On any given day at Queen’s Park, there can be a plethora of news conferences, as those with something to announce try to gain the attention of the legislative press gallery.
There’s a standard choreography to these events. Someone (often a government cabinet minister) marches into the media studio on the main floor of the Ontario legislature and takes their position behind the podium. There’s often an awkward 30 seconds or so while they wait for all the camera crews to start rolling, and then, away we go: the announcement is made, an opportunity for the reporters to ask questions is offered, and the back-and-forth thrust-and-parry begins.
Candidly, most of these news conferences are quick and dirty affairs. Reporters want their “clips” from the politicians, who want to get in and out of there after having successfully delivered their message. Most of these events are memorable only long enough to be mentioned on that evening’s news broadcasts or websites.
But one news conference earlier this week was not like that at all. It was utterly memorable because it was sort of a disaster.
The Progressive Conservative government thought it had a good news announcement to make: the minister of colleges and universities took to the podium to announce a “historic $1.3 billion investment” in Ontario’s post-secondary sector. And not only that — the tuition freeze the government had imposed five years ago would continue for another three years. The government seemed so keen to make this announcement, they actually started the news conference two minutes early. That never happens. (In fact, Premier Doug Ford’s news conferences almost never start on time and regularly begin 15 to 20 minutes late.)
Let me say for the record that I know the minister, Jill Dunlop — not well, but well enough to know she seems like a good person who is in public life for the right reasons. Like many others in this legislature (Ford, Caroline Mulroney, Laurie Scott, Brian Saunderson, John Yakabuski, Mike Harris, Jr.), she’s a second-generation politician. Her father, Garfield Dunlop, represented the same part of central Ontario from 1999 to 2015 that his daughter now does. The younger Dunlop won election in Simcoe North in 2018.
But Dunlop looked like she was in trouble at this week’s news conference almost from the moment she finished her prepared remarks, which she read from a teleprompter. She delivered her remarks well enough, smiling broadly to convey what good news she was there to deliver. The first reporter’s question came in, and Dunlop began her response with, “Thank you for that question.” After she completed her answer, a reporter said (not so sotto voce), “You didn’t answer the question.” Because she didn’t.
It got worse.
Someone else asked another question. Again, the minister began with, “Thank you for that question.” In fact, she might have repeated that at the beginning of her answers more than a dozen times. No normal person in conversation does that, so it seems pretty likely that someone coached her to do so.
Dunlop went on to ignore the questions and simply parroted talking points, no doubt ones given to her by her staff or some other communications whizzes — because nowadays, that’s what politicians are trained to do: ignore the questions and then say what you want to say, over and over and over again.
The theory behind that is, in their nightly news report, journalists will use only 20 seconds of what you’ve said anyway. Newspaper people will use just one or two quotes. So if you give them only one soundbite, that’s what they’ll have to use.
But reporters got increasingly frustrated by the fact that the minister was so blatantly ignoring their quite reasonable questions. Here are few by way of example:
- Yes, $1.3 billion is a lot of money. But your own blue-ribbon expert panel said a $2.5 billion injection was necessary. Haven’t you really only done half the job here?
- Yes, you’re complaining that the federal government dramatically cut back on visas for foreign students, thereby depriving the system of $1.8 billion it desperately needs. But was it your original underfunding that forced post-secondary institutions into an overreliance on foreign students to begin with?
- Yes, you’ve had a tuition freeze in place for almost five years and plan to continue it for another three. Did you consider lifting it as another way to get more revenues to post-secondary institutions?
In every instance, Dunlop answered with unresponsive talking points. After half an hour, the back-and-forth became so prickly, she simply thanked everyone for coming and hustled off the platform to the exit.
After the news conference ended, I asked Dunlop’s office whether the minister could appear on The Agenda next Monday for a one-on-one interview to discuss the announcement. They confirmed she could, and we nailed down a time. Frankly, I thought the minister would perform much better in a calmer studio than she did with an increasingly (and understandably) hostile press gallery.
But then, the next day, someone from the minister’s office called back to say, sorry, there’s been a scheduling change, and the minister is no longer available. Could we find a new time? No, not possible. “But she looks forward to having a chance to talk to you down the road,” the assistant said.
I’m sure.
There were so many things wrong with Dunlop’s news conference, but I suspect most of them had little to do with her. Politics has become such a phony business: government members constantly trumpet achievements, while opposition members constantly feign outrage that authenticity — normally, the coin of the realm — is in increasingly short supply. Some days, it’s non-existent.
What we saw earlier this week was a well-intentioned politician who’d been overly media trained to the point of absurdity. The result was a mess. But unless you watched the news conference live — or read this column — you’d likely never know.
Alas, the backroom spinners win again.
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