just to amuse the locals

MP says he's all for freedom of press
April 1, 2006, Chuck Poulsen, KelownaDailyCourier.ca

Soon after proclaiming some journalists should be thrown in jail, Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes apologized for his comments.

In its Friday editions, The Daily Courier in Kelowna and Vernon published Mayes’ comments about jailing journalists, which appeared in a column the rookie MP had sent to eight North Okanagan media outlets.

(The Vernon Daily Courier recently declined to publish Mayes’ regular column).

The story went out on the national news services overnight, and by Friday morning Mayes had issued his apology.

“I wish to retract without reservation the comments I made . . .” Mayes said in a press release. “I would like to make it very clear that I fully respect freedom of the press. I sincerely apologize for any disrespect or ill feelings that my comments may have caused.”

A spokesperson for Mayes’ office said Friday he was not available for further comment.

“I’ve been told he’s not doing any interviews in this regards,” said the spokesperson.

In the column, Mayes wrote: “Boy, would the public get accurate and true information if a few reporters were hauled away to jail!

“Maybe it is time that we hauled off in handcuffs reporters that fabricate stories or twist information and even falsely accuse citizens.

“We know this will never happen because the media would cry ‘censorship,’ ‘authoritarian state,’ and all would be aghast, but the truth is we need ethical leadership from the media, too!”

A testy relationship has developed between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the parliamentary press corps since he restricted access to ministers after cabinet meetings. Harper has also told cabinet ministers their comments to the media must be cleared by his office.

UBC Okanagan political science instructor Carl Hodge has little doubt the Prime Minister’s Office ordered Mayes to apologize.

“I would think the PMO landed on him like a ton of bricks,” said Hodge. “This government hasn’t had a particularly tense relationship with media. I don’t get a sense that the government and the media are at war with each other.

“There were far tenser relationships than this one. There was more tension between Trudeau and the media. And let’s not forget the second Mulroney government.”
Hodge said that tension adds much-needed entertainment value to politics.

“If the government is doing anything, it’s going to have tension with media,” he said. “It thinks it’s being sold short or misinterpreted and thinks that’s deliberate. Then, the fur flies.

“That’s what happens in a democratic society. That’s what makes it fun.”
Former Kelowna-Lake Country MP Werner Schmidt, who also provided a regular column to newspapers in his constituency, said he never sent out a piece without getting input from others.

“These things were always a joint effort involving staff,” he said. “We would have a lot of discussion on the subject and how to deal with the message. Sometimes, we would bring in others for their opinion.

“It was never done on a unilateral basis.”

Asked if he approved of Mayes’ original statements, Schmidt said: “Hardly. I’m glad he apologized.”

Mayes’ reference to “censorship” and “authoritarian state” in quotes apparently referred to the second sentence of an editorial written by David Wylie, managing editor of The Vernon Daily Courier.

“Shame on Prime Minister Stephen Harper for mimicking the ploys of an authoritarian state by censoring his government and undermining freedom of the Canadian press,” Wylie wrote in the March 29 edition.

A spokesperson for Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day said he had no comment on the issue.

Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan said he had been travelling Friday and hadn’t had a chance to catch up on the stories.

“We live in a country that has respect for freedom of the press,” said Cannan.

and from:

Dan Cook on politics
DAN COOK, Globe and Mail, Friday, March 31

Do not pass go

By Tory MP Colin Mayes own logic, he should be jailed. Mayes latest column, which he forwarded to 10 newspapers, suggests bad journalists should be jailed. One-day later, he retracted "without reservation." Not a sentence or a paragraph: the entire piece.

Either the PMO forced Mayes to retract from his true beliefs, or what he originally penned was a fabrication. In either case, he's not being honest with his readers. Colin Mayes is guilty of what he's criticizing: bad journalism.

[Flashback Colin Mayes Sued For Libel And Defamation]

Updated Friday, March 31 at 8:45 p.m.


PM asserts info control
STEPHEN MAHER, April 1, 2006, The Cronicle Hearld

IN FRONT OF the handsome wooden doors at the entrance to the House of Commons chamber, there is a foyer, a beautiful two-storey space with stone walls and pillars, with paintings of former prime ministers on the walls and stone carvings overhead.

Here, after question period, the politicians come out for the scrums. They stand in front of microphones, with the TV cameras on them, and reporters gather round in clumps, digital recorders outstretched, to ask their questions.

When politicians don’t want to answer questions, they go up a set of marble stairs off to one side. Brian Mulroney liked to stop there and answer questions while looking down at the scribblers. If you go up those stairs, you can lean on a stone railing around the second storey of the foyer and watch the reporters, politicians and spin doctors mill around.

The prime minister’s suite of offices is wrapped around three sides of this space. When cabinet meets, the ministers go into one of the rooms. The political staffers hang around outside, gossiping and fiddling with their BlackBerries.

On the other side of the empty space, there is a wide hallway. The reporters hang around there, making wisecracks and waiting for the ministers, hoping they stop to answer questions.

Here is a transcript from March 7, as David Emerson entered cabinet:

Question: Mr. Emerson, are you co-operating with Mr. Shapiro and his investigation? Will you be co-operating?

Mr. Emerson: I’ll talk on the way out.

Question: Well, can you talk now, please? We’re feeding now. It’s feeding time. (Laughter.)

In the business, we say we have to feed the goat — get something for the paper. Ever since reporters used to wear bow ties and hats and smoke cigarettes, we have waited for our slops outside the cabinet room. Then, last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office decided we would be fed in the same foyer where reporters scrum politicians after question period. Ministers who don’t want to talk can slip away without risking the unflattering TV image of a politician fleeing tough questions.

The press gallery executive screamed and arranged for a meeting with Harper’s new communications director, Sandra Buckler. She said the government made the change because it is concerned about reporters’ safety.

This is hogwash. The decision has nothing to do with safety. Mr. Harper is trying to assert control over information in Ottawa, and moving reporters away from the cabinet doors is just one step.

His office has sent an e-mail to cabinet ministers not to talk to reporters without PMO approval. When he has news conferences now, one of his staffers — not a gallery official — draws up the list of reporters who get to ask questions; this means he can decline questions from unfriendly reporters.

The government has muzzled some MPs, ordering gun registry opponent Garry Breitkreuz, for example, not to discuss that issue. But it couldn’t silence rookie MP Colin Mayes of B.C., who wrote this week in a newspaper column: "Maybe it is time that we hauled off in handcuffs reporters that fabricate stories, or twist information and even falsely accuse citizens."

Mr. Mayes, who later apologized for his remarks, is likely too stunned to know that the government used to throw reporters in jail, at least until Joseph Howe won his criminal libel case in Halifax in 1835. His comments do shed light on the attitude some Tories have about the media, but even if they would like to throw reporters in jail, we needn’t worry. They are having a hard enough job just barring us from one hallway.

When the House opens, there will be plenty of food for the goat and we will be too busy to write much about this. And Mr. Harper may be wise to try to control the public comments of his untried ministers and keep the public focus on the five priorities the government has promised to address.

But the desire to control the media suggests a dangerous streak in Mr. Harper, which many in Ottawa observe in some of the government’s personnel moves, for example. He sometimes seems to possess a Diefenbaker-like paranoia, brittleness about criticism and desire to control things beyond his reach.

We don’t have enough evidence to know whether he is really like that, but we may know soon enough. The prime minister and his cabinet have been in dress rehearsal since election day. The curtain comes up Monday.