Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau began delivering daily coronavirus press briefings, he has spoken about banning guns 400% more often than he made any reference to China.
True North conducted a word frequency analysis on transcripts of the daily conferences dating from March 11 to May 5.
Trudeau’s speeches and responses were included in the counts along with a separate search of questions asked by the media.
Research shows that Trudeau said the word “China” only nine times during this period while talking about banning “guns” 47 different times.
Trudeau also included the country’s name in his responses nearly 300% less than the 34 times the media asked questions which referenced the communist state.
Trudeau has recently come under fire for his reluctance to stand up to China.
Critics have accused the prime minister of going soft on the communist regime despite being responsible for the global coronavirus pandemic.
On May 8th, the prime minister was filmed walking away from the microphone after being asked whether his government was “standing up to China” or “backing away.”
During the encounter, Trudeau dodged the question posed to him by Globe and Mail reporter Marieke Walsh, and then promptly ignoring Walsh’s followup.
According to the research, questions including the word “gun” was also a favoured topic of the media with 30 different references, outnumbering the topics “pandemic” (29), “economy” (28), and “emergency” (23).
The media also spent significantly more time talking about US President Donald Trump than the prime minister did.
Journalists said the president’s name 260% more frequently during questions than the prime minister did in his replies.
The two neighbouring world leaders have taken a starkly different attitude regarding China’s coverup of the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this month Chinese ambassador to Ottawa Cong Peiwu praised Trudeau for his “cool-headed” approach to China, contrasting it to Trump’s alleged “smears.”
“I believe that Canada has adopted a cool-headed approach,” said Cong.
“We appreciate that. The most important task, currently, is to focus our energy on fighting the pandemic.”
