By Gudrun Schultz
OTTAWA, Canada, May 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada’s national media operates under a strong anti-Conservative bias, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday.
“Unfortunately the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government,” Mr. Harper told A-Channel TV in London, Ontario. “They don’t ask questions at my press conferences now.”
In response, PM Harper said, his Conservative government will focus on communicating with local media outlets.
“We’ll just take the message out on the road. There’s lots of media who do want to ask questions and hear what the government is doing for Canadians, or to Canadians. So we’ll get our message out however we can.”
Former BC Conservative MP John Reynolds told the Canadian Press he thinks that is a “wonderful idea.”
“The prime minister’s message, if you listen just to the national media, and listen to the NDP and the Liberals whining about things, you would think things were terrible.”
“But the prime minister is 48 per cent in the polls in B.C…He is in majority territory. What he is doing is right. I’m happy he is getting out.”
PM Harper has been criticized for his infrequent media appearances during the past months. The simmering hostilities between the Harper government and the media came to a head on Tuesday, when about two dozen journalists walked out of an Ottawa press conference in protest of a new rule brought in by the prime minister’s office. Under the new policy, the PMO will decide which journalists ask questions at news conferences.
“I have trouble believing that a Liberal prime minister would have this problem,” Mr. Harper said yesterday. “But the press gallery at the leadership level has taken an anti-Conservative view.”