(Courtesy: The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld)
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has put CTV on blast after it aired a clip of him that he says was an altered statement.
On Tuesday, Poilievre called out BCE Inc. (Bell Canada Enterprises), which is the owner of CTV News, for running an edited clip during its Sept. 22 broadcast of his debate at the House of Commons. In the broadcast, Poilievre’s clip was spliced together in a manner that sounded like he was introducing a non-confidence motion, which would force an early election, because he wants to scrap the Liberal’s national dental care program.
His exact words were “That’s why it’s time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election.” However, in the CTV broadcast, Poilievre said, “That’s why we need to put forward a motion.” This clip was played after the reporter said there were questions about the future of dental care.
During a debate at the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative leader publicly shamed the media company and its CEO Mirko Bibic.
“This will be a carbon tax referendum. A carbon tax election. And I know the media has worked hard to try and avoid me saying the words carbon tax as we saw in the extremely dishonest and fraudulent report from Bell Media controlled CTV who’s a company whose bonds have been downgraded to near-junk status as its overpaid CEO empties the books to pay his (referring to Bibic) wealthy friends and unacceptably and unrealistically high dividend,” Poilievre said.
“The reason why he and his other cronies of that company are going after me is because he knows that I’m standing up for the people against crony capitalists and insiders like him,” he continued.
Following the broadcast, CTV National News posted an official statement apologizing to the politician on Monday evening.
“Last night in a report on this broadcast, we presented a comment by the Official Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre that was taken out of context. It left viewers with the impression the Conservative non-confidence motion was to defeat the Liberals’ dental care program. In fact, the Conservatives have made it clear the motion is based on a long list of issues with the Liberal government including the carbon tax,” the statement read on X.
“A misunderstanding during the editing process resulted in this misrepresentation. We unreservedly apologize to Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada. We regret this report went to air in the manner it did,” it concluded.
In addition, CTV News anchor Omar Sachedina also recited the apology on air that night and the media company has since removed its Sept. 22 broadcast from its website.
Since then, other members of the Conservative Party have denounced the act, including Poilievre’s Director of Media Relations Sebastian Skamski, who said CTV’s “so-called “apology”” doesn’t cut it.”
“This wasn’t a simple “misunderstanding”. Until they explicitly acknowledge their malicious editing & omission of context to undermine @PierrePoilievre, Conservative MPs won’t engage with CTV News & its reporters,” his X post read.
Skamski also attached a letter which includes a script outlining the reporter’s introduction, the exact altered clip of Poilievre played afterwards, and his full statement from the scrum on Sept. 18.
“CTV’s decision to selectively edit the Leader’s words was deliberately malicious and intended to mischaracterize our Leader’s position, demonstrating a complete disregard for basic journalistic integrity and ethics. In splicing the Leader’s words and removing all relevant context, they created a false narrative to provide favourable coverage of the Liberal government and Prime Minister,” reads the letter in part.
As a result, Skamski says all members of the Conservative Caucus will refrain from engaging with the media outlet effectively immediately. This includes interviews, providing statements and or offering any type of commentary.
In addition to Skamski’s remarks, Conservative MP and former leader of the party Andrew Scheer posted his reaction online.
“When you cut and splice parts of separate sentences to fabricate an entirely made-up one, that’s not taking it out of context. That’s deliberately broadcasting something that never happened. @CTVNews lied to Canadians,” he said on X.
