I know it sounds crazy. But according to this story in the Globe and Mail, it’s true.
On Monday, we published an interview with O’Toole. We asked him about our big scoop that the Canadian Armed Forces held joint training exercises with China’s People’s Liberation Army. We wanted to do the interview via Skype, but O’Toole’s staff suggested an email interview instead, which we did.
You can read that full interview here — I think O’Toole sounds pretty strong in it, frankly.
But the Liberal Party and the CBC freaked out about it. And just hours later, O'Toole told the Globe that he wouldn’t have anything more to do with us!
I honestly don’t get it. We published the interview word-for-word. He sounded good in it. What changed in those few hours? It looks like O’Toole is afraid of the Media Party and just decided to do what they told him to do: disavow us.
I know that helps the Liberals — it cuts O’Toole off from 1.4 million Rebel News viewers who make up his voter base. But how does it help O'Toole, especially if we’re headed into a spring election?
It’s the same bizarre strategy that Andrew Scheer used in the last election, but it didn’t work then — in fact, the CBC sued Scheer literally in the middle of the election campaign!
O’Toole said he was different than Scheer — when he ran for leader, he repeatedly promised to end “cancel culture” and to respect the Independent Press Gallery, of which we are a part.
But he caved in without a fight.
What do you think?
Was it smart? Will it make the CBC like O'Toole more if he “bans” us? What does banning us even mean?
We’re conducting a viewer poll, and you can vote right now on this page:
Voting “yes” means you think O’Toole should ban Rebel News.
Voting “no” means you think O’Toole should not ban Rebel News.
I’d like to hear what you think!
I should tell you, I still want O’Toole to win the next election. He’s weaker than I thought, but he’s still miles ahead of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. I just think that any leader who lets the media or the other parties boss him around and tell him who he can or can’t talk to — well, that’s not much of a leader, and he’s not going to do well in a bruising campaign.
But let me know — maybe I’m wrong!
Should Erin O’Toole listen to the Media Party and ban Rebel News?