Amid falling support, should Harper Tories change tactics?
Posted January 8, 2014 8:05 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MILL BAY (NEWS1130) – Prime Minister Stephen Harper has wrapped up his tour of the West Coast managing, once again, to keep the public and the media at arms-length. The PM took no questions from reporters.
“That’s not unusual for the prime minister,” says Omni political reporter Kim Emerson. “Their idea is ‘control the media, control the message’ and their way of controlling the media is only talking to them when they want to talk to them — only when they have a message to get out — otherwise do not engage the media whatsoever.”
Emerson says the media does not have the collective ability to refuse to cover the prime minister.
“We can’t say ‘You know what, Mr. Harper? Screw you, we’re not covering you at all.’ It would be nice to get to that point but there too many outlets and there are always one or two who would go to these events regardless,” he tells News1130.
“On the other hand, the prime minster’s office can certainly ignore the media and they’ve used that to their benefit for a long time. It has worked extremely well for them.”
But that may be changing as the Conservatives drop lower in the polls and the public becomes more savvy to the PMO’s tactics.
“The Conservatives have been the frontrunner for quite a long time and a lot of people in this country are apathetic towards politics — when they see a frontrunner, they don’t necessarily get engaged. But now that they’re seeing Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are in second or third place, depending on the polls you look at, and they’re seeing there’s an alternative there, that’s when people start to pay a little more attention.”
Emerson says the Conservatives have to start to pay attention, too.
“You will likely see, before too terribly long, a shift — see Harper engage with the public a little more. That can only be a good thing for Canadians to have more information.”
