Coverage Comparison Carney versus Poilievre

A check on Canadian mainstream media -- can you "Spot the Difference?

Is there a media bias against Conservatives by Canada’s mainstream media and the CBC in particular? Here, we look at a number of different issues covered by the media, or not covered, one might say — involving our current ‘Prime Minister’ Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. It will be like one of those “Spot the Difference” games you often see online.

This picture of Mark Carney and his wife Diana, with Jeffery Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell, surfaced on the Internet not long after he declared his candidacy for the Liberal leadership. Now certainly his being photographed with Maxwell, is not an indictment of Carney having any type of relationship with Jeffery Epstein, but it should certainly have piqued the curiosity of the Canadian media, given that Epstein and Maxwell were known partners in a notorious of sex trafficking business and that Maxwell is now serving 20 years in jail for that crime and Carney is running for Prime Minister.

Yet, it didn’t. The only members of what is classified as part of the mainstream media that raised any questions was Brian Lilley, a very seasoned columnist and reporter with Toronto Sun. Other media, the Toronto Star and the CBC in particular, ran cover for Carney, and instead accused the Conservative Party of trying to ‘smear’ him. Reuters and the Canadian Press actually did a ‘fact check’ to say the picture was photo shopped or AI generated, except there is more than one picture.

The pictures in question were taken in 2013, in Oxfordshire, England, at what is considered the very exclusive annual Wilderness Music Festival, which Carney and his wife Diana were in attendance. This was shortly after Carney became the Governor of the Bank of England, hence the media interest in him and the paparazzi photos.

Also known as “Poshstock” the festival features luxury spas, gourmet food, plenty of champagne and heated yurt accommodations for its elite attendees. The event was held on the estate of one Robin Cayzer (3rd Baron of Rotherwick) who happens to be the husband of Diana Carney’s sister, Tania. So if anyone needs another example of just how empty Carney’s claim that he is ‘one of us’ need look no further than this — but that’s another story.

Maxwell, it would seem, is a childhood friend of Tania, who went to school with her, which would account for Maxwell being at the festival. Obviously Tania was still very much a close friend back in 2013, when Maxwell’s close association with Epstein* would have been well known by that time.

*Epstein’s affiliation with child prostitution was already known, as he had been convicted of procuring minors for sex in Florida in 2005. Federal investigators identified 36 girls, some as young as fourteen, he was accused of sexually abusing.

So did the Carneys have any other ties to Maxwell, or by extension Epstein other than these photos, or what about, Diana’s sister Tania? Well Tania and her husband Robin, take up a good chunk of a page in Epstein’s little black book with their names and the name of their estate, Cornbury Park quite prominent. On that same page, the name Diana appears twice; other names are blurred out, so the only visible names are two Dianas under the heading of Tania & Robin. Whether that Diana is Carney’s wife, of course, no one can say, but it certainly is pretty coincidental. It might be worth looking into, one would think.

And then there’s this. While at a Liberal rally in Kitchener, someone had managed to infiltrate the crown to ask Carney “how many kids he had molested with Jeffery Epstein”, and Carney’s response was rather strange, to say the least.

He appeared to respond in French — very poor French, Francophones advise, and some of which was nonsensical, and why would be respond to such a question in French at a rally in Kitchener?

Again, there was little media coverage or follow up on Carney’s strange response to the heckler’s question, given that it was all captured on video. Suffice it to say he did not look very Prime Ministerial.

What if this story was about Pierre Poilievre?

Imagine, if you will, if the person in that picture with Ghislaine Maxwell or some other sex trafficker doing prison time, was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre? How might the mainstream media have treated him? Do you think they might be bringing it up and badgering him at every media availability? Do you think it might have been plastered all over CBC websites, newspapers and news programs— particularly during a high stakes election campaign?

Do you think perhaps, the CBC might be doing an ‘in depth’ probe into it, the way they are currently having discussions about, and reporting on, what they view as Poilievre’s ‘controlling’ media too much in his campaign and limiting the number of questions media can ask and often only dealing with only local media at his rallies. That’s fair game, I guess, but is it much wonder his campaign might do that, given how mainstream media cover him?

