Harper muzzles media at Brampton event

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(Updated)

The prime minister came to a Brampton manufacturing plant Friday morning to talk about the Canada Job Grant program. But this is not a story about that. After all, most Canadians probably see providing money to train people for jobs as a good thing.

What they may not see here is something that could be a very bad thing. It’s the issue of control and manipulation.

In his opening remarks the Prime Minister brought up the serious issue of Ukraine:

“We emphasize this to all the countries of the region; our very strong support for the territorial integrity and the respect of the territorial integrity of Ukraine”

Is that a criticism of Russia? A warning? A threat? Reporters weren’t allowed to ask.

A release from the PMO called this “a question and answer session with members of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters” and goes on to say that the session was “moderated” by Jayson Myers, President and CEO of CME and Jason Langrish, Executive Director of The Canada Europe Roundtable for Business.”

Both of those statements are true; but neither of them, is accurate.

They suggest that the Prime Minister and the two moderators were involved in an open session of questions and answers. And that the two Jasons were steering debate, and fielding questions from the floor.

Instead — the two men read prepared questions to the Prime Minister, and he gave them prepared answers, that neatly emphasized government policies. No questions were taken the floor — and certainly not — from the media.

Not even to clarify — or possibly challenge the accuracy of the Prime Minister’s power point presentation.

That kind of control leaves the message up to interpretation. Take this example:

“We know that the education sector, left to itself, is going to create an under supply to technical and tradespeople, of scientists, of engineers, of mathematicians, several other core fields and it’s going to create a surplus in other areas.”

That could be a criticism of Canada’s post-secondary education system by the Prime Minister. Is that what he meant? We’ll never know.  Unless, we can ask.