On that Globe and Mail endorsement....

The Globe and Mail editorial board endorses Redford and The Albertaardvark editorial board calls bullshit.

Not on the endorsement itself because they can do what ever they like, on the BS that they use to justify it. It reads like someone in Toronto read a PC campaign pamphlet and wrote this up, with no idea of the reality on the ground in Alberta. As a blogger I would be embarrassed to post this kind if drivel and here is so much wrong that I don't know where to start; but instead of trying I might as well do little fisking since it's been awhile.

Globe and Mail italicized in blue
Ardvark editorial board comments in black

After four decades in power, their traditional base fractured by defections on the right, Alberta’s governing Progressive Conservatives suddenly find themselves underdogs in Monday’s election, trailing the Wildrose Party. There is a mood for change in Alberta. The question is, which party best represents change: The upstart Wildrose under leader Danielle Smith, with its populist brand of conservatism? Or, odd as it may sound, the Conservatives under Premier Alison Redford?

Yes, there is mood for change in Alberta but is not just change for changes sake, which in itself is never a bad thing with any government in power for long periods of time, it is because the PC's have been a bad government and their record has been terrible, including the disastrous 6 months under Redford. Redford isn't change, or at least real change.They are just as inept and secretive as they have always been and one has to look no further than the Gary Mar situation or how she handled the no-meet committee situation.

The answer is surprising. As a change agent, Wildrose is remarkably change-averse.

Yes, a party less than 5 years old with a fresh vibrant leader and new ideas is not change. Got it. Thanks G&M.

The party shows no leadership with regard to Alberta’s critical oil-sands industry. Its main policy document barely mentions the oil sands (and then only to complain about public funding for two “anti-oil-sands documentaries”). Ms. Redford, by contrast, is more positive; her Canadian Energy Strategy would facilitate the shipment of oil-sands oil to Asia, the U.S. and Central Canada; she also promises to help fund oil-sands extraction technology. 

For the record the Wildrose green policy book has 10 pages dealing with energy/resources while the PC's has 2, but that is a side issue; this is Alberta. Energy is tied into almost everything that we do here in one way or another, to claim the Wildrose has no ideas or has shown no leadership on this issue is asinine. As for Redford's NEP lite, getting our oil to other markets is not exactly a new idea and her promise to fund that technology comes at a cost of 3 billion dollars that was not in her 2012 budget.

In health care, the Conservatives are also more constructive and imaginative. They promise 140 family care clinics, where not only doctors, but nurses can provide services, an innovation that will relieve the pressure on emergency wards. They also talk about “fast-track” emergency rooms, where obvious ailments will be diverted for quick treatment. In response, Wildrose promises wait-time guarantees, failing which the procedures will be done out of province or in private facilities – sort of a hangman’s approach to health care. 

After reading this paragraph it was clear that the Globe and Mail had no clue as to what is going on out here if they are using the clinics and 'fast track' promises as a selling point for Redford. The clinic idea was announced by Redford last month BEFORE the election call and was only to be 3 clinics in a pilot project to see how the idea would work. Fast forward 1 month later and before any of the 3 opened their doors or could have possibly be evaluated, it has morphed into 140 and will radically alter health care in this province in spite of a direct promise from Redford to follow "all 21 recommendations" of the HQCA. BTW the main recommendation was:  'that the government undertake no further major re-structuring of the health-care system without a clear rationale, a transition plan and consultation'; which is just one reason why the Alberta Medical Association is against Redford's 140 clinics. You would think that the Globe and Mail might just mention that Alberta's doctors are against this but why ruin an agenda with silly facts like this or that Alberta has not only a doctor shortage but a nursing one as well, so who is going to staff these 140 clinics, or how much will they come up with the 700 million that these would cost? I am aware that the PC's claim that they will cost us nothing as they will reallocate existing health care money to the clinics but that leaves out the big question as to what they will cut in order to find that 700 million. As for the fast track idea, well that was written off almost as soon as it was announced because it is essentially what our hospitals are already doing. That days biggest joke was that Redford invented 'triage' but it really is no laughing matter as the head of emergency medicine said of Redford fast track plan "so out of touch it's startling"

Clearly, these policies do not account for the surge in Wildrose support. This is a party that failed to elect a single MLA in the 2008 election. Now, polls suggest it will form the next government. So what, then, is behind its rise? 

