Here is the video of said exchange with Van Loan

Perhaps I wasn't paying attention before but it seems to me this strategy for dealing with the media via talking points arose with the advent of the first Harper minority. There was a change in policy that the ministers and the PM especially did not take questions at all for the most part and generally avoid all but the most tightly scripted appearances.

A perfect case in point, any interview with Pierre Poilievre.

Who was the reporter, Aaron? He deserves a salute.

It's not that I can't accept it. It's that I won't accept it. If I had been in Peter Van Loan's place, I probably would have done the exact same thing (although I'd also have to imagine that I'd have accepted to operate within an environment where opacity and disinformation are normal ways of operating, which is highly unlikely), but I wasn't, was I?

The larger issue for me is that being exhorted to simply accept that this is the way things work is truly only relevant to politicians and political journalists. It's not relevant at all to consumers of news (who, you know, pay for this stuff) or citizens (who, you know…also pay for this stuff).

It's ugly, but people do it for a reason.

Being shocked that a Minister does a complete stonewall on a topic he doesnt like isnt news.

I've no idea where you're going with this. In my world my headline would read:" Minister admits he may have held back report"! Not strictly true, but i no longer care when dealing with this type of politician.

If you cant accept that Van Loan was engaging in a technique taught to many people many times a day then I dont know what else to say. You dont have to love it, or even agree with it to understand it. Denial of "what is" doesnt help. The reporters job now, as far as I can tell, is to find some other way to confirm what the minister wouldnt say directly. Assuming it is even worth his time to do so. My suspicion is it isnt and the story sinks underneath the waves…therefore you now have to question why this is even worth pointing to, other than to show up Van Loan. It is an everyday occurence, that Wherry's "professional" colleagues teach for good money, a known and accepted tactic. So why are we discussing this again?

Why wont the public see the clip, because it is not concise, not sexy and it is full of bafflegab or bridged messages. So I dont think Van Loan is too worried this would lead the national, it just makes its way to some blogs…yawn…..where very abnormal people like you and I can look at it and opine.

Van Loan met his goals, he won ugly, and the reporter is left without any useable information…good when Van Loan had something he DIDN't want to talk about.

And as I said…Aarons colleagues get REALLY GOOD MONEY teaching this tactic and when it should be used to anyone of a number of groups who go before the media.

Van Loan claims the percentage of use has gone down. But all that is is a comparison to the use of the handgun registry.

The actual use has gone up. The use of the handgun registry has gone up even more.

That should tell us that law enforcement find an increasing usefulness to the long gun registry. The exact opposite of what Van Loan is trying to spin.

I approach this as a consumer of news products and a citizen.

84000 times. That's the number of times the police will not be able to get information (2.3% of 3.5 million) from the Registry.

That's a lot of information being eliminated to police.

A: "What's interesting is that day follows night, and night follows day"

Q: "But don't you think it's a lovely one, as far as days go?"

A: "I guess the Yankees were just the better team."

Q: "Why won't you answer the question I'm asking?"

A: "Rainbows!"

[youtube naV6EK1rbGY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naV6EK1rbGY youtube]

Interesting though that some people lament that this Cons govt does not answer legitimate questions during QP(acknowledging that there are some questions from the opposition that really do not deserve serious answers) and then would suggest that this reporter should just have shrugged his or her shoulders and walked away.

This is just another day in the jungle. The teaching of the black arts of media training will go on regardless.

The editor better start worrying that it's exactly this type of condemnation of common sense that is killing news journalism.

The reporter better hope his editor doesnt decide the useless comment belongs in his performace review.

They need to be more aggressive, like they were under Martin, than walking away. Walking away would be more than fine for the Conservatives. They don't like it when people ask them questions about how they are running our government or spending our money.

Of course, we know why this rarely happens. It's not one of the "rules of the game." Which goes a long to explain why people are turned by both politics and the news media.

Not often we agree McClelland but this time we do. Many journos appear grateful for whatever crumbs pols are willing to give but pols would freak out if reporters stopped covering them for a few days. Being on tv, or in the newspaper, is a big draw for a lot of pols and taking it away should keep them in line.

Lets see more of this people!