National
“No public events scheduled”

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The PM is on a national campaign tour. He lies about it every day.
Here’s Justin Trudeau at the Saldenah Mas Camp in Toronto on July 18. Volunteers spend months making costumes every year for the Toronto Caribbean Festival. It’s a fantastic tradition. My father, who lived in Barbados for a while, used to drive us up from Sarnia every year for the parade.
The prime minister’s public itinerary, which is emailed daily to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and posted on his website, said that on July 18 he’d be in Ottawa for the Change of Command ceremony. It acknowledged no other public event.
The itinerary usually goes out around 7 p.m. each night and lists the PM’s public activities for the next day. Then on the morning of the day, we get an itinerary that either repeats the night-before email, or modifies it. On July 15 the night-before itinerary said the prime minister would be in “Southwestern Ontario” and would have “no public events scheduled” the next day, July 16.
Here’s where it gets a little weird. I never received an itinerary for July 16 that said anything else. The itinerary that went out on the morning of July 16, like the night-before email on the 15th, said “no public events scheduled.” But on the PM’s website, the itinerary that’s there now lists a meeting with Kitchener mayor Barry Vrbanovic.
Later that day, Trudeau was in Scarborough at Junior Carnival. “You could just feel the energy in the air!”, the PM tweeted.
The first I learned of the PM’s meeting with Kitchener mayor Vrbanovic was when reporters received a pool report from a CP reporter, a couple of hours after the meeting ended.
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Pool reports have been used in many countries for many years. If there’s not room for every reporter or photographer who might want to attend, a smaller number are designated, on the understanding that they’ll share their observations and images with everyone who couldn’t go. It’s not great, because typically the pool reporter is not permitted to ask questions.
Sometimes journalists vote to determine who among them will be the pool. Sometimes it’s a Canadian Press reporter, by tradition and convention. In all recent cases with Trudeau, it’s been a CP reporter — because no other news organization except CP has been informed of these events.
There’s also a separate broadcast pool, in which all the broadcast networks participate. That way one camera goes to pooled events, and every network gets the images and audio.
The CP reporter’s account of the Vrbanovic meeting said Vrbanovic “thanked Trudeau for his government’s programs that provide funding to municipalities.” Trudeau “said he will discuss issues that matter to the region including housing and climate change with Vrbanovic.” At this point, “The pool reporter was then asked to leave the room.” I’ll bet she was.
So here’s what I’m here to write about today. This has become standard operating procedure for Justin Trudeau and his staff during the difficult summer of 2024: they claim in public every day that the the PM has “no public events scheduled.” Even though he is in a different city every day. And he has public events scheduled. In fact, he is in the city in question so he can attend the public events he claims aren’t on his schedule.
And a small number of journalists are told, every day, “for information purposes only” — i.e., on the condition that they not tell other journalists or the public — about the public events the PM has scheduled but is lying about.
On Monday Trudeau’s itinerary said he was in “Northern Alberta” and had “no public events scheduled.” Later on Monday he was in Hinton, AB to “get a briefing on the status of the Jasper wildfire, as well as meet with the province’s premier and evacuees who fled the blaze.” I know this because it was in the CP report. “Trudeau did not speak with reporters while he was in Hinton,” the story adds.
I wrote about this on Notes, Substack’s fun short-form social-media platform. A reader responded (and here I paraphrase) that, well, maybe the PM wanted to do serious business in a crisis situation without having to dodge snarky questions from rude reporters. And, you know what? Fair enough.
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But here’s the thing. I’ve covered a lot of political leaders in emergency settings. It’s perfectly routine for the advisory to say what a leader will do today, but to say a given event is “Closed to Media.” Or for reporters to be sequestered in a room, well away from the meeting between PM and premier, with time for questions only after the meeting ends.
What’s rarer — what I’d never actually seen before — is for a PM to fly to Alberta, for his staff to say he’s going to be in Alberta, but for them to claim he won’t be doing anything while he’s there.
Incidentally, the version of the PM’s itinerary for Monday that’s on his website now says he had a meeting with Danielle Smith and with emergency responders. This version was never sent to reporters, either before or after the meeting. Absurdly, the itinerary has also been corrected to put Hinton in “Central Alberta” instead of “Northern Alberta.”
A colleague at a large news organization who’s vocationally preoccupied with following politicians’ schedules tells me this has happened “multiple times” in recent weeks: the itinerary on the website gets updated after the fact, in ways that do not reflect what reporters were told in real time. This is the smallest possible routine coverup, for the smallest possible benefit, that I have ever seen.
Pretty soon, news organizations are going to have to start explaining why Justin Trudeau’s summer schedule is so surprising to us.
Here’s Justin Trudeau making a “surprise appearance” at Vancouver Pride on Sunday. Here’s the PM making a “surprise appearance” at Winnipeg’s Filipino Folklorama pavilion on Monday. I’m here to tell you, reporters were not informed of either event — except the ones who were given a quiet heads-up so there’d be cameras on hand. Although how can you be expected to believe me? The PM’s gaslighting website says he “will attend” Pride on Sunday. At least they haven’t rigged the Monday advisory so it retroactively lies about having told us he’d be at the Winnipeg event.
I suspect today’s post will create some buzz, so I want to be careful to say precisely what I mean to say. Politicians are under no obligation to tell anybody how they spend every minute of their day. (It’s worth noting, however, that the public agendas of leaders in other places are sometimes more detailed than in Ottawa: here’s Emmanuel Macron’s and Joe Biden’s agendas for today. The UK’s Keir Starmer seems less forthcoming.) And it’s routine for leaders’ teams to acknowledge calendar events while also emphasizing that the public and journalists can’t attend. What’s an innovation is this business of claiming the PM has nothing “public” on his schedule when he is, in fact, on tour to do public events for which he will seek tightly controlled media and social-media credit.
