Sometimes as a news person, you have to write stories that you aren’t thrilled about.
Generally, I’m pretty enthusiastic about the articles that I get to write and the others that appear in the paper. Community events, political stories, police beat articles – they generally bring a level of enjoyment for me, all for different reasons. (Although there are some police and crime related stories that I wish we didn’t have to run).
But then you get those assignments that you aren’t eager about, for a variety of reasons.
A recent example of this is the article that I wrote on Travis Patron, who is running in Souris-Moose Mountain in the upcoming federal election. Patron is a Redvers resident who is currently listed as an independent, but hopes to be a candidate for the Canadian Nationalist Party. He’s the party’s founder and leader.
The fact that his party’s name has “Nationalist” in it should tell you a lot about them. It lists anti-Zionism in its party ideology, and also talks about ethnocentricity and seems to remember fondly of when Canada’s population was of European descent.
I know that by running anything on Patron, that a lot of people will be upset. They’ll say that by interviewing him and running anything from him and his party, that we are condoning what he says or believes, and even enabling his worldview.
You won’t get many of those comments from within the constituency, but you will hear it a lot from people in larger urban centres.
But ultimately I have to be professional. If we don’t interview him or run an article on him because I have strong objections to his ideology, then that would be hypocritical.
Ultimately, in politics and election coverage, news outlets have to be fair. We’re obligated to give Mr. Patron the same opportunity and coverage that we have given the other candidates. In the case of Souris-Moose Mountain, that would be incumbent MP Robert Kitchen of the Conservative Party (of whom Patron has some favourable comments) and Phil Zajac of the People’s Party of Canada.
If we run an article when Kitchen and Zajac are nominated, then we need to do the same for Patron. If we give Kitchen and Zajac a platform for their ideas and the ideas of their parties, then we need to do the same for Patron and the party that he is trying to create.
And the same thing will go for the Green Party, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party when they announce their candidates for the upcoming election. Hopefully they will have candidates who reside in this constituency.
(If the Canadian Nationalist Party can have somebody who resides in this constituency run for them, then hopefully other more mainstream parties can do the same).
I don’t agree with most of what Patron has in his campaign materials. He seemingly laments that Canada is now 63 per cent European descent compared to 97 per cent nearly 50 years ago; I want to know why that’s a bad thing.
Frankly, I think it’s great that this country is home to a variety of cultures, nationalities and religions, and that as Canadians, we embrace people coming here from around the world.
The adage that diversity is strength is the truth.
Obviously, Patron is not going to be elected in this fall’s federal election. If his party is approved, then he might be the party leader to receive the lowest number of votes. (The Canadian Communist Party leader will only get a handful of votes as well).
Patron is running in a strong conservative riding, but Kitchen, the incumbent MP, has a strong support base. The right-wing voters in this constituency who are looking for an alternative to the Tories will turn to Zajac and the People’s Party before they vote for Patron.
And ultimately Patron’s party isn’t going to win any seats, or have any sort of a presence in Parliament, which means they won’t have much of an outlet to get their opinions out.
Patron and his yet-to-be-sanctioned party seem to be getting much of their attention thanks to the critics who have been criticizing him. In that sense, these people might be playing into his hands.
I can’t say whether Patron is of the belief that any publicity is good publicity, but you can be sure that those critics have shone lots of attention on him.
Most Canadians will tell you they are proud of our nation’s diversity. They’ll tell you they embrace our differences on such fronts as race and religion.
We need more immigrants, not less. We’re a country of 38 million people that happens to be a global economic power and the world’s second largest country. We’re not going to be able to sustain this nation without continued strong numbers of newcomers coming from around the world.
I don’t agree with him, but in the end, news outlets have to be fair.
And once the debates roll around, we’ll see if he gets that same opportunity to express his views.
