CBC Toronto's Mike Crawley has been a reporter at Queen's Park since 2009, and in that time, he's seen a lot — from the historic leadership convention that saw Kathleen Wynne become Canada's first openly gay premier, to the dramatic downfall of Patrick Brown, to Premier Doug Ford's leadership and election victories.

Earlier this month, he took your questions during an AMA on Reddit. Here are some of the best.

Q: How do you ensure reporting is fair, without effectively becoming a political/corporate communications tool? In the same vein, do you see the focus of being a politics reporter as documenting and communicating events (which may include disbursing unchallenged lies) to the public? Or do you see it as providing the public with the facts (which may instead include a summary of a quote and the facts that prove it's a lie)?

A: These are really good questions, and ones that we political reporters are struggling with more and more these days. My job is to report facts.

So when politicians feed me "facts" that are questionable, but that I can't prove are lies, I try to provide factual reporting (context) that allows the audience to have a clearer understanding of things and draw an informed conclusion. (For instance: recently the government announced an advisory panel on climate change. I pointed out that its membership was made up of experts in dealing with the effects of climate change, but not on reducing carbon emissions.)

Interesting to note that sometimes when I do this, partisans call me out as biased, even though I am merely presenting facts. But hey, I love my job, and I'm not complaining.

Q: Who from the Ontario NDP Caucus has surprised you the most? If you had to guess at a successor to [Andrea] Horwath, who do you see as the front runners?

A: I would be surprised if anyone makes a play to take over from Horwath before the next election. I would however be even more surprised if she doesn't resign if she doesn't win the next election.

Q: What story/scandal has caught you the most off guard since you've worked at QP? How would you compare the scale of Ford government scandals to previous Liberal governments that you've covered?

A: The Ford government hasn't been in power long enough to have scandals to the scale that the Liberals did ... eHealth ($1 billion wasted on a failed attempt to give us electronic medical records) and the gas plants ($1.1 billion to cancel electricity contracts that we didn't need) being the two biggies.

Q: What story got less coverage than you thought it deserved in the last year?

A: I'd say the health care reforms. It's a massive undertaking that Health Minister Christine Elliott is leading. It's a tough thing to cover because it's a bit intangible (reorganizing health bureaucracies, changing how health organizations are funded) but it will have long-running implications.

And while people will quibble with the way the Ford government is doing this, there's nobody in the health system who'll say the system can't be improved.

Q: What are your thoughts on Ontario News Now? Does the press gallery at Queen's Park feel the same?

A: I won't speak for my colleagues at the gallery, but let's just say that "Ontario News Now" really triggered a lot of online backlash for purporting to be news, while being produced by PC caucus staff. In fairness: all caucuses get funding for communications.

The Liberals when they were in power used theirs to fund "oppo" research, and would send out critical news releases about the PCs (that I often simply tossed in the recycling bin as just another partisan attack). The PCs decided to use their caucus funding to produce these spots, with the aim of taking the news straight to the public.

I noticed though that the viewer numbers were not so great, typically 20,000 views of each video, so there's a question of how much bang for the buck they were getting, and who were they actually reaching? They've ramped back production dramatically of late — they used to push out a video a day, there have only been a few since late October, so they've clearly realized the effort/expense isn't worth it.

Q: The Ford Government is languishing in the polls. How do you think they can turn it around? How do you forsee the role of the OLP ahead into and out of the next election?

A: It would be naive to think the Ford government can't turn it around before the next election. They have time. Yes, the Liberals' decision of who they pick as leader will be a factor. Do people see that person as a viable alternative premier to Ford and Horwath?

The Liberal party has a heck of a lot of rebuilding to do. But as federal politics from 2011 to 2015 showed, the Liberal brand can quickly rebuild from third place to first if a) they pick a leader with a compelling message and b) there's a desire among the population to kick out the incumbent.

But to your original question: for the PCs to turn it around, they need to show they are actually managing government properly and responsibly, not making decisions on a whim, and striking the right balance between getting the province's finances in better shape and preserving the public services that people want.

Thanks for the good questions!

These questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.