It’s become entertaining to learn, after the fact, what the hell has been going on. Last week the PM was on vacation in British Columbia. We receive daily itineraries during a vacation, with no public events scheduled, and I don’t begrudge anyone any vacation time. Then he was back in Ottawa for two days, and then he was back in the “Lower Mainland” of BC with “no public events scheduled.” That was Pride, as it turned out. I’m pretty sure that when the big guy was on an airplane for the second time in as many days, he knew why. Eventually so did we.
Since I’ve started making a fuss about this stuff on Notes, I think the PMO is starting to get nervous. Here’s the itinerary we were sent for today, Tuesday, at 7:03 a.m. EDT:
And here’s the updated itinerary we received at 2:33 p.m.
Thanks for the update! Unfortunately, every event in the updated itinerary occurred before the PMO sent it out. When covering your tracks, try not to be so terrible at it. Fortunately the pool report should be landing in my inbox any minute.
I asked Andrea Baillie, the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Press, for an explanation of the national newsgathering cooperative’s role in these activities. She replied:
“It’s long been part of CP’s mandate to be with prime ministers as they carry out their duties. Alongside major broadcasters, we provide ‘pool coverage.’ That means we gather details on what the PM said and did on behalf of all press gallery journalists, at events where there is limited space. Typically, the PMO provides embargoed information (i.e. times and locations) on the PM’s schedule on short notice so we can get there on time. The pool is bound by an agreement to use this information for planning purposes only until the events take place, at which point the CP reporter provides details on what they saw and heard in a note sent to all press gallery journalists.”
I want to be clear that I intend no criticism of CP, which has come in for some cheap shots from Pierre Poilievre and others. Reporters who are told of politicians’ activities ahead of time routinely keep this information to themselves, as I have done for politicians from many parties. Including, come to think of it, while covering elections in other countries. It’s the only way to reconcile coverage of an event with politicians’ preference for planning in secrecy. In particular, readers who are quick to dream up heroic scenarios for reporters to act as their proxy to sabotage politicians’ schemes — You should just refuse to cover it! You should just shout your questions until they’re forced to answer! — are typically less thrilled when reporters try that stuff against the politicians they like better.
But reporters are obviously getting played here. When the prime minister of Canada deploys half-way across the country, with his staff photographer and videographers; and then tells hundreds of journalists he’s got nothing planned for the next day or the day dawning; and smaller numbers of journalists already know that’s not true; and then the PM meets public officials or crowds of voters, speaks on public-policy issues, and sends out his own shop’s versions of those conversations and professionally curated images; and then (I can’t believe I’m writing this part) his staff sneaks into the website to cover their tracks ex post facto — well, this is a lake of bullshit so deep I can’t touch bottom, and at the very least, we should let you know it’s going on.
Now watch the commenters under this post line up, like iron filings in a magnetic field, to reveal their polarity.
People who hope the Liberals will win will be furious at me for nitpicking. THIS MAN IS DOING THE BUSINESS OF THE COUNTRY AND YOU JUST WANT TO TEAR HIM DOWN, they’ll say. YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN BOB FIFE. HE’S SMART TO KEEP YOU AWAY FROM SERIOUS WORK.
The ones who wanted him gone years ago will say, AH-HA. THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS PLOTTING WITH LIBERALS TO HIDE THE SATANIC PM. YOU HOWLED WHEN POILIEVRE DID FAR LESS, BUT NOW YOU’RE PLOTTING! PLOTTING! WITH YOUR LIBERAL PAYMASTERS.
What’s much rarer will be voters who would actively prefer, say, a Liberal government that doesn’t routinely lie about what its PM is doing. Let me tell you, I sure notice every time a supporter of the Liberals who claims to support the Liberals because they like honest reporting and evidence-based policy suddenly complains about the reporting and evidence that make their guy look bad.
As for Poilievre, I’ve written about his media manipulation at length and, I suspect, will again. These attitudes — good coverage good, bad coverage wicked and worth any artifice to avoid — are widespread and party-agnostic. But it’s worth pointing out that Poilievre now routinely sends out advance notice of his rallies, and has lately been setting aside a few minutes for brief sessions with individual reporters after such events. This one with a Sudbury reporter was chippy but informative; this one with The Gazette’s Aaron Derfel caught Poilievre in a relatively introspective mood.
Mostly I’m not surprised when any public figure avoids scrutiny. Journalistic scrutiny is so rare these days, for reasons I’ve written about at length, that nobody should be surprised when it draws an annoyed and defensive reaction from politicians who view any surprise as an attack. Or, indeed, from anybody at all. “Freedom of the press” loses friends quickly in almost any concrete case.
But again, I’ve never seen this before, a Prime Minister of Canada who demands that his staff enable him as he claims to be taking the summer off even as he’s campaigning for re-election. One more irony: If you’re paying half the salary of most Canadian journalists, even while you’re sending emails to them full of lies about your schedule, you’ve made destroying their credibility a very expensive object of government policy.
Finally, what does all this tell us about the year Justin Trudeau’s having?
I’m not Catholic, but I view this extended fibbing campaign as a venial rather than a mortal sin. It’s mostly kind of baffling.
But it has precedent. In his memoir, Trudeau recollects the times he introduced himself as “Jason Tremblay” or as “Justin St-Clair” as a student or a young adult, to avoid being judged before he could make his case. He learned early how much of himself he wanted others to see.
What’s harder to discern is the point of the artifice. Trudeau gave an extended interview to the CBC days before the disastrous Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection. Within days after the returns from St. Paul’s were in, he adopted this duck-and-cover routine. To what end? Does he seriously hope to pick up 15 points of polling deficit by pushing out Instagram photos of parade floats? Does he think he can keep this up for a year until an election?
While we wait to find out, if I were on the PM’s communications staff and I had pre-existing plans to be working somewhere else in a year, this would be an excellent week to resign, because this week you’d get to do it on principle.
I hear the PM will be in St. John’s tomorrow. Tonight we’ll see whether it’s on the itinerary.For the full experience, subscribe to Paul Wells.
2025 Federal Election
Poilievre promises to drop ‘radical political ideologies’ in universities