In 2008 Albertans were foolish enough to believe the PC's and the change from within that they promised would occur with that fresh new leader Ed Stelmach. It is the same promise again from the PC's with Redford but this time Albertans are not buying it. BTW which Wildrose polices is the G&M referring to? If mentioned they were glossed over or dismissed outright yet the G&M "Clearly" claim that they could not possibly account for the raise in support. It is a cheap blogger trick and should be beneath the G&M but yet clearly wasn't.

Some of it may relate to its adoption of “Alberta first” or “firewall” rhetoric. Despite Alberta’s enormous, and growing, economic might in Canada, and its considerable political influence nationally – with a Conservative government led by a Calgary MP – Wildrose has still found fertile ground with the insular little Alberta narrative.

 I guess endorsing Redford also means that the G&M also gets to use the PC fear mongering too; "firewall"? There is no firewall mentioned ANYWHERE in any Wildrose policy, that is the same stuff that the Liberals and Toronto media have been trotting out for years to scare people about PM Harper. Stay classy G&M. If looking at the feasibility of a provincial pension plan or police force is a firewall, which is where this smear came from, than I think the G&M had better look a lot closer to home because both Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police force, and Quebec it own pension plan.   How 'insular" is that?

But Wildrose’s growth began, not coincidentally, when the province was hit hard by falling energy prices in 2008-9. Government spending had jumped, public sector pay greatly outpacing the rest of the country. Then, the Alberta government saw a projected $8.5-billion surplus evaporate, and instead posted a $1.4-billion deficit. The government responded to the recession by joining the worldwide consensus in favour of stimulative spending. 

The timing may be correct for the start of the, 2008-09 but they fail to mention the numerous other issues that many people had at that time with the government Ed Stelmach, oil royalties, the 30% pay raise, land use laws, and a gov't that appeared to run out of ideas.


The Conservative record on fiscal policy, then, is the central issue in the current campaign. 

Thanks Toronto for telling Alberta what the "central" issue of the campaign "is" and get it completely wrong. How did Alberta ever make it this far without you. Oh and I would say it is the incompetence, arrogance and abandonment of anything remotely conservative by the present government that is the issue; fiscal policy is part of that but hardly the 'central issue'.


Wildrose has been campaigning with a “debt clock” and has launched fierce rhetorical attacks over Conservative “mismanagement.” Its leader, Ms. Smith, is an effective communicator and a fresh face, but there’s little fresh in Wildrose’s response on fiscal policy; many of its ideas come from the halcyon era of King Ralph. In the 1990s, Progressive Conservative premier Ralph Klein was a leader among Canada’s first ministers in deficit reduction. His government introduced balanced budget legislation in 1995. By 2004, he was able to announce that Alberta was “debt-free” and, awash with energy royalties, his government awarded Albertans a $400 “prosperity bonus” (popularly known as “Ralph bucks”). 

Imagine that, Albertans happy with a government that does not spend more money than it has. Pure insanity! (you have to remember the G&M is from Ontario and the concept is totally foreign to them out there. They did did endorse McGuinty after all) Also notice how they mention that Ralph passed balanced budget legislation but fail to mention how Stelmach, with Redford in his cabinet, rescinded that law?


For its part, Wildrose promises to restore the balanced budget legislation, and – yes – to pay Albertans energy dividends, now called “Dani dollars.” The party projects these payments as totalling $12,000 for an Alberta family of four over the next eight years. As for Alison Redford, she has been the Premier for only six months, but is answerable for one budget, which saw nearly every ministry receive increases; health-care spending went up by 7 per cent. More restraint should have been shown. 

They get something correct, more restraint should have been shown but this gov't cannot seem to cut anything, ever.

Even with such increases, defended as necessary in a province that leads the country in population growth, the Conservative budget still projects Alberta’s deficit will be eliminated in 2013-14, with a $5.2-billion surplus in 2014-15. This will be achieved without any new taxes, or even any user fee increases. Instead, Alberta will accomplish it from an expanding tax base through population increases and resource royalties expected to nearly double from 2011-15.

 We lead in per capita spending, even with that population growth, but do not lead in results/value for money. We have heard the deficit promises before and the reality is that the PC's have not lived up to them. The Stelmach gov't promised that we would ALREADY be out of deficit and "back in the black before the Redford budget was even written, and the promise of a 400 million surplus by next year has been blown out of the water with Redford's 7 billion dollars in un-budgeted election spending promises. As for the numerous claims about no tax increases, that has also proven to be nothing but a lie as the education portion of our property taxes has already been increased. 

