CTV has fired two employees over an edited clip of Pierre Poilievre that led to a boycott of the network by the Conservative leader and his caucus.Higher-ups at the media giant admitted that the clip did not meet its editorial standards, and offered their sincere apologies.."A report on Sunday's CTV News broadcast did not meet our expected and required high editorial standards," the network wrote in a statement. "We sincerely and unreservedly apologize for the manner this report went to air and the false impression it created.""As is standard practice, we conducted an investigation to determine whether a breach of our editorial policies and practices had occurred in this case," the statement continued. "The investigation found that two members of the CTV News team are responsible for altering a video clip, manipulating it for a particular story. Their actions violate our editorial standards and are unacceptable. Those individuals are no longer members of the CTV News team.".Conservatives 'won’t engage' with CTV until network admits 'malicious editing' of clip.The four-second clip in question was broadcast by CTV on September 22, and purported to show Poilievre suggesting the Conservatives' opposition day motion and confidence vote were motivated by a desire to put an end to the Liberals' dental care program, not the carbon tax. He can be heard allegedly claiming, "That's why we need to put forward a motion," though he is only depicted uttering the second half of the sentence.The Conservative leader's media relations team quickly realized that what he said in the clip did not match the transcript from the scrum from which the audio was taken. Instead, his comments appeared to be made up of three separate sections spliced together."After nine years of this NDP-Liberal government, they've doubled the debt, double housing cots, caused the worst inflation in 40 years, sent people to the food bank, unleashed crime and chaos in our communities. That's why it's time to put forward a motion for a carbon tax election. A carbon tax election needed because the NDP-Liberals plan to hike the carbon tax by 300% all the way to 61 cents a litre, which would cripple our economy, put hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs, mean empty shelves at grocery stores. We need a carbon tax election so Canadians can vote to axe the tax, build homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime with a common sense Conservative government."All mentions of the carbon tax were left out of the clip.CTV apologised for what it referred to as a "misunderstanding during the editing process," but Poilievre's director of media relations, Sebastian Skamski, said the "so-called 'apology'" was not good enough, and informed the network caucus members would not be engaging further. More to come...
