Juno News - October 11, 2018Canadian media shocked it isn't getting exclusives with Stephen Harper？ Seriously？
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Summary
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on a book tour promoting his new memoir, Right Here, Right Now. But Canadian reporters are upset that they are not getting the exclusives. Have these reporters forgotten the way they treated Stephen Harper as Prime Minister in the 2015 election?
Transcript
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Oh how soon they forget. It's amazing how bad the memories actually are when it
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comes to Canada's political class of reporters, but we're seeing evidence of
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it right now. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on a book tour
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promoting his book Right Here Right Now, a book that by all accounts is an
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absolutely incredible testament to the populist trends that we're seeing
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around the world. It's not a memoir, it's actually a pretty good piece of
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political analysis. But Canadian reporters are upset that they're not
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getting the exclusives. From CTV's Don Martin to CBC's Rosie Barton, a number of
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Canadian reporters are complaining that Stephen Harper is spending more time
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doing interviews on Fox and Newsmax and with American outlets than he is with
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Canadian reporters. Now have these reporters forgotten the way they treated
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Stephen Harper as Prime Minister in the 2015 election? These were same reporters
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that called him racist, that campaigned against him, that tried to make sure he
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could never actually put forward any of the ideas and policies in his own terms
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because they would torque them and now they're upset that they're not getting an
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early access to the former Prime Minister when he's putting a book forward that
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actually has global interest, not just to Canadians. Now this shows a profound
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arrogance and entitlement from Canadian political media. Now it's not to say we
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should be surprised by this, but I do think it's appropriate to take a step back and
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kind of chuckle and maybe even enjoy a little bit. What is that term, schadenfreude?
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Enjoying the suffering of these people that are now wondering why they're left
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out when they were the ones that ultimately were very pleased to have
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contributed to Stephen Harper's electoral defeat. Now I haven't read the book yet.
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I'd happily interview Stephen Harper as I did a couple of times when he was the
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Prime Minister and then when he was running for re-election. But my goodness if I
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was hell-bent on destroying his political career, you better believe I wouldn't
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expect to get an exclusive. For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lawton.