2015: A Media Odyssey

The Harper government has opened an entirely new campaign wrinkle, the reaction to the tactic simply irresponsible. For the third time now, Harper has made a campaign pledge that has no relevance to reality, some bizarre future commitment, contingent on a host of yet unforeseen developments, a complete and utter illogical proposition. The commitments are attractive, but the now reoccurring thread demands a reassessment of what exactly is fair game commentary in THIS election.

The Conservatives are free to discuss whatever they wish, quite different however when the media parrots the chosen theme of the day, only adding the context with subsequent commentary, more muted and secondary. It begs a question whether the media is obligated to report on everything, can they not- as they do with investigative pieces- decide what is relevant or not, use their own standards, to decipher worth of coverage? It seems the drill goes as follows, said entity decides the messaging for the day, the media report that messaging, then only in after the fact fashion is there any analysis of worth. To my mind, the battle is already lost, when you report everything, because the intent is to merely get it out there, that's part of the partisan strategy.

We are having an election in 2011. We are having an election, wherein Canada faces a herculean deficit. Within the Conservative fiscal framework, massive questions abound about their fiscal plan, their costing of certain expenditures, it all remains rather unclear. Add in the inherent fallacy of trying to accurately predict the future state of affairs, less reliable the further out you forecast, and this 2015 timeline becomes that much more dubious. The Conservative projections are questionable, then the added factor of future uncertainty, these 2015 goodies simply don't pass the 2011 smell test. In other words, the Conservatives are trying to game the system, and unfortunately they found a willing partner, one that thinks a bit of questioning after the fact amounts to journalism.

As I read Harper's fixed election law, we will have another election in 2015, it can occur NO later, that seems an objective truth. That translates to an almost surreal situation, wherein there is no possiblility of implementation, by the Conservatives own logic, PRIOR to another campaign. The Liberal platform ends in 2014, it's as though we are fighting two elections concurrently, one that deals with the realities as we know them, the other a concoction of possibilities. I'm sure all parties will offer new goodies once the deficit is tackled, what pray tell does that have to do with this election? And yet, TFSA is today's buzzword, one of the leads on all the telecasts.

We partisans quibble about this and that, in terms of coverage, but that reality shouldn't distract anyone from the sheer ridiculousness of giving utter fiction a hearing. Any sense of fairnes, let the Conservatives put out what they want, but actually reporting, not sure how that of any benefit to the public. Every time I hear the word TFSA mentioned in a broadcast, I'm going to say GOTCHA! This just might be the most absurd election any advanced democracy has been subjected to. Harper actually called it "a major step forward" as if reality, and people report it as though it will come to pass. It would be funny, if it just weren't so flipping sad.