by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
February 9, 2004
<The Toronto Star, Canada’s prime left wing daily, came out strongly in support of David Miller’s bid to become mayor of the City of Toronto. The paper switched to the NDP Miller, when early favourite Barbara Hall’s campaign imploded so much that it is probably in the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest freefall in electoral history (Howard Dean, eat your heart out).
Miller ran a good campaign, focusing on eliminating the fixed link bridge to the island airport and thereby picking up votes that would have gone to Hall, who favoured the bridge for emergency purpose.
The mayor promised very little other than to eliminate the bridge and city council has already voted to stop the construction. Miller made no bones about the fact that he was not in favour increasing the number of police officers on Toronto streets, nor had he ever indicated that crime in the city of Toronto was an important issue. To his credit, he’s no Dalton McGuinty where any resemblance between what he promised and what he is doing is strictly coincidental.
So it was a little surprising that Royson James took the mayor to task in a January 30 column for not going to a meeting on crime. according to James, "Miller came to power with more than a decade of watching policing in Toronto. He should have ascended to the mayor’s office ready to address the complex causes and solutions--as a first priority of his first term as mayor." James then goes on to criticize the mayor for "…delays and the offer of excuses and an explaining away of the increased fear that’s the byproduct of the wave of highly publicized gun-related crime."
Royson James blames David Miller for the "violent crime is no big deal--crime rates are decreasing" attitude that is held not only by Miller, but by the supporters that helped put him in office, including the Star.
Why is Royson criticizing Miller for not doing what he never said that he would do? By this seeming shift to the right, you would think that publisher John Honderich was already gone.
Julie loves Paul
Fox News Channel’s motto is "we report--you decide". CBC should adopt the motto " we decide--then we report.
On February 4, the Conservative Party accused Prime Minister Paul Martin in the House of Commons of having a conflict of interest regarding his former company’s dealing with the federal government. CBC’s coverage of the item began with pictures showing one of Paul’s boats, Martin walking down Parliamentary stairs and brief clips of interim Conservative leader Grant Hill and Martin speaking in question period. While these pictures were being aired, CBC reporterette, Julie Van Duzen provided the following in three voiceovers.
" If Paul Martin thought that giving his shipping company to his sons would end conflict of interest accusations, he was wrong. Barely on the job as prime minister, trying to promote his agenda, the opposition would have none of it. They have tantalizing figures to play with and they are not letting go."
"Martin says everything is above board and he has asked auditor General Sheila Fraser, an independent officer of Parliament, to prove it."
"Martin says all dealings of CSL will be open and transparent as possible."
Only after Van Duzen had (a) shown sympathy for poor Paul being picked on by all those opposition baddies so soon into his term, (b) accused the opposition of "playing" with numbers that came from the federal government, (c) criticized the opposition for raising the conflict of interest case and "not letting go", and (d) given his defense that the auditor General will clear him, does she go on to give the facts of what the Question Period exchange was about.
In 2002, in response to a Freedom of Information request, it was disclosed that Canada Steamship Lines had received $131,000 from the federal government. Now it has been revealed that the amount was actually $161 million, $46 million of which was paid to Martin’s company while he was finance minister. But Van Duzen insisted on giving her opinion that Martin was the poor victim of a vicious opposition even before stating the underlying facts.
No one, with the exception of Tony Burman, could possibly think that Van Duzen’s account was fair and unbiased.