This isn’t the Hill I came up on

Twenty years ago, when I started as a journalist, politicians believed questions deserved answers.

Disclaimer: As always, the opinions here are entirely my own. If you disagree, it’s probably because you’re right. The important thing is that my employers and other associations with which I associate myself, would very much like you to know they had nothing to do with this.

UPDATED: When I posted this yesterday, the last word from the PCO was no media planned. Then on July 16, at around 9 am the press gallery was informed the PM will scrum with reporters for 15 min, and we can tape his opening remarks. There’s the whistle I was talking about.

When I returned to Ottawa last December, I thought I knew what I was walking into—slipping into my old job like a comfortable pair of Doc Martens.

There was a big Assembly of First Nations meeting on the calendar—as there is every December—and I figured I’d be back on Parliament Hill every day, chasing ministers through the halls, filing stories from scrums, attending committee meetings.

Instead, just days after I arrived, Parliament was prorogued. The election dragged on. Downtown emptied out.

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Even Tim Hortons was suspiciously efficient—no bureaucrats in line, no staffers sprinting for caffeine between meetings. You could get a double-double and be out the door in two minutes. That’s how you know Ottawa’s asleep. There was even parking available downtown.

During elections, Ottawa isn’t where the story is. Campaigns happen out in the regions. The Hill clears out. Hill reporters either get shipped out with travelling press teams or sit bored at their desks. Most political staff are off the job, and ministers can’t answer questions because of caretaker rules. Even though the bureaucracy keeps humming along, the politics stop.

I did visit some communities during the campaign. That’s the part I love most. It’s also where the real stories are. It gets you outside the Ottawa bubble. You bring back stories and questions from real people—read: not politicians or journalists—and you wait for the election to end so you can spend a week outside cabinet and finally pounce on a minister and get answers for the public.

Carney n’ me

I’ve covered many governments over those 20 years. When I started, Chrétien was still Prime Minister. I wrote to Harper’s PMO more than once. They were masters of the non-answer—media lines that ignored your question entirely. But at least they responded.

Even Pierre Poilievre, who I suspect is not exactly beloved by my Substack readers, and who has an ironclad contempt for media, sat down and gave APTN an interview.

The Carney government? Nothing.

We’ve been chasing them since he launched his campaign for Liberal leader. Through the election. Into the transition. Most of our requests disappeared into silence.

I suggest to my producer Mark that we should just call Bob Fife—someone clearly calls him back. So Mark did. Fife gave us another contact name at PMO. Mark reached out again. Still nothing.

We weren’t even sure if our emails were being read.

Eventually, Mark flagged it to the press gallery president, who brought it up in a meeting with PMO— telling them they do have to reply to APTN. We’re a an award winning national broadcaster with a big footprint, after all.

We got a few nudges after that, but the responses were still frustrating. I’d send a question and get back a press release from two weeks ago. Not a response to what I asked. Not even a current line.

Anyway,I got my request back from PCO who are organizing the First Nations Summit tomorrow.

I asked about media access. I got this response: “Information regarding media access, if any, will be communicated in due course.” (emphasis added)

In other words, they’ll whistle if they need me.

When politicians dodge reporters, they’re really dodging you.

And I don’t mean to just pick on Carney.

Carney is just in my sights for the moment because of what I am covering.

It’s been bad since Harper, and it’s the provincial leaders too.

And for the critics who dismiss journalists asking for access as whining when we pushback —this is not about us. It’s about you. It’s about public accountability.

Because the questions aren’t mine. They belong to voters. To residents.

To First Nations and mayors and youth and Elders and union workers and cowboys and oil workers and fishermen.

To Moms and dads who don’t have all day to write letters or sit on hold hoping someone calls them back—especially if they’re in crisis.

And media-haters - the day will come when the story needing an answer is yours.

My job is to chase those answers down. And when the government goes silent, it isn’t just inconvenient—it disrupts the entire balance of how democracy is supposed to work.

Dragging and dropping democracy

Every government spins.

If you only knew how bad it’s gotten, though.

How many times the statements you read in the news are communications-approved word salad cut and pasted into an email — probably without the minister ever seeing them —you’d be shocked.

Often they include a line asking you to attribute the quote to a spokesperson, or to the minister’s press secretary.

And weirdly, some of us are giving into that game.

I know a prominent Hill reporter who —- up until bad things happened across the border—-spent most of his time state-side, reporting almost entirely by hitting Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and serving leftovers from the last press release.

Now, some people will say: what’s the big deal?

Well, as a journalist I get paid the same whether politicians talk to me or not.

So I suppose I could chose to accept my lot as a stenographer for whoever is in power and not be too personally impacted.

But it affects how you get news.

And I care about that.

So yes, politicians have always spun it. But not like recent years.

When a question goes into a minister, the carefully crafted answer sometimes floats around three to four departments being cross-checked and perfected for a week.

And that careful crafting is not for accuracy. But to deflect.

Pull back the curtain, and there is no wizard. It’s just the message machine.
Democracy is more heavily scripted than ever. Comms is performance art.

About those Politicians who want your votes, but not your questions.

Putting the public interest aside for a moment —avoiding the press is just not smart politics.

The window to the public matters when they're trying to get elected—but it matters just as much to stay elected.

Lesson learned: the somewhat humbled Pierre Poilievre, no longer has handlers cutting off reporters’ mics as he tries to get voters in his new riding to know him.

But it’s probably only temporary.

When I first worked the Hill 20 years ago, you could get a 20 minute sit down with a minister and they actually tried to explain policies to the public.

I swear - that used to happen.

There’s a route out of the cabinet chamber that lets them bypass the press entirely. And increasingly, they take it.

When government is silent, critics fill the space.

When Parliament finally resumed—for a brief six-to-eight-week window—there were only two major bills on the floor. One was the Border Security Act, which frankly hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention, including from me. The other was Bill C-5, the so-called One Canadian Economy Act.

I’ve been writing about C-5 like a madwoman—not because I picked it, but because of the alarm bells sounded by members of the public—many of whom appear to have voted Liberal.

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And here’s the truth: it’s easy for reporters like me to get caught in a one-directional cycle. Here’s how that happens.

People who are upset, worried, or alarmed will take the time to reach out. They send email after email. Press release after press release. They show up on the Hill. They protest. They hold press conferences. They speak—often and urgently.

For C-5, it’s been mostly Chiefs. Climate activists. Unions. Democracy watchdogs. People who track how governments change the rules when they want to speed things up. They’ve had a lot to say.

(That doesn’t mean I’m blindly repeating what critics say. I’ve listened carefully to the concerns raised about C-5. I think many of them are valid. Some may be overstated. Others have some weight).

The other side? Government? Not so much.

Right now all communications about the Bill are being routed through PCO, so if media writes any other minister, that is where they will refer you.

And the thing is it is not even smart.

Governments complain they don’t get a fair shot in the press, victims of their own architecture.

If elected officials want balanced reporting, they have to give more than soundbites, actually answer questions the public is concerned about.

I remember when I was a kid, my mother sitting on the couch watching the 11 o’clock news. She would scream at the television when a politician side-stepped a question from a reporter.

I wonder why more people aren’t like that.