Journalists booted from Tory retreat

by JANE TABER AND GLORIA GALLOWAY — August 2, 2007

In an effort to control the message and access to elected MPs, the Prime Minister's Office yesterday ordered journalists evicted from the hotel where the Conservative caucus is holding its annual summer retreat.CHARLOTTETOWN -- In an effort to control the message and access to elected MPs, the Prime Minister's Office yesterday ordered journalists evicted from the hotel where the Conservative caucus is holding its annual summer retreat.

RCMP officers and hotel staff escorted journalists out of the lobby area of downtown Delta Prince Edward Hotel and directed them to a small third-floor media centre in a government building across the road. A hotel employee even followed two reporters out of a washroom to make sure they left the premises.

One RCMP officer told a reporter that "there is a time and a place for the media." Another said they were acting on the orders of the PMO.

National caucus chairman Rahim Jaffer defended the action, saying that spouses and children accompanying many of the 125 MPs and 24 senators may be intimidated by the reporters and cameras.

However, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his communications director, Sandra Buckler, do not have a good relationship with the news media, especially those in the parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa, many of whom are in Charlottetown to cover the caucus meeting. Some of Mr. Harper's key advisers believe the news media is full of small "l" liberals and that reporters distort their message.

And so yesterday, the battle continued in Prince Edward Island where Tories are holding a two-day strategy session to plan their fall priorities. Reporters were able to interview Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor before being escorted out.

In an effort to control the message, keep discipline and ensure that caucus members are all on the same page, access to MPs is being carefully controlled and monitored. And with the possibility of a summer cabinet shuffle, no MP wants to be seen co-operating with the news media for fear of jeopardizing a potential position.

"People might also want to be on best behaviour with future cabinet posts dancing in their head," said one veteran Tory, who added that cabinet ministers have been told not to stray too far afield in mid-August. This has fuelled even more rumours about a possible cabinet shuffle.

Mr. Jaffer tried to gloss over the access issue. "We're trying to have a, I think, a very civil relationship with the media and we're asking to at least have that respect.

"Obviously much of what we're doing is confidential and this is a unique event - unlike on Parliament Hill - where we do bring our families together.

"We will try to give you access as much as possible and give you updates and we hope that especially in the process of what we're trying to achieve that there will be that mutual respect," Mr. Jaffer said.

In the small media room in the Public Works and Government Services Department building across the street from the hotel, a microphone was set up so ministers can hold news conferences.

"It's quite normal for there to be private areas and then areas where the media are," said Mr. Harper's deputy press secretary, Dimitri Soudas.

Hotel general manager Michael Bird, who has counted the Queen and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher among his guests during his career, had a diplomatic explanation for his hotel policy: "The space [hotel] is in high demand. It is all occupied. So what the group [the Tories] has done is they have arranged a media centre across the street ... that's where they would accommodate the media," he said. "Under typical circumstances that [the media room] would be within the hotel but because the space is so full - essentially it is an extension of the hotel ... So what we've done is we have tried to direct people to the media centre."

Mr. Bird said reporters can enter the hotel if they are going to the restaurant, are a registered guest or are meeting a guest. Most of the reporters covering the event are staying at another hotel.

Last year, the Conservatives held their caucus inside a federal air traffic control facility in Cornwall, Ont., and there was limited access to the MPs.

This is in contrast to freewheeling meetings that took place when the Tories were in opposition.

In an effort to control the message and access to elected MPs, the Prime Minister's Office yesterday ordered journalists evicted from the hotel where the Conservative caucus is holding its annual summer retreat.

Source:The Globe and Mail