"Whining about the paucity and/or unfairness of one’s media coverage is practically a rite of passage once one is elected — and a demonstration of how political thin-skin is a non-partisan affair."

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel doesn’t think she, or her party, gets a fair shake from the media.

In terms of news, this contention ranks somewhere between how water is wet and the sky is blue. Whining about the paucity and/or unfairness of one’s media coverage is practically a rite of passage once one is elected — and a demonstration of how political thin-skin is a non-partisan affair.

Yet, Rempel has managed to expound on this unfortunate truism by adding bad faith, conspiracy theory and bloated self-regard, then flinging the whole mess onto Twitter.

In a 15-part spleen venting this week, prompted by exactly one critical Toronto Star piece, Rempel espoused the usual anti-media boiler plate one would expect from a party seeking to regain power.

“[A]mong certain sets within this group, there’s a narrative you have to stick to—a Liberal narrative. Question the carbon tax, you must hate the planet. Question unchecked immigration that abuses the asylum system, you must be uncompassionate, etc,” she wrote.

That Canada doesn’t have “unchecked immigration” (because Canada has yearly caps, and prospective immigrants are vetted) and that it certainly doesn’t “abuse the asylum system” (because would-be refugees are treated separately than would-be immigrants, a fact readily available on Wikipedia) doesn’t seem to matter for the Conservative critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. She has a narrative to sell. As an elected member of Parliament, she has every right to do so.

Except Rempel would like very much for this narrative to take the media’s place. Why? Because the media, being a Liberal echo chamber, has a vested interest in choking out poor Conservatives from the public discourse. According to the Rempel Conspiracy, this partisanship has become all the more unclothed in these days of dwindling circulations and shuttering newspapers. “[T]hey’re losing control over dissemination of information and are seeing decreased ad revenue,” she writes.

Better to turn to the politicians themselves — “actual partisans,” she calls them, though they are much more than just that — for their news. Even better, just turn go Rempel herself.

“[P]eople like me,” she writes, before amply describing her long shadow on various social media platforms. “On any given day over 100k people watch or view what I’m talking about.”

For a lark, let’s have a look at what Rempel and the Conservatives are doing and talking about these days. Appropriately enough, given the party and the ever-churning election cycle, they are attacking the prime minister with partisan gusto, painting him as an effete and spendthrift out-of-touch elite. And they are doing so as countless other partisan hacks have done before: with half-truths and outright lies, in both official languages.

For instance, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer recently tweeted the allegedly alarming cost of the looming Liberal government carbon tax to his very respectable 82,300 followers.

Canadians will be facing a BIG tax bill thanks to Justin Trudeau’s Carbon Tax, but he still won’t come clean about how much the total cost will be. It’s time for Justin Trudeau to come clean with Canadians and end his #CarbonTaxCoverUp. pic.twitter.com/5CLdGdTT54 — Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) June 21, 2018

Except the drastic-sounding numbers — more than $2,000 a year for Alberta families alone — assume a $100 per tonne tax. The Liberal government’s plan, writing in black and white on a government website, calls for the levy to max out at $50 a tonne.

Or consider how Scheer zeroed in on the “$7,500 swing set” installed in Justin Trudeau’s “summer home.” Nowhere during his righteous spasms did Scheer mention that Trudeau paid for the damn thing himself. Nor did he mention that Trudeau’s summer home was once Stephen Harper’s. The former prime minister liked it so much he once expressed a wish to retire there.

Rempel has been a faithful amplifier of her boss’s falsehoods, and the author of plenty herself. As (journalist) Justin Ling recently noted, Rempel’s recent column in the Toronto Sun regarding small businesses, co-authored with Pierre Poilievre, contained three glaring inaccuracies regarding the Liberal government’s small business tax overhaul. (To this, I’d add a fourth: Rempel refers to herself in the third person. Patriquin thinks this is simply gauche.)

What Rempel proposes isn’t direct democracy, as she seems to suggest. She and her party wish only to peddle Conservative talking points more efficiently and without backtalk from a nattering press corps.

Again, there is nothing wrong with pushing purposefully blinkered arguments on the voting public. Formed in the crucible of focus groups, and custom built to proselytize a brand, these arguments are a crucial part of politicking. The Liberals have partaken just as eagerly in the past, and surely will again.

But Michelle Rempel simply can’t expect to do so unfettered. And as an elected official, it’s scary she would even think of it.

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