From LifeSiteNews
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to prioritize funding scientific research over ‘radical political ideologies’ at Canadian universities.
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to scrap government funding of “radical political ideologies” in higher education if elected prime minister.
During an April 2 speech in Toronto, Poilievre told a French reporter that his Conservative government will focus on promoting scientific research rather than furthering radical ideologies in Canadian universities.
“The money we spend on research will go to research, not to promoting political ideologies,” Poilievre said. “We want, for example, our science and technology research to go into technological breakthroughs, inventions, innovations, discoveries, cures for terrible diseases that can improve Canadian lives.”
“That is what Canadians expect their tax dollars to go to, not to spend it on radical political ideologies that are first of all completely out of touch with the values of Canadians, and second of all, have no scientific value to our people,” Poilievre added.
This was the second time Poilievre denounced woke spending at universities, the first time being at a Quebec rally last week.
The policy proposal has seemed to draw the ire of some in academia, with Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) executive director David Robinson stating, “It’s worrying that a leader of a political party in Canada would try to dictate how research funds will be granted.”
“We’ve seen the impact of this political meddling south of the border where the Trump administration has launched a full-scale assault on universities and the scientific community,” he continued. “This kind of American-style culture war has no place in Canada.”
Under U.S. President Donald Trump, public schools and universities were given until the end of February to eliminate their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs or risk losing federal funding.
More than 30 states have introduced legislation that would eliminate DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against woke ideology spearheaded by Republicans such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Conservatives have long criticized DEI and other forms of identity politics for stoking rather than curtailing division. Moreover, many take issue with left-wing ideologies, such as gender ideology, because they contain objective falsehoods such as the denial of biological reality in determining sex.
2025 Federal Election
Will Four More Years Of Liberals Prove The West’s Tipping Point?

The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.
The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.

In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.
You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.
As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French) and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.
As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.

Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.
Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?
Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.
In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common . “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.
Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.
With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.
While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.
None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.

When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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