Yet, by comparison there were no CBC reports on how Carney has locked independent and local media out of his campaign rallies. Or, how about the rally in St. Johns, Newfoundland, where he locked out fisherman who wanted to talk to him how they thought his government’s fisheries policies they were hurting their business? This was CBC’s headline on that… saying he somehow addressed the ‘harvesters’… even though he locked them out of the rally and had security man the door.

Just to give you an idea of how media has reported on a Poilievre being caught in ‘unfortunate’ photographs, here are a few examples. The first one occurred in 2023 at the Calgary Stampede, where Poilievre and his wife Anaida posed for a picture with a supporter who happened to be wearing a t-shirt promoting Straight Pride.

Within a heartbeat, CBC lifted the photo, which had appeared on X, and ran with the story. CBC reporter John Paul Tasker went right to work…. posting an article with a headline describing it as a “controversial photo” with the caption….

Suddenly Poillievre had to defend himself for simply posing for a photo with someone whose shirt he probably hadn’t even noticed! Of course the CBC couldn’t just merely leave the story on its website. Oh no, they had to have a full panel discussion on the matter with commentator David Cochrane on CBC’s flagship news program, Power and Politics. And in this particular case, they also included Conservative Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in the ‘controversy’, because she too had posed for a picture with the same man. But you can’t beat the CBC for never missing an opportunity to smear or embarrass an Conservative, particularly the federal party leader and have the extra bonus including Smith in the smear job, on the basis of a shirt.

Was this issue more important than Canada’s housing or crime crisis; was it even an issue? Is the LGBTQ community so thin skinned that they can’t handle straight people expressing a point of view on their sexual orientation?

Then of course there was the more recent photo from April of 2024. It was captured from a video where Poilievre had stopped to visit a small group of anti-carbon tax protesters camping out along a highway in the Maritimes. According to the CBC it looked like a “convoy-style, hold the line protest”. That would be referencing the Freedom Convoy, that the CBC smeared and dishonestly reported on throughout its protests in Ottawa in the winter of 2022. Not only did CBC post this story on their website, they also ran it on their TV news programming, it was that important.

But here’s what CBC was really getting at with the photo and the video. The still shot shows Poilievre coming out of an RV at protest site where, on its door, is a drawing of a black and white flag which is the symbol of DIAGOLON, a group which had inaccurately associated with the Freedom Convoy by the CBC and other media. It goes on to describes the ‘meaning’ of the flag as follows.

“According to RCMP documents tabled at the Emergencies Act inquiry last year, the national police force believes Diagolon is a militia-like network whose supporters subscribe to an "accelerationist" ideology — the idea that a civil war or the collapse of western governments is inevitable and ought to be sped up.”

This, of course, is hyperbole because actual RCMP intelligence reports released under an access to information request, dismissed that description of Diagolon, attributing it to Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) and only CAHN, as follows:

“Diagolon can only be traced back to CAHN and triangulation and verification of facts is impossible. Diagolon does not pose a criminal or national security threat. It is hard to understand how CAHN could assert it’s an ‘Accelerationist Movement’ that believes a revolution… is necessary to collapse the government. (February 2022).

But, this gave the CBC an opportunity to give airtime to their favourite benefactor Justin Trudeau, who didn’t waste time making as much hay out of it as he could, when asked about it, by a CBC reporter, no doubt, during a sudden serendipitous media availability session.

"Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be. Are they the kind of leader that is going to exacerbate divisions, fears and polarization in our country… and welcome the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists? Because that's exactly what Pierre Poilievre continues to do, not just when you see him engaging with members of Diagolon…”

CBC also had to point out that, at the protest, a car had Make Canada Great Again written on the rear window, implying the protesters Poilievre was ‘consorting’ were in addition to being ‘right wing conspiracy theorists’ were also MAGA Trump supporters.

Now these are stories that took place before the election campaign. What have media drummed up on Poilievre during the campaign? Well there’s his expressing concern that unaffordable housing is making it difficult to couples who want to have children, but delay doing so because they can’t afford to buy a place to raise a family. But that all came down to him talking about women’s biological clocks, which, apparently, is a big no no, despite the reality of biology.