The Conservatives have signalled their intent to save more, not just by replenishing the rainy day Sustainability Fund that was used to maintain Alberta’s debt-free status, but possibly also to build up the Heritage Fund. As a TD analysis of the budget put it, “having to make a choice between saving for tomorrow or spending today is a challenge that other provinces in Canada could only dream of.”

Wildrose’s message of change, then, is concerned less with what Alberta can be, than with what Alberta was. It is a political response to a fiscal dilemma that has all the trappings of a failure of confidence. Canada needs Alberta to step up, not step back. The Conservatives have ruled for a very long time, but they have a new leader and are the party that speaks for the best kind of change. It is time for a big Alberta on the national stage. 

Yes Redford did more than signal an intent to put more money into those funds she made a promise. A forgotten one because if she was to put the promised 4-5 billion dollars/year into the Heritage and Sustainability funds, how would a 5 billion dollar surplus be possible in 2014-15 as she has also promised? It can't be both, unless you are the G&M and then anything Redford says is gospel even if reality says otherwise. The next part of this paragraph again goes into the big bag of PC rhetoric and pulls out the loaded terms 'can be' vs 'was', 'step up' or 'step back' as if there really was a time machine that could take us back. The reality is there is ONLY the future and if that future is a choice between the fiscal responsibility of Klein vs the incompetence of a McGuinty (who the Globe and Mail also endorsed) than I think the majority of people would go with Klein way.  BTW the WIldrose promises not only balanced budgets and also contributing to both the sustainability and Heritage Trust funds but also a surplus as well. More inconvenient truths left out of the Globe and Mail fluff piece endorsement of the tired PC government and Redford. 

It is clear that the Globe and Mail are not the biggest fans of the Wildrose, in fact they were forced to change 2 very misleading headlines ( which they did without ever acknowledging the changes or their bias error), and  I get that coming from a Toronto paper, but shouldn't Canada's so called "paper of record" at least make the effort to provide its readers with the facts rather than just crib from the PC Alberta website? I know as a blogger I would be embarrassed to publish this void of reality nonsense.

The Globe and Mail forced to change a headline... again.

Now you see it.

 Now you don't.

For the second time in less than a week, the Globe and Mail has had to change a headline on a story due to public outcry. The first was on March 29th when the headline read "Wildrose would nix funding for costly Oilers arena if elected, Smith says"

With "Wildrose wouldn't fund costly Oilers arena if elected, Smith says" as the first one was factually wrong as NO party has ever agreed to fund the arena and which makes it impossible to "nix" something that doesn't even exist; but both headlines claim that is what "Smith says".  Odd that and even stranger that they made both changes without even acknowledging they did so.

And it happened again last night when the Globe removed the loaded word "childless" from their headline on the Gary Mason column, which itself is a total mess that starts off factually wrong in the very first paragraph by calling Amanda Wilkie a "party worker" ( see BC Blue for all you need to know on that and how either Redford or Stephen Carter were not telling the truth) and then makes the audacious claim that the tweet would not have been a story if Daniel Smith had not issued the press release: "Huh? There was no story until she made it one." which also happens to be the premise of Mason column and also happens to be dead wrong.

It was a story; I saw the tweet as soon as it was posted and I also saw the immediate response; both being re-tweeted by many PC supporters and the backlash by the majority, and when it became clear that this was a staff member from Premier Redford's office it became more than just another smear on twitter, it became a story, it became NEWS. I even blogged about here.


While facts and reality are not much in abundance in Mason's column, irony certainly is.
-Like Twitter busting the Globe and Mail about the headline on a story written about a tweet.
-Or a story that goes into 'gender politics' and asks if Smith were a man would we be even talking about this, itself uses 'childless' in the headline.
-Or that the author of a story about a tweet doesn't understand twitter ( if he did he would know why this became a story).
-Or that a story which says that the issue was kept alive and driven by politics is now keeping the issue alive by the story and has become news itself!
-Or that a story about Alberta politics is listed under British Columbia. Okay, that last one wasn't irony. Incompetence yes, irony no.

And speaking of irony: I love it when people use the word 'huh?' to try and express some kind of mental superiority and end up looking not so superior when they turn out to be totally wrong.

That is our professional media for you. I think Ill stick with the blogs.



