What, if anything, should voters make of Pierre Poilievre's attitude toward journalists?

What should voters make of Pierre Poilievre's criticism of journalists?

All politicians disagree from time to time with the way they're depicted by journalists. Any number of them have been vocal about it, publicly or privately. (The late Brian Mulroney, who has been fondly remembered over the past week, was known to harangue journalists on the phone when he disagreed with their coverage.) Sometimes their complaints have been justified.

In the hothouse atmosphere of Parliament Hill, tiny struggles are being waged almost constantly. In Scrum Wars, his 1993 book on the relationship between prime ministers and the press gallery, Allan Levine suggested the scrum — the uniquely Canadian tradition, which takes its name from rugby, of journalists pressing around politicians outside the House of Commons to ask questions — was a symbol of «the test of wills, the contest of wits, and the battle for control that have characterized the relations between Canadian prime ministers and journalists» for more than a century.

In many cases, those battles are tedious and easily ignored.

But perhaps no Canadian politician in recent memory has criticized, questioned and mocked the media with as much zeal as Poilievre. The potential implications of his approach to journalists for a future Conservative government may be as worthy of consideration as any other aspect of the Conservative offer in the next election.

Poilievre's combative exchanges with reporters in recent months are arguably the manifestation of a rhetorical drumbeat he has been playing since his leadership campaign two years ago.

«The media, the pundits, the professors all say I shouldn't attack Justin Trudeau as strongly as I do,» he told supporters in a fundraising email in May 2022.