Extreme examples of this bias were seen on Citytv. At least twice in two weeks, the head of the Toronto Parents' Council, Cathy Dandy, appeared on City to bemoan how the children were going to suffer, while hosts Ann Rohmer and Laura DiBattista gave sympathetic nods of approval. As with many other media accounts, the facts that are contained in Rosen’s 290 pages were not going to get in the way of emotion. The majority of the Toronto media accepted without qualification, the arguments of the trustees that Toronto was unique; that Toronto was special; that the government was just wasn’t giving them enough money. There was a general refusal to put tough questions to the trustees, like how could they justify paying for 84 swimming pools and 150 lifeguards while there was a shortage of textbooks.
Moira Macdonald, in a Toronto Sun article appropriately titled "Days of whine and Rosen", made the following comment:
"Rosen’s report is meaty reading for anyone skeptical of the board’s whine that it doesn’t get enough money." She went on to give the website where the Rosen report could be found.(www.edu.gov.onc.ca/new/new.html)
Not only did Macdonald infer that she read the entire 290 page report but she quoted from it. Much of the media took the easy way out and just agreed with the trustees and their supporters that the budget shortfall was all the fault of the government and the children are simply doomed. Parts of the executive summary were quoted extensively (it seems journalists love that word "dysfunctional") but it appeared that many who wrote and spoke about the issue, unlike Macdonald, didn’t think that it was necessary to actually read the report that was the basis of the story. It’s probably expecting a lot in this day and age to expect the average journalist to read almost 300 pages.
Arthur Weinreb is a lawyer and author and Associate Editor of Canadafreepress.com
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