Category: Politics/Liberals

From the inbox today (names removed):

“This annoys me. I have been giving to the Conservative Party for years, but it seems like the guys running the show there has just been waiting for an excuse to ask for more cash, to play more ads, and so on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

From: Doug Finley, Director of Political Operations [Conservative Party of Canada]

Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 11:30 AM

To: [Conservative supporter]

Subject: Liberal hypocrisy is back.

March 19, 2009

Dear [Conservative supporter],

Liberal hypocrisy is back.

After having their Leader and National Director decry the use of negative political advertising, the Liberal “War Room” has been actively promoting television-ready anti-Conservative attack ads on the web.

Given that the style, sourcing and messaging of the ads are identical to attack material being generated by paid Liberal staff, it's clear that the Liberal “War Room” is test-driving ads.

What does this mean?

First, the Liberals are sloppy . The Liberal “War Room” has tipped its leader's hand by demonstrating that the Party's opposition to attack ads and shallow, manufactured outrage is nothing more than a lie.

Second, the Liberals will say anything to win . The ads being promoted by the Liberal “War Room” are full of errors. Time and time again, the Liberal attack ads misquote and distort the words of our Prime Minister

Third and finally, Conservatives must be ready to respond . Unlike the Liberals, we can't rely on powerful special interests to deliver our messages for us. We need to have the financial and volunteer resources to fight back.

So please consider making a special, one-time contribution to help defend our Party and our Prime Minister from the Liberal attack machine – a machine that professes outrage at attack ads with one hand, while releasing vicious attack ads of their own with the other.

$50. $100. $200. Whatever you can afford. We will use your donation efficiently and wisely to prepare the Conservative Party for more attacks from the Liberal “War Room”.

P.S. Never forget that in 2004 the Liberal Party of Canada launched pre-campaign attack ads against Stephen Harper less than two months after he became leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Doug Finley
Director of Political Operations
Conservative Party of Canada

The former chief of defence staff and Canada's Most Popular General (TM) gives a speech tonight at a fundraising dinner for the Manning Centre for Democracy.

The speech kicks off a three-day conference the Manning Centre is organizing with an A-list crowd of Canadian conservatives in attendance.

So, is Hillier's speech his first-ever declaration he's rooting for the blue team (actually, he does root for a blue team — The Toronto Maple Leafs)?

He has in the past been courted by both federal Conservatives and Liberals to join their teams but has steadfastly avoided any public identification or endorsement of either party.

Since leaving the military, Hillier has joined a law firm and one of Canada’s big banks where he speaks about leadership issues.

The conference Hillier is headlining has sessions such as “A conservative response to the economic downturn”, “Ideological dimensions of Canadian conservatism”, and “Building a conservative movement”. Several Conservative MPs are participants, speakers, and panelists. Several individuals, such as Tom Flanagan and Ken Boessenkool, who are or were among Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s closest advisors are also part of the conference. There are no speakers or panellists who are closely identified with the Liberals, New Democrats, or Bloc Quebecois involved.

Hillier, in fact, is the only speaker on the conference agenda that is not officially associated with any particular party’s policy platform.

But is he a Tory? He was, after all, named Chief of Defence Staff by Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. And when he had high praise for then defence minister Bill Graham, some Conservatives privately wondered if Hillier was a closet Liberal. It was Graham who convinced Martin to begin to spend billions to revamp the armed forces. Harper took office on a platform to continue that expansion and while while the Conservatives did indeed do that, Hillier’s straight-talking style of communications sometime seemed to be working against the communications strategy then in place within Harper’s office. Several sources within the defence community and within Conservative circles said there was frequent friction between Hillier and Harper’s first defence minister Gordon O’Connor, a former general himself who had once commanded Hillier.

You may have heard that Warren Kinsella, Michael Ignatieff's election war room general, is suing Public Works Minister Christian Paradis and the Conservative Party of Canada. He says they've defamed him.

Today, as on several other occasions, a Conservative MP used his time in Members Statements — the 15 minutes just prior to Question Period where MPs can stand up and make a one-minute long statement on anything they want — to press Ignatieff to fire Kinsella. In the House of Commons, MPs have “privilege” which means that, though they must use Parliamentary langauge, i.e. no calling someone a liar, they cannot be sued for libel or slander so long as they say what they say in the House of Commons. Today it was Ontario Conservative MP Darryl Kramp's turn:

Mr. Speaker, top Liberal advisor, Warren Kinsella, has suggested that women politicians would prefer to bake cookies than to be in politics.

He said Chinese foot contains cat.

He has made threats to Ontario's public broadcaster, TVO.

He has even made threats to his own Liberal MP, the member for Pickering—Scarborough East, saying he “would tell the truth” about him.

