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By cancelling post-debate media questions, party leaders are left off the hook
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By Terry Newman
Published Apr 18, 2025
Last updated 9hours ago
5 minute read
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Shortly after 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, before the English Leaders Debate in Montreal ended, word began to spread on X that the media scrum that was to immediately follow the debate was cancelled. The reason given to reporters by the Leaders’ Debate Commission’s Executive Director Michel Cormier: “We don’t feel that we can actually guarantee a proper environment for this activity.” This did not please members of the press. One could be heard shouting out: “Why? This is an infringement of the liberty of the press. This is your one job!”
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While it’s not the commission’s job officially (it’s not mentioned in their mandate), post-leadership debate scrums — a gathering of journalists around a politician to ask questions and obtain quotes — are a standard practice. And it’s suggested under the media accreditation section of their site that they will occur, and a scrum did occur the night before, after the French leadership debate, as well as after both the English and French debates in 2019 and 2021.
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If, as the commission points out, debates are important for reasons of public interest, then so, too, are scrums. They’re an opportunity for reporters to ask questions which may not have been asked, or sufficiently answered, during the debate. Hearing these answers can help Canadians decide how to vote. This scrum was especially important, given that it’s been particularly difficult this election campaign to get answers from Liberal Leader Mark Carney who’s paused his campaign a number of times, leading to both Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves François Blanchet to accuse him of hiding. You cannot hide during a scrum.
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I don’t think anyone really believes that the scrums were cancelled because the commission was unable to secure a “proper environment.” They had 24 hours to do so after a chaotic scrum the night before. What changed? Why did we only find out after 8 p.m. ET that the scrums were not going to occur? Cormier, unfortunately, did not explain.
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Global News’ Mercedes Stephenson tweeted that “a source with direct knowledge says the Debates Commission’s decision to cancel the scrums re ‘not being able to guarantee a proper environment’ was related to The Rebel… including Rebel staff trying to interrupt/get on the air during a CBC broadcast that was live earlier tonight.” No video evidence has been provided and the source of this claim has not been verified by National Post.
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There’s a good chance the Leaders’ Debate Commission cancelled the scrums because after the French debate the night before they received backlash from traditional journalists and outlets for the decision to accredit several alternative media journalists and really had no way to suddenly disallow them from participating the second night during the English debate.
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The uproar from traditional journalists was over the fact that media outlets were limited to one journalist each at post-debate scrums, with the exception of Rebel News which secured five spots for reporters. According to Toronto Star, this decision to allow five Rebel News journalists was likely the result of Rebel News owner Ezra Levant threatening a lawsuit.
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The commission has gotten itself into hot water previously for limiting accreditations to alternative media organizations.
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According to a 2019 report from the commission, it turned down four organizations after having “concluded they were involved in political activism.” The decision was challenged by two of the organizations, Rebel News and True North, in Federal Court, which “ruled on an interim basis that, among other things, the Commission did not follow the rules of procedural fairness in respect of its denial of accreditation and ordered the accreditation of the two organizations. They obtained an injunction requiring the Commission to allow them to cover the debates and press availabilities of the leaders immediately following the debates.”
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In 2021, the commission tried attaching guidelines to accreditation from the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) for those reporters whose outlets were not automatically given accreditation to the debates because they were not part of either the Canadian Association of Journalists, the News Media Council, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, the Québec Federation of Journalists and the Québec Press Council.
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To assess whether or not they could be considered professional journalists, the commission decided they would need to review the work of alternative media reporters to determine whether it was free of what the commission deemed conflicts of interest. According to the commission in 2021, a conflict of interest occurred:
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“When an organization: becomes an actor in the stories it tells, including providing and applying financial and legal assistance to some of its sources to work toward a desired outcome or offering free legal services, crowdfunds to help some individuals in stories hire lawyers, purchases political advertising and launches petitions;
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Or, when a reporter: writes opinion pieces about subjects they also cover as journalists, endorses political candidates or causes, takes part in demonstrations, signs petitions, does public relations work, fundraises and makes financial contributions.”
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Based on this criteria, the commission rejected Rebel News’ application to participate in the scrums again in 2021. After Rebel again took the commission to Federal Court, it won an injunction allowing it to cover the debates despite not meeting the commission’s guidelines.
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This left the commission in what they referred to as a “dilemma.” They could continue to try using discretion when granting media accreditation which could be overturned by the courts or approve all accreditation requests regardless of professional qualifications.
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Coming at the alternative media outlets in 2019 with the charge of being politically-activist probably wasn’t a good idea. The claim could be made that all outlets are to some extent. It’s also not clear how the CAJ guidelines disqualify these alternative media sites. Because of this, it is likely the Federal Court will continually weigh in favour of the right for these outlets to ask questions at key debates, whether people like them or their questions or not.
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After realizing they perhaps should not have invited that many non-traditional reporters and receiving blowback from other journalists that these outlets were even there in the first place, it seems the commission simply gave up and decided to cancel the English debate scrums to avoid any further blowback.
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Sadly, as a result of the commission’s decision, Canadians did not get to hear the candidates answer reporters questions from traditional or alternative media. And we are worse off for it.
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tnewman@postmedia.com
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