[AUDIO] The mayor of Mount Royal accuses the media of distorting his remarks… while he was being recorded

UPDATE DAY

The Mayor of the Town of Mount Royal, Peter J. Malouf, discourages his citizens from trusting the media, which he accuses of writing “anything,” an outing that has earned him remonstrances from the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec. 

Mayor Malouf's comments stem from a report published on November 14 by our Office of Inquiry in which employees testified openly to a climate of intimidation within the City. 

The Union of Civil Servants municipal de Montréal also reported having been alerted to several potential cases of intimidation in the Town of Mount Royal.

Although the City took note of the report and announced the launch of an independent investigation, the Mayor, Peter J. Malouf, attacked the work of the journalists during the last meeting of the City Council, on November 22.&nbsp ;

“I'm going to ask you a question. Have you ever interviewed a journalist? […] Do they always write exactly what you said? As you know, journalists are going to write what they want to write, because they want to sell newspapers [sic]. They will put anything in the newspapers. So it's not my words. Period,” said Mayor Malouf during a council meeting.  

“If people read the articles and believe the articles that were written by a journalist, it is falsehood. Full stop”, also launched the mayor to the citizens.

It had been registered

The mayor implied that he had been misquoted in our pages. The mayor had told us in an interview that blue-collar workers in the City who claim to be victims of bullying can “complain for no reason or have any motivation”. 

However, our interview with the mayor Malouf had been recorded. The excerpt below illustrates that his remarks have been rigorously reproduced in our pages.

Recording – Mayor of Mont-Royal

Blamed by the FPJQ

The Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec (FPJQ) blames Mayor Malouf for his “deplorable” remarks in these times of “misinformation”.

“He is a person who is in a position of authority. He's a mayor. It is deplorable that a mayor can say such things in 2022. It is very unfortunate. We don't need that,” commented FPJQ vice-president Pierre Champagne. 

“It's the old tactic of attacking the messenger by trying to drown Fish. It's amazing to see that it can still happen in 2022 […] Will this mayor say the same thing about the reports that he will like? Does he question all the reports or only those that suit his business?». 

We contacted Mayor Malouf to find out why he had launched an investigation following our report if he believed it to be inaccurate. However, he refused to answer our questions.

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