I'm not convinced. Lisa Raitt in Halton is one example. I'd say that a decent percentage of the time there is some uproar when a candidate is appointed. It usually happens when the riding association's pick was pushed aside for someone who is less palatable to the locals.
Experience is subjective, but I can remember a time when parachuting a candidate in was something of an electoral death sentence for that candidate.
What's new is the degree. This government has taken centralization and messaging far beyond anything we've seen in this country. We've never seen cabinet ministers muzzled as the rule rather than the exception. And we've never seen anything like the subversion of the press that Harper has been attempting to limited success these past two years. It's a bit of a running joke that even those in the know have to check who the minister is because they do not speak for their departments. I think the average Canadian would be hard pressed to identify more than one minister and his/her area of responsibility (Flaherty is the only one I'd expect Canadians to know of).
Quite possibly, but at the same time we've never had more media outlets so incapable and so neutered. Ministers have always taken a portion of their messaging from their departments (relating to the content rather than the political slant, if you will).
If the press is "subverted," it is largely a result of it's own doing. In reality, there really never has been a "fair and balanced" point of view emanating from that body. This is something that we have taught by way of repetition. As a voter (as a
citizen, for that matter) we all have to be aware enough to analyze what the government messaging is, but we also have to recognize that the media is a business with its own interests - and not ours. They are going to have a "perspective" as well
We have a mass media that tends to focus on the innocuous or explosive because it makes for sound bites with which to grab the attention of an audience. Sound bites or other selective quotations/images are used because there is a belief by many in the media that the audience is either too superficial or too stupid to understand anything more complex. That produces media practitioners who believe that sound reporting is the delivery of explosive sound bite or image that fits into the medium through which it is to be communicated. Governments or political parties, in turn, respond to this by trying to control the message as much as possible, crafting it to suit their needs and to maximize its effective transmission through whatever medium.
I recognize that this is a bit of a generalization, but there is some truth to it. The Conservatives are merely trying to control their message as much as possible. If Ritz cracks a joke - however off colour - that becomes an aspect of the election. But it really has nothing to do with the election, the party or agricultural policy. Does this help voters? No. Is this a sound way to conduct an election? No. But for the moment, this is what we have.
Harper for the first part of his tenure refused to allow the press to control questioning at press events as was traditional, presumably to use the threat of not allowing questions to keep reporters from making negative statements.
I don't think there is anything wrong by a political leader trying to control their message. It does nothing to stop an effective reporter from looking elsewhere for answers, or raising questions about what that leader is doing. Reporters are not muzzled; they can make statements all they want - informed or otherwise.
I'm just incredibly uncomfortable with this level of secrecy, unaccountability and spin to be the SOP for government on a day-by-day basis. I wonder how long it will take for Canadians to reject this behaviour.
Are you talking about this election? I would hardly call the Conservatives secretive. I'd say they are uncommunicative. As for Canadians at large, who knows. When their intermediate is the mass media with its own interests, it's hard to know how people are engaging in this election (made all the worse in that it really isn't about anything in particular other than the government having wanted an election).
Add to that tactics such as responses to access to information requests being fulfilled by 90% redacted documents, terminating the registry of such requests, firing any government officials making unapproved statements, etc.
The access to information restrictions are stupid. They stink. Period. As for government officials (PS) making unapproved statements, tough luck for them. Rules are made quite clear when one joins the PS.
Typed really fast, pardon the typos.