Nearly three decades ago, my favourite episode of the American TV drama The West Wing aired. “Take Out the Trash Day” was a quirky first-season instalment focused on the time-honoured political tradition of burying bad news by releasing it on Fridays.

The concept is simple: by releasing it right before a weekend, the news is less likely to be reported by the media (since fewer journalists are working) and less likely to be read by everyday people who have more pressing — or exciting — concerns.

The episode popularized a practice that, even then, had already become stock-in-trade for governments across the Western world. And it wasn’t limited to weekends of the regular or long variety, either. Perhaps, the most cynical example of this kind of media manipulation spawned a scandal in the UK when Jo Moore, then special transport advisor to Tony Blair’s Labour government, wrote in an email after the 9/11 attacks: “It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury.”

It has also become a favoured tactic of Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberal government.

Last Thursday evening, on the cusp of Labour Day weekend, the Carney government released a report analyzing........

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