Related:

The Globe and Mail headline the day Redford became Premier: "Alberta steps into the present"

A copy of the now deleted twitter account of Amanda Wilkie. Please note that this was not the first tweet that was suspect as there are a few doozies in there including:

- Wildrose supporters are  

- “ignorant rednecks” 

- “Bipolar Tories”

- “ethics & integrity aren’t part of @ElectDanielle character”

Unanswered questions from November 2008 and some from today.

October 14th 2008: Canada holds a federal election resulting in a conservative minority government.

November 19th 2008: The Speech from the Throne.

November 27th 2008: The Government releases its economic update

November 29th 2008: The NDP hold a conference call telling their MPs about the secret coalition talks with the Liberals and Bloc.

In the taped conversation (highlights below in video, with complete version available here. pt1 and pt 2) Jack Layton speaks about the secret negotiations with the Liberals and the Bloc on a coalition and the NDP role. Calling it a "catalytic role actually" and bragging about how the NDP were the "glue" for all of this and how they had "prepared for the opportunity" and because they had made those preparations early they were ready when an opportunity came up.

Of note are the following quotes from Jack Layton:

"This whole thing would not have happened if the moves hadn't been made with the Bloc to lock them in early."   "The first part was done a long time ago, um I won't go into details."




  
To my knowledge Jack Layton has NEVER stated exactly when those negotiations with the Bloc first started and I am unsure if he was even specifically asked that question by our MSM at any time since Nov 2008. Thomas Mulcair at the time stated that his party started talking with the Bloc only after the government's Nov. 19 Throne Speech, but if you listen to Layton's words it seems clear that these negotiations had begun more than just one week (The first part was done a long time ago) before this conference call occurred and for all we know the talks could have started 1 month earlier during the election campaign itself.

So here we are 2 1/2 yrs later and in another election campaign where the MSM are following the leaders across the country and covering their every word.  Isn't it about time that they asked Jack Layton to come clean on the 2008 negotiation time-line details and more importantly ask ALL of the leaders if ANY such negotiations ( by anyone within their respective parties) have occurred recently or are occurring at this time?

The MSM blew it on their coverage in 2008. Will they do the same thing in 2011?

Do your job and ask the damn questions that Canadians want to know about!

Jeffrey Simpson: When the facts don't support you, just make stuff up.

Are there any editors at the Globe and Mail?  I have to ask because in Jeffrey Simpson's column today he manages to get away with writing something that is a complete fiction*, and not on some minor obscure fact or even on something that could be considered passable as it may skirt on the edge of truthfulness either. No, Simpson totally gets the Liberal tax policy wrong and to make matters worse he does so while claiming to be correcting the record on the subject! 

From his column today:

"Falsely, the Conservatives are insisting that the Liberals want to “raise” taxes, whereas, in fact, the Liberals propose to forgo coming corporate income tax decreases, a quite different approach from raising taxes."

To put it simply: What Simpson wrote is total bullshit. 

From Liberal.ca: "The Liberal Party of Canada has put forward a motion today in the House of Commons calling on the Conservative government to reverse $6 billion in tax cuts for Canada’s largest corporations back to 2010 levels in the upcoming Budget."

There are of course numerous other examples available because the (already well known) Liberal tax policy does call for raising the corporate tax rate back to pre Jan 2011 levels (which IS a tax increase) and a simple Google search or even a quick look at numerous articles from Simpson's own paper easily proves. I am not going to waste my time listing them all as there is no need to do so, but I do have to ask; 

why didn't Simpson already know the readily available facts and just how does such a blatant error make its way past the editors, who should also know or if they didn't perhaps they could check, and into 'Canada's newspaper of record'?

 

BTW Jeffrey, adding the words "falsely" and "in fact" to a BS story does nothing to help its credibility, it only hurts the credibility of the writer; and that sir is a fact.

 

 

* and by complete fiction I do mean a lie.

Green Party Candidate and EDA President protest at Bev Oda's office....

and the media (in this case owned by theTorStar Corp) leave out the direct ties to the Green Party of the 2 protesters.

Link to story at durhamregion.com with the somewhat cryptic " With files from Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star" found at the bottom of the page. ( BTW Check out the picture; the arrows on their signs point the wrong way, LOL)


What the story left out:

Protester #1: Is Virginia Ervin, the "CEO Durham Federal Green Party Association and former GPC candidate for Durham.

Protester #2: Is Gail Bates, Green Party Candidate for Oshawa.


