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It was literally the day after Justin Trudeau was first elected in 2015 that I noticed the difference.

I was in a line-up outside the clerk’s office at the main Toronto courthouse with a bunch of other reporters who were covering a trial, I think that of Toronto Police Const. James Forcillo, who was charged and ultimately convicted of attempted murder in the streetcar shooting death of Sammy Yatim.

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Lining up is part of the reporter’s life.

Securing public documents in Canadian courts always requires journalists to prostrate ourselves before various officials, fill out endless and sundry forms, overpay for copies of the documents we want, and generally bow and scrape.

Anyway, at one point I turned around and realized that the two CBC folks in line had vanished, replaced by interns.

And just like that, we were all transported back to the glory days of the CBC, when it was routine that five or six CBC journalists (from TV, radio, French, English, national, local, etc.) not only covered the same events but also often had serfs to do the actual waiting about for them.