Most recently, Warren has even been threatening the Canada-Israel Committee, saying that he would use his Liberal affiliation to get the organization blacklisted from his party.

Now Kinsella is even musing about suing the CIC, a non-partisan advocacy group.

Are his beliefs the beliefs of the Liberal Party? Does they believe they can threaten and bully people and make sexist comments about women politicians?

Will the Liberal leader not demonstrate leadership, do the right thing and fire him?

Kinsella has some thoughts about this.

Please see a new post with updated information on this story

Yesterday, a Liberal senator, Mac Harb, tried to table a private members' bill that would have effectively ended Canada's seal hunt.

A Conservative senator, Newfoundland's Fabian Manning, objected to this idea but rather than issue a press release from his own office or through the Conservative Party's press centre, Manning unleashed a partisan attack under the imprint of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Government departments need to communicate with Canadians from time to time on non-partisan issues and that's what the taxpayer-funded departmental communications staff is there to do. Departmental staff are not to be used to attack other federal politicians.

Manning, though, was just following the lead of the minister, Gail Shea, who, a few days earlier, had tried to use the cover of a news release titled “Government of Canada Defends the Right of Hard Working Canadian Sealers to Earn a Livelihood” to get in a shot at Harb in the last paragraph of that release: “It is my hope that Senator Mac Harb can appreciate the hardship his proposal will cause and stand with us in support of Canadian sealers.”

The press release from Shea would have been perfectly fine without that last paragraph as it set out some government policy and explained some steps the government was taking to defend that policy.

In any event, Harb's bill quickly died as it failed to get even one senator from his own party to second it. My colleague Janice Tibbetts wrote about this issue for today's papers.

Nonetheless, at 7:36 p.m., well after Harb's bill had died and well after Liberal MP Gerry Byrne had issued a press release denouncing Harb's ideas, Shea's office issued a press release denouncing a Liberal “hidden agenda”.

It contained this paragraph:

“While Liberals try and please special interest groups our Conservative government will seriously defend our sealers and we will continue to fight for the rights of hard-working Canadian sealers, on the international stage and here in Canada, so they may provide a livelihood for their families through our lawful, sustainable and humane hunt.”

Again, that's unusually partisan language for official departmental press releases paid for by all taxpayers.

Press releases with that kind of language are precisely the reason the Conservative Party of Canada employs Ryan Sparrow.

Calls are in to Treasury Board for the guidelines on this issue.

UPDATE:

While we're waiting to see if Treasury Board President Vic Toews or his designate has anything to say on this matter, my attention has been directed to the Treasury Board's Communications Policy of the Government of Canada.

Here is the section, from that policy, on values and ethics in official government communications, such as those released by Shea's department:

Values and Ethics

• informing the public about policies, programs, services and initiatives in an accountable, non-partisan fashion consistent with the principles of Canadian parliamentary democracy and ministerial responsibility;
• communicating in a manner that affirms Canadian values of freedom, openness, security, caring and respect;
• ensuring that public trust and confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the Public Service of Canada are upheld;
• honouring the value and reputation of the government and public institutions in all communication activities;
• working collaboratively with institutions to serve the public interest;
• providing useful, timely, accurate, clear, objective and complete information to the public in both official languages;
• respecting privacy rights, security needs and matters before the courts;
• avoiding conflicts of interest and the appearance or public perception of endorsing, or providing a marketing subsidy or an unfair competitive advantage to, any person, organization or entity outside of government.

Well, it depends.

Now, in Canada, you've probably heard about the famous “list issue”. It's been around since the spring of 2006, shortly after Harper first took office. Let me catch you up: If PM Harper gives a press conference and you're a journalist who wants to ask a question, you tell Harper's press secretary Dimitri Soudas ahead of time and then he calls out your name and away you go. If, as yesterday, Harper is only taking a limited number of questions, then all the journalists present huddle up (usually the English language reporters huddle is separate from the French language reporters) and choose, usually by consensus, who will ask the questions and what line of questioning that individual will pursue. Usually in these huddles, if you come up with a good question or topic, you will get to ask the question. But sometimes, a journalist with a good idea for a line of questioning knows that someone else in the group is better at actually phrasing and asking the question so maybe that person will ask a question decided on by the group.

