Your Bias is Showing

In an online editorial written today by CTV's Power Play host Don Martin, he argues that the Prime Minister needs to employ as much security forces as he can wield in order to protect himself and the standing of the Prime Ministerial office. This editorial penned by Martin is a rebuttal to a story first featured in The Globe and Mail about an incident where a canoeist was "frisked by police" after paddling too close to the Prime Minister and his barbeque.

Martin argues that in any circumstance, just like a canoeist with a lifejacket on paddling on the Credit River, the police has a duty to abruptly and harshly interrupt citizens if they even get within earshot of Stephen Harper. Granted, I'm not advocating that police don't exercise some protective measures. It's only logical to equip the Head of Government with security. But, to frisk a canoeist who -- most likely -- mistakenly  portaged too close to the PM in the middle of his barbeque? Obviously, that's a little too much.

Martin then goes on to say that the tone of the article in The Globe and Mail denotes that it was a "police over-reaction" and something that overreached the gravity of the circumstance. If you read the original article, I think it does an adequate job of representing what actually occurred using mostly quotes from the canoeist itself. It balances out the harshness of the search procedure with the light jokes the police were making about the canoeist's shorts and mentioned that the police returned the knife the canoeist was carrying and told him to select another route. That's all that happened. The article was not a deep exposé into the atrocities of police brutality. Or, a writhing, scathing manifesto as to how the Harper government oversteps its boundaries and infringes on the rights of citizens.  In fact, if you're looking for that, then you should continue reading the rest of Martin's editorial.

How Martin sets up the overreactions made by Harper is pretty astounding. He's indeed very casual and dismissive, as if the slight altercations aren't worthy of noting. This is straight from Martin's piece:

His prime ministerial convoys seem to fluctuate in length depending on the circumstances -- three vehicles when he’s driving home for dinner, nine or more when he’s rushing around town in tandem with a visiting world leader.

And it’s true the $20-million-per-year tab for Harper’s protection detail has doubled since he became prime minister for a variety of reasons, particularly his busy travel agenda.

But, hey! He is, after all, Prime Minister. According to the Toronto Sun, protecting Harper costs exactly $47 M, "almost 70 times the price tag for protecting his entire cabinet and other VIPs." Contrast that with the previous Prime Minster, Paul Martin, whose security costs peaked at around $700,000. Now, that's a very big leap.

The editorial on CTVNews claims that more security measures are justified because "Canada has more enemies on the world stage than during the pre-911." That, I'm afraid, is undoubtedly true. It seems that we're losing more of our influence on the world stage and have culminated a sense of irrationality that has prompted other countries to feel alienated from Canada. An international poll done in 2010 suggested that only 67% of Americans, 54% of Chinese, and 62% of Brits consider Canada's influence as positive -- a staggering decline from the same poll conducted in 2008. So, what could be triggering this wave of unpopularity?

Well, our record on climate change, for one. In fact, that's a big one, since it was set amid the world stage at the Copenhagen Conference in 2010. And, our declining foreign aid spending -- which was recently slashed in the 2012 Budget.

The article is concluded with Martin saying that in our world composed of good guys and bad guys who want to take out our precious leaders, we need to reduce our security risks and frisk a few canoeists and cyclists now and then.  An egregious statement if I ever saw one.
What Martin executed in his editorial piece here was not reporting or opining at the professional level. It was simply pandering and spreading Conservative bias onto the masses.