The gap left by Evan Solomon

He was what we needed in the face of our secret-loving government

“Tough but fair.”

Remember that statement, heard in a commercial re-played on CBC television, about one of its shows? It didn’t refer to the government’s anti-crime bill. Or the character of a woman of iron will and light complexion.

No, “tough but fair” was how Evan Solomon described Power and Politics, his daily show on the nation’s business from Ottawa. There he was, filling the camera, the full, lanky Solomon, in slim-fitting suit, narrow tie and incandescent smile, promoting his own program.

“We’re tough but fair,” he said. He meant the questions asked, the truths told, the air cleared. And, you know, by and large he was right.

A disclaimer: I know Solomon personally and I have been on his show infrequently. I haven’t spoken to or seen him since his dismissal.

Power and Politics was a terrific show. It was terrific because Solomon was a relentless interviewer who did not accept bafflegab or dissembling.

In discreet, deferential Canada, Solomon was unconventional. He defied the rules. He was a bull carrying around his own china shop. He was bent on getting an answer, in the style of Mike Wallace or Jeremy Paxman.

He did this with a boyish smile and a practised joviality. He wasn’t malicious, just tenacious.

This is what makes his loss so hard on the CBC. While he was not necessarily the “heir apparent” to Peter Mansbridge, as some suggest, he should have been a leading contender.

Solomon practised a journalism we need in the face of a government that makes evasion a religion and prevarication an art. His approach as a broadcaster was not cheap or dirty but firm, without any evidence on air of the favouritism or influence-peddling of which he is accused.

Last fall, for example, Solomon interviewed Andrew Leslie, the esteemed former army commander who was new to politics and the challenges of this kind of television. Solomon knows him well, socially, and he might have gone easy on him. He did not. Leslie held his own, as if he were under fire, and Solomon persisted. Neither retreated.

Solomon understands the power of the followup question. Others do too, as Paul Wells showed recently when he skewered Citizenship Minister Chris Alexander for offering a selective, misleading view of the history of Liberal governments and immigration.

But what is striking about journalism in Canada today is how often we don’t ask the hard questions. This is either a cause — or a consequence — of a hardened culture of secrecy.

It is why we still do not know what happened in the assault on Parliament last October. Why is it, for example, that it took some 31 shots to bring down Michael ZehafBibeau? Was he Rasputin, the Russian sorcerer who refused to die amid repeated attempts to assassinate him? Or, more likely, was this the gang that couldn’t shoot straight? Why has Kevin Vickers not given an extensive interview since he was packed off as Ambassador to Ireland? Why is no one accountable for a massive security failure on Parliament Hill?

Secrecy sustains authority, even in a democracy. Cynics suggest that if the Conservatives are running behind in the campaign this autumn, expect news of a terrorism threat. It will come from the RCMP, and immediately stern ministers of the Crown will dutifully appear on television to warn about the dangers to national security. It will scare Canadians. And if that happens, rest assured that we will know few details.

But it won’t be because those skeptics like Evan Solomon didn’t try.

Ultimately Solomon had ego as well as edge, which is why he could crow about his own performance without self-doubt. His judgment off air was apparently less than Solomonic, and it is devastating to him. But no one has shown that it compromised his journalism.

A year ago, he would have been reprimanded, given an opportunity to apologize and returned to the air, rehabilitated. Today, post-Jian Ghomeshi, he is out of a job, a brilliant voice silenced.

Tough, yes, but fair?