Yesterday afternoon, at about 4:30, someone in Environment Minister John Baird’s office went to a fax machine, looked up the fax number for one of Baird’s offices, punched the number into the machine, and sent off some confidential documents containing elements of the Government’s green plan.
But there was a problem: The fax number in the directory that the staffer relied on had an error. It was wrong. The staffer had misdialed. Now, most of the time, when someone misdials a fax number, it ends up going to a regular voice line — we’ve all heard that annoying screech when a fax machine gets a wrong number — but in this case, by some great fluke, the staffer who misdialed hit another fax machine — the one in the Opposition Lobby in the House of Commons!
And so it was that a Liberal staffer waltzed by and picked up the fax, saw that it was about Environment stuff and figured it must be for the Liberal Environment Critic David McGuinty. A page delived the misdirected fax to McGuinty while he was sitting in the House of Commons waiting to vote on a couple of motions last night.
McGuinty realized he had something hot so, at about 6:30 or so, he, Stephane Dion, and senior Opposition Leader Office staff gathered to decide what to do.
And so it was that about 8:20 pm last night, the call went out to news organizations that McGuinty was to hold a press conference at the unusual hour of 8:40 pm.
McGuinty would announce that he had received details of Baird’s environmental plan — due to be officially released tomorrow in Toronto — and that it had market-moving information in it. McGuinty called on Baird to immediately release the plan and to call in the RCMP to determine how such a mistake could be made. After all, if it was faxed in error to the Opposition, it could have been faxed in error to anyone.
The Liberals made no copies of the documents they received and refused to tell us what was in the document. McGuinty said he was taking the copies up to the House of Commons Sergeant-At-Arms and would give them to him.
So we immediately started putting out calls to the Governnment and got quick responses from Baird’s office. Turns out what McGuinty had received was a draft of a speech that Baird was planning to give tomorrow, a few hours ahead of the actual release of his plan. The actual plan had not been divulged.
Baird’s office decided to post the whole speech — as yet undelivered — on its Web site.
And so that’s how, this morning, we have some idea of what Baird will announce tomorrow. You can read the leaked speech for yourself and you will find these points:
- Today (at about 9:30 am Ottawa time), Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn will ban the use of incandescent lightbulbs.
- Within 5 years, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions will start to drop, and will be cut by 20 per cent compared to today’s levels by 2020.
Many more details to be released today and tomorrow. Stay tuned.