Mr. Simpson knows, or should know, that every study of journalists in Canada – and the U.S., too – shows that an overwhelming preponderance of practitioners of the craft classify themselves as “liberal” or worse. But he ignores that reality. Instead, he writes that entire media operations, such as AM Radio, Maclean’s and the National Post, are exclusively conservative, apparently unaware that they all offer mixed opinions and editorial content.
And just what constitutes a conservative newspaper? Certainly there is no shortage of fiscal conservatism, but few outlets – and that includes the Sun newspapers – give any time or space to social conservatives except, of course, to mock them.
Claire Hoy, Toronto
A well-oiled machine
While C.E.S. Franks rightly calls for changes to prohibit the new practice of the federal cabinet, including measures in budget bills that are unrelated to spending, his claims that Parliament has changed fundamentally in other ways are misleading (Omnibus Bills Subvert Canada’s Legislative Process – July 14).
It is true that each year the House of Commons was open fewer days and fewer bills were passed under the Harper minority Conservative governments since 2004 (and during the Liberals’ majority and minority governments from 1999-2004), than during the Liberals’ minority and majority governments from 1963 to 1973. However, these things have not been caused by Parliament changing, as Prof. Franks claims.
Instead, they stem from Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper both unjustifiably shutting down Parliament for several weeks (which is why the PM’s power to do this must also be restricted as soon as possible), and more election campaign periods than usual (four in the past 10 years), because these prime ministers both called snap elections. This is why federal election dates need to be clearly fixed every four years.
As well, there is greater disagreement on issues among political parties now than in the past decade.
Duff Conacher, co-ordinator, Democracy Watch, Ottawa
BP’s murky waters
Re BP Lobbied U.K. In Prisoner Transfer Case That Saw Release Of Lockerbie Bomber (July 15): Who says oil doesn’t rule the world?
Douglas Cornish, Ottawa