Then there was this report from the Globe and Mail published on March 25, 2025.

The Globe story is behind a paywall, so it can’t be accessed. But one has to ask why the Globe would headline a story about foreign interference in an three year old Tory leadership bid, in the middle of an election campaign where the person who won the bid is running for Prime Minister. Here’s what a National Post column had to say about it.

The story — headlined, CSIS Alleges India Organized Support for Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative Leadership Bid — contains almost no new information, at best 100 new words out of 1,100. Delivered on the third day of the election campaign, and laced with Liberal talking points about Poilievre’s “security clearance,” nothing about it smells right.

Now back to Carney, and the most recent ‘controversy, which was another Globe and Mail report, God bless them. The story included details of how Carney recently met with a Canadian based pro-Beijing business organization called the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC). Details of the meeting, as well as pictures of Carney with what appears to be executive members of the group appeared on the JCCC website, all of which have since been removed following the Globe and Mail report. However, as they say, you can’t erase what has been in cyber space.

Carney himself denied the report when asked by another Globe reporter saying that he had never heard of the JCCC. As for the pictures, he explained that as a politician he meets with ‘thousands’ of people and often has his picture taken with some of them. And most of the media seem to have left it at that. However, do these pictures look like random photos taken on the campaign trail?

Now, CBC, to its credit, did have Bob Fife, the Globe’s Ottawa Bureau Chief, who broke the story, on Power and Politics to discuss the matter. But again CBC ran cover for Carney, and before introducing Fife, they displayed this announcement coming from the Liberal Party on the Carney’s meeting with the JCCC.

Since this story broke and Carney spoke, he has taken another ‘break’ from his campaign, the third one thus far. But according to the CBC is was to tend to his ‘prime ministerial duties’ in response to the trade-war turbulence. What trade war turbulence? US President Donald Trump had paused all tariffs on countries that didn’t retaliate on him at the beginning of April, but Canada was excluded in this pause. Why? Because it did retaliate under Carney. But that’s another story.

In the case of these stories I have outlined, the question to ask, when we compare media coverage of them is — which are more crucial as they relate to the character or the cohorts, connections and potential for compromise or corruption of a future Prime Minister?

In Poilievre’s case, he takes a random picture with a guy wearing a t-shirt that simply says he’s proud to be straight at the Calgary Stampede and it becomes a big enough story for CBC to have a panel discussion on it on Power and Politics? Did Poilievre even notice the shirt? Then there is his visiting a small anti-carbon tax protest, who happen to be very pro-Canada and may have been supporters of the Freedom Convoy, again. Apparently for CBC it was a big enough issue to run national stories on it and somehow portray them as extremists because of a drawing on a trailer door. As for turning a story about Canada’s housing crisis is affecting people who want to start families into a story about women’s biological clocks. Let’s just call that a big stretch.

In case of Carney and the photos with Ghislaine Maxwell, this may speak more to character than anything else, but it could also speak to connections and possibly dark ones. Yet, no one in the media seems interested in following that up. In the case of the JCCC matter one would think the any journalist serious about their work would be digging a little deeper into Liberal’s claim that the ‘meeting didn’t happen’ and the sudden scrubbing of anything about the ‘meeting’ on the JCCC website. One would think that a possible future prime minister who may have met with a very pro-Beijing Beijing business group, despite his denials, would pique their interest particularly given the clear evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s interference in Canada’s last three federal elections. Also given that there are a number of other stories covered, primarily by independent media, about other ties Carney has to China. This includes The Bureau’s Sam Cooper, who has extensively covered China’s deepening interference and influence in Canadian politics, and Carney and his company Brookfield’s deep ties to China.

Brookfield’s Deep Ties to Chinese Land, Loans, and Green Deals—And a Real Estate Tycoon With CCP Links—Raise Questions as Carney Takes Over from Trudeau

So just how balanced is Canadian media in their coverage of the two major political parties and their leaders? How successful were you in ‘spotting the differences’?

.