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Rebel News was out in force at the Conservative Party convention in Calgary. We had five reporters there, including our newest recruit, Tamara Lich! It was great to see Tamara interviewing MPs. And she must have had 500 people stop her to ask for a selfie!

But something weird happened, and I’ve sent a letter to the party bosses asking for an explanation.

The CBC state broadcaster sent their two most rabid anti-Conservative activists, David Cochrane and Rosemary Barton. Cochrane is infamous for trying to get Rebel News kicked out of the leaders debate last year. And Barton actually sued the Conservative Party right in the middle of the 2021 election campaign.

During Pierre Polievre’s speech, Cochrane and Barton couldn’t contain themselves — they visibly sneered at him, turned their back to him and generally acted like unruly schoolchildren. A lot of people saw this and snapped photos of this disgraceful conduct. Tamara took a photo of their antics, too, and posted it on X.

Here’s the picture:

It’s not a gotcha picture. In fact, it’s not even that bad. But it shows the disdain those government journalists have for Conservatives. (They are always on their best behaviour when they’re at a Liberal convention.)

But here’s where it gets weird. A Conservative staffer went to Tamara and said that Cochrane had demanded Tamara’s tweet be taken down.

Could you imagine being a political journalist, dishing it out all day long, but being such a thin-skinned loser that when someone simply posts a picture of you, you want to censor it? Cochrane is a classic cry-bully — but he lacked the courage to talk to Tamara directly. So he tattled to the Conservatives.

But instead of ignoring Cochrane, the Conservative staffer actually ran that errand for him — telling Tamara that the party had “a covenant of good faith with the media about not taking these kinds of photos while live hits are happening.”

Do the Conservatives really think that Cochrane and Barton and the rest of Mark Carney’s CBC state broadcaster have a “covenant of good faith” with them? The CBC despises the Conservatives. And the feeling is mutual — party delegates overwhelmingly voted to privatize the CBC.

The grassroots of the party are strong. But it sounds like party staff are falling back into the bad old days — like they have Stockholm Syndrome. I remember when Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole thought that by disparaging Rebel News, they could ingratiate themselves with the CBC. O’Toole even tried doing that with the truckers, too — which is what directly led to his ouster, and Pierre Poilievre becoming the new leader.

Look, we like the Conservatives and we like Poilievre. And one of the things we like about them is their pledge to privatize the CBC. But if they really think they have a “covenant” with the regime media, they’re not going to do well.

The Conservatives don’t have to be afraid of the CBC anymore. Fewer people watch them than ever before. There’s a flourishing community of independent journalists and online influencers who have a far larger audience than the CBC.

Hopefully this was just an isolated case. People love and trust Rebel News precisely because we’re beholden to nobody but our viewers.

I’ll keep you posted if I hear back from the party.

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UPDATE: The Conservative Party wrote back, claiming that the photo was unflattering but said the request to delete it was voluntary.