{"id":88649,"date":"2024-04-25T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=88649"},"modified":"2024-04-24T19:01:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T23:01:00","slug":"good-lord-is-chrystia-freeland-ever-terrible-at-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/04\/25\/good-lord-is-chrystia-freeland-ever-terrible-at-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"“… good Lord, is [Chrystia Freeland] ever terrible at politics”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Line<\/em>, Matt Gurney<\/a> recounts Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s terrible response to a topical question from a reporter:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>


Screencap from a CPAC video of Chrystia Freeland speaking in October, 2022.<\/p><\/div>\n

In fairness, noting that Freeland, she of the infamous Disney+ flop, is bad at politics is not an original observation. I confess that. But, still. Yikes! What the hell was that<\/em>?!<\/p>\n

I’m referring to Monday’s unfortunate gaffe. Freeland was in Montreal doing post-budget stuff with the small business minister, and after touring a business, took questions from reporters. Sarah Leavitt from the CBC asked a question related to a particularly vile eruption of overt antisemitism<\/a> at a protest in Ottawa last weekend. A man leading the crowd in chants said “Our resistance attacks are proof that we are almost free … Oct. 7 is proof that we are almost free. Long live Oct. 7, long live the resistance, long live the intifada, long live every form of resistance.”<\/p>\n

Oct. 7, of course, means the Hamas rape-and-murder pogrom<\/a> of Oct. 7.<\/p>\n

By the time Leavitt quizzed Freeland, the comments in Ottawa had already been widely disseminated and, critically, condemned. Among the condemners: Freeland’s boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau<\/a>. He’d commented via Twitter a day before Freeland faced Leavitt’s question. This ought to have been an extremely easy exchange for Freeland.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, though, not so much, actually. <\/p>\n

In the interests of transparency, let’s simply see in full both what Leavitt asked, and how Freeland replied.<\/p>\n

The question was clear enough: “Over the weekend, protesters in Ottawa were heard chanting, among other things, ‘Long live October 7’ and ‘October 7 is proof that we are almost free’. Is this hate speech?”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Let’s walk through her answer, putting her reply into the discrete points she’s been trained to hit.<\/p>\n

Phase One: Ass covering<\/strong>. “I wasn’t in Ottawa over the weekend. And I’m not aware of those specific reports. And so it would be just wrong of me to comment on something that I am not specifically aware of.”<\/p>\n

Phase Two: Banal statement that favours no group in particular but mentions the key stakeholders<\/strong>. “What I will say is, today is a time in Canada, when antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. When we have a lot … there are a lot of Canadians who are not feeling safe. In my own riding of University-Rosedale, the JCC, a really important centre for Jewish Canadians but also for all Canadians, has faced a lot of pressure. And I’ve been there to meet with people there. There’s also a mosque in my riding that faced pressure and attacks and I’ve met with the leaders there.”<\/p>\n

Phase Three: Attempt to sound like you’re engaging with the actual question, even though you are not<\/strong>. “Hate speech is absolutely not acceptable. Glorifying … I mean, I can’t even say the word because it’s … you shouldn’t. It’s too terrible. And what happened on October 7 was a heinous terrorist attack. People were killed. People were raped. Women, men, children … totally unprovoked attack on civilians. That is not acceptable.”<\/p>\n

Phase Four: Pivot back to approved talking points<\/strong>. “Canada recognizes Hamas as a terrorist entity and our government is very, very clear on that. We have also been really clear that there needs to be a ceasefire, that a humanitarian catastrophe is happening right now in Gaza, and Canada and Canadians are there to support the people, the suffering people, there, too.”<\/p>\n

This is how the PM answers questions, too. It’s a pattern that, once seen, will never been unseen. The problem for Freeland is that the PM is better at it. He’s smoother and quicker on his feet. His evasive non-answers sound more natural, but have begun to get old in recent years, as foreign journalists are generally better at pointing out than Canadian ones<\/a>. Freeland has never been comfortable doing talking-point politics, and has always sounded extremely unconvincing when she tries. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Line, Matt Gurney recounts Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s terrible response to a topical question from a reporter: In fairness, noting that Freeland, she of the infamous Disney+ flop, is bad at politics is not an original observation. I confess that. But, still. Yikes! What the hell was that?! I’m referring to Monday’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[304,416,1424,325,522,593,101],"class_list":["post-88649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-antisemitism","tag-cbc","tag-chrystiafreeland","tag-montreal","tag-ottawa","tag-socialmedia","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-n3P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88651,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88649\/revisions\/88651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}