Now, yesterday, with a rare chance to put a question to the world's most powerful and popular politician (um, that would be Obama, I'm talkin' about), it was, shall we say, a more heated discussion than usual in the Canadian journos' huddle. (I'm afraid, as I was not there, I must report this on second-hand information from others who were present.) The Canadians and Americans at the presser got precisely two questions each to ask. But even though there was some haggling, votes, and heated discussion among the Canadians, it was journalists – and not bureaucrats or political staff — who made the decision about who would ask the questions. And that's why you saw Radio-Canada's Emmanuelle Latraverse and Canadian Press' Jennifer Ditchburn ask what they did. Some, including Obama, seemed to dis Jennifer's question because she tried to shoehorn about five questions into one but I say, right on! (I've done it often, to the snickers of my press gallery colleagues). I say, if you get just one question, you squeeze in a pile of them. And I should note that she generated two good responses. Obama's “I love this country” came from Jennifer's multi-pronged question and Harper's vow on security came from Jennifer's question. But, again, these questions and the identity of the questioner was left up to the journalists. All Harper's press secretary Soudas did was call out the names of those other journalists had chosen.

Still, I should note that, normally, that's not good enough for some Canadian news organizations such as The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star who, two years on now, still refuse to participate in Dimitri's List. Though they can speak for themselves on this issue, I believe a reasonably accurate summation of their position is that while they believe it's up to the politicians to decide if they want to take questions or not and politicians can decide what the answer will be to those questions, it's up to the press to decide who asks the questions and what those questions will be. For the record: The organization I work for, Canwest News Service, would, by and large, agree with that and, indeed, participated in the boycott of The List for a period of time when it was first introduced in 2006. But after several weeks in which no one from the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery would or was able to ask the PM a question (the PM, quite happily, left Ottawa where reporters from regional news organizations were quite happy to go on The List and ask the PM a question), Canwest was one of the first to go back on the list in the belief that we were doing a disservice to our readers and viewers (who, ultimately, we try to represent) if we continued to abstain from our job of holding politicians to account by questioning them on their actions. Other news organizations, such as CTV, TVA, La Presse and so on quickly followed Canwest back on to The List.

But the PMO's attempt to control the Press Gallery via The List is nothing, it seems to me, compared to the control the White House has over the press corps there. “Canadian journos decide on their own who gets ?s and what they will ask. We, on the other hand, at Gibbs' mercy” wrote Christina Bellantoni, White House correspondent for the The Washington Times and one of those who travelled with Obama on Air Force One to Ottawa to get a first-hand comparative look at the issue. (Robert Gibbs is the White House press secretary.) The Wall Street Journal, too, has reported on how Obama has cherry-picked reporters to ask him questions at some of his events: “We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own [just like Harper can – Akin], so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites,” the Journal wrote.

This comes shortly after journalists, and I'm one of them, were thrilled that, on his first day in office, Obama issued this presidential memo:

The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.

Fantastic! But then his administration goes and undermines those heady words by playing silly head games with the White House press corps.

Harper and the Conservatives campaigned, to their credit, on reforming and broadening access to information laws and while they took some steps towards that, their promise on access to information remains largely unfulfilled. And, as I reported this week, there's still big problems just getting basic information and the government simply has not given its access to information offices enough resources (a story, I note, which the Opposition Liberals have picked up on.)

In any event: I think we come back to a point I've long held about any government be it Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, Communist, or you-name-it. Governments like to control the press. Period. We don't like to be controlled. Period. This is the way it has always worked and will always work. It's up to a responsible press to find ways to report accurately and fairly on politicians of all stripes. Politicians must recognize the vital role and responsibility that a free and fair press has in the maintenance of our democracy and refrain from any steps — however petty they may seem to those who hold power — that would infringe on those freedoms. At the end of the day, an engaged and informed citizenzry will hold both the press and politicians to account.

Technorati Tags: access to information, barack obama, e-democracy, journalism

In news likely to make headlines on blogs only, we have learned that the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association is demanding that federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff fire Warren Kinsella for what they allege are some racially insensitive remarks about Chinese food.

In a recent blog posting Kinsella likened the meat found in Chinese cuisine to cat meat:

“Back in the Big Owe for a couple weeks, so what better way to kick things off than with some BBQ cat and rice at the Yang Sheng, hangout of our youth? Yay!

Kinsella repeated the offensive comment in a video posting on his website.

Alex Yuan, chair of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association, said: “Our community is deeply concerned with Mr. Kinsella's comments. Kinsella repeats the most vulgar and offensive stereotypes by associating the meat served by Chinese restaurants to cat meat. He has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and disrespected the Chinese culture.”
Yuan ran for the Progressive Conservatives in the last Ontario election. He lost in the riding of Markham and the Progressive Conservatives generally were soundly thrashed by the provincial Liberals. Kinsella was a key player on the Liberal election squad that beat the Tories.
Earlier this month, Kinsella agreed to join Ignatieff's team to lead the Liberal's federal election war room.
I am also able to report that this matter did not come up at the just -concluded press conference Ignatieff held at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa.