Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor is trying to live a precarious double or triple life. First, it seems pretty clear that he is a political partisan doing his bit to make sure that Conservatives continue to govern the country. Second, he draws a salary as an advisor/communicator for the Manning Institute for Democracy, a conservative initiative founded by Preston Manning to train politicians and organizer. And, finally, he's often tried to present news and information with the sort of independent, non-partisan bent that is more frequently associated with those who self-identify as journalists. I, for one, wish him luck. Many academics and journalism theorists would call some of what he's trying to do civic journalism or participatory journalism and I'm all for those kind of bottom-up experiments even though I may or may not agree with his politics.
I say this all with a tinge of professional jealousy , for Taylor, whether it be by dint of his connections or persistence, has what it is, so far as I know, the first one-on-one interview (left) with our new Industry Minister Tony Clement. (It matters little to the viewer/reader, incidently, who gets the scoop or how the scoop is acquired, so long as it is, in fact, a scoop.) CTV's Question Period got him for their broadcast of Nov. 16 but Taylor got him on Nov. 15 at the party's policy convention in Winnipeg.
In the interview, Clement notes that he's been “drinking from the firehose”, so to speak, in terms of bringing himself up to speed on issues within his portfolio. The first days of his tenure, of course, have been dominated by questions about support for the auto sector. But, as Clement tells Taylor, autos isn't the only sectoral interest he has. He's also concerned, for example, about aerospace and forestry.
“My job is to make sure that Canadian markets work in such a way as to promote competitiveness and productivity … We've got some short-term issues with the world economic meltdown. My department is working hand-in-glove with the Department of Finance on issues like access to credit, issues like liquidity in the marketplace, those kinds of things. So I'm the marketplace guy. I'm there to ensure our marketplace is working, that we continue to look for ways that Canadians are competitive and productive for the future.”
Taylor is the first (again, so far as I know) to ask if Clement's approach to the thorny issue of copyright will be different from his predecessors. Clement gives the stock answer – he's looking at the file and talking about it — but then Taylor asks him if the fact that the new Heritage Minister is not from Quebec will make a difference. The copyright file has been jointly managed by Industry and Heritage. The new Heritage Minister is James Moore, a BC MP, who, at age 32, has already won four general elections. “I'm part of the iPod generation,” said the 47-year-old Clement, “but [James] is really part of the iPod generation.” (Tip of the toque to the perfesser for this …)
And, given tomorrow's exciting race for Speaker of the House of Commons, Taylor also has videotaped interviews with four of the challengers to Speaker Peter Milliken. Three of them, certainly, are Taylor' s fellow travellers politically but one, Joe Comartin, is a New Democrat. The incumbent, Milliken, didn't want to play with Taylor. Taylor notes he's “not doing press”. Presumably, not agreeing to be interviewed by Taylor means not doing “press.” Fair enough. Taylor's trying to walk the walk so he's entitled to talk the talk. Other challengers were not available. Still, I'll bet this is about as good a response rate you'd get if you were a chase producer at any broadcast network.