From Russia, With Love?

Jeff Green | Feb 08, 2022

“Russia news provides a platform for objective journalism where Canadian msm (Mainstream media) creates fabrications”

The headline above is a tweet from local MPP Randy Hillier, who has been absent from his Lanark Frontenac Kingston riding for many months now as he pursues his own political agenda, while being paid a handsome salary to represent our interests to Queen’s Park, in Toronto.

I’m sure there are some, maybe many, constituents within the riding who support Mr. Hillier’s obsession with COVID restrictions, but there are other issues that are important to people who live in our riding. Mr. Hillier’s essentially self-serving agenda to carve out a role for himself after being turfed out of the Conservative Party does nothing for the people whose interests he was elected to represent.

Other MPP’s might have a lower national profile but they show up for funding announcements within their riding on a regular basis, announcing money fzor new parks, trails, upgrades to internet service, road and bridge money, and new hospitals.

As an opposition MPP, Randy was hated by the Liberals, because he was a vocal critic, but at least that was part of his role. Then as a member of the governing party, he was passed over for a cabinet post even though he was one of the longest serving party members, he made a bid for the speakers job, which was never going to happen, and then proceeded to get kicked out of the party, before securing any special funding for us back in the political wilderness.

As I have said before, I can come to no other conclusion from monitoring his twitter account that his opposition to all COVID abatement measures is designed to resurrect his dead political career.

And he does not care what he says, just so he can keep himself in the spotlight as an oppositional figure.

He tossed this missive out this morning - “Russia news provides a platform for objective journalism where Canadian msm creates fabrications”.

First of all he defines msm (which stands for mainstream media, I found out) as any media organisation that publishes news that he does not like. What he means by Russia News is not completely clear, but organisations such as Reporters Without Borders, which is an unaffiliated not for profit organisation, rate Russia 150 out of 180 countries on its press freedom index for 2021. Canada ranks 14 on the same index.

Russian media is either directly or indirectly under the control of the Russian government in a manner that we don’t see in Canada.

Criticism of Canadian media is certainly fair game, but propping up Russian media as a purveyor of truth is a preposterous proposition.

But whatever any of us thinks about Russian media, it is absolutely irrelevant to what is supposed to be Mr. Hillier’s job, which is to represent our interests at Queen’s Park.

Randy Hillier promised to serve our interests, even saying he was more committed to us than he was to the party that he represented.

Now he is more committed to supporting the Putin government in Moscow than the interests of his rural constituents.

Some of us will remember this in June when he stands for election without cover from any party, in an election that will be the first true gauge of his political support in Lanark Frontenac Kingston.