Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau’s comment stating that he doesn’t spend much time thinking about money policy went largely ignored by Canadian legacy media outlets.
As reported on Wednesday, Trudeau shrugged off a question about rising inflation rates by giving a nonsensical answer that avoided answering the question directly.
“Do you have a position on the mandate? Would you support a slightly higher tolerance for inflation?” inquired a reporter at a campaign stop in BC.
“I don’t know. When I think about the biggest, most important economic policy this government, if re-elected, would move forward. You’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy,” said Trudeau.
“You will understand that I think about families and when we first got elected in 2015 the very first thing we did was raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% so we could lower them for the middle class. Similarly, a re-elected Liberal government will continue to invest in supports for families, for students, for seniors…”
Although Trudeau’s comments were picked up by independent outlets like True North, legacy media outlets including CBC News, the Toronto Star and CTV News largely ignored the gaffe.
In a report on rising inflation rates, CBC News omitted any mention of Trudeau’s comments which took place on the same day.
“Speaking to reporters in Vancouver, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau defended his government’s handling of the economy during the pandemic,” wrote CBC News before quoting a more coherent statement given by Trudeau.
In comparison, the Conservative Party’s latest campaign advertisement featuring an edited clip of the popular classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was ridiculed widely by Canadian legacy media outlets.
The advertisement was covered by Global News, CP24, the Toronto Star and others soon after it was removed from Twitter.
Beyond that, some of the only legacy media outlets to highlight Trudeau’s gaffe was BNN Bloomberg and the Toronto Sun.
“I think he should take it back. Neither Trudeau I nor Trudeau II have been terribly interested in monetary policy, very unfortunately. In any event, he’s wrong. The new government has a very important set of decisions to make coming up on monetary policy and in terms of the renewal of the agreement with the Bank of Canada,” former Bank of Canada governor David Doge told BNN Bloomberg.