I guess they didn't think it relevant to reveal political ties when doing a political story.  Maybe it is something in the water but there seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

Compounding bad journalism: an example from this weekend.

It is bad enough when examples of poor journalism, not so much simple errors but the blatantly obvious stuff, gets published but when that same bad journalism gets cited or used in the works of others it not only exposes the laziness of our MSM, it also shows us the inside baseball, don't criticize/question those in the bubble mentality, that is prevalent among our so called professional journalists.

On Saturday Susan Delacourt filed a piece in the Toronto Star under the headline: "Tories planning a spring election?"  in which she wrote that a source had told her that a Conservative Party fundraiser had called them up on the phone and let it slip that there would be an election on March 29, 2011; 'letting the cat out of the bag'.  Delacourt went on to write that the CPC had denied the Mar 29 date but basically ignored the denial and continued on with the premise of a March 29th election going so far as to formulate just how a March 29 election date was possible by counting back the days on a calender and checking the House of Commons schedule before 'assuming' that PM Harper would be paying a call on the Governor-General asking for Parliament to be dissolved forcing an election. 

When I initially read that story on Saturday morning I started a blog post where I Fisked the article line by line but soon gave up as it became clear that the entire story was too much of a joke for anyone to take seriously.  It looks like I was wrong and that I have seriously underestimated the ability of some in Canada's main stream media to show even the most basic common sense in their reporting. (more on this later)

First off the entire article was based on hear-say, which should always raise red flags as to the reliability of the information. Hear-say evidence is so unreliable that rarely, if ever, is it allowed to be used a court of law.


Next the story is based on the totally implausible premise that a person working the fund-raising phone bank, who may not even be a party supporter, would themselves have such deep knowledge of the most secret party policy & time-lines and then would divulge that secret information to some random person who they have never met and who told them that they were not even a party supporter.  (Seriously, that does not make sense in any way, shape, or form)

And lastly, the entire theory of a March 29 election is flat out IMPOSSIBLE because Canadian federal elections always take place on a Monday, unless it is a statutory holiday which is not the case.  One might think that those reporting on Parliament might know that, but obviously they don't or this story would never had seen the light of day or had any type of afterlife.



But this blog entry is not about the Delacourt story, it is about how others in the media have decided to compound this bad journalism by using/citing her story with the (impossible) March 29 date in their own work ignoring the obvious problems and the many criticisms from out of the bubble.Delacourt's article was blasted in blogs and comments across the land within hours of its publication and one didn't even have to venture past the comments at the bottom of the page at the Star to realize that the story was bunk and its value questionable. Yet it lived on.


First the Toronto Star: "Reports over the weekend said Prime Minister Stephen Harper is considering a federal election for this spring with a possible date of March 29."  ( Not to be critical but shouldn't that read report, you know without the S?) Not that I am surprised that the Star would use the nonsense from Delacourt as they were the ones that published it in the first place, but considering all of the criticism her original piece garnered wouldn't you think that an editor somewhere might pick up that there might be a problem and that perhaps it would not be the best source to use in another story? Of course that would assume that they bother listening to any criticisms or even care about truth or accuracy.


The next example comes from Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press, but her use of the 'March 29th' date was not to come in print form as one might expect from the Canadian Press reporter with the Parliament Hill beat. Instead Jennifer would go on national television to tell the entire country about the March 29, 2011 election day theory based solely on Delacourt's article . Listen to what she said below.

She starts out by praising her "fine colleague Susan Delacourt" and then proceeds into the March 29 election date theory laughing with Jane and Craig. While Ditchburn seems to just be reporting what her colleague wrote and may not have known how badly that article had been trashed, although I find it hard to believe that a reporter could read that article and not have concerns or questions, she gets something fundamentally wrong about Delacourt's story. Listen to it again and note that it appears that she is saying that an election will be called March 29th and not held on March 29th. Interesting because if you read the article it is quite clear that it says an election would take place ON March 29th as the very first line reads: "The Conservatives are planning for a March 29 election..."  and later on reads: "“She replied that the election would be on March 29th..."  and still farther into the article reads:   "A March 29 election would have to be called sometime before Feb. 22 for a minimum, 36-day campaign. But since the Commons is not sitting that week in February, it’s assumed the election would be kicked off simply by Harper paying a call on the Governor-General and asking for Parliament to be dissolved."

So what was Ditchburn really trying to say on during her Question Period segment?  I was not so sure at first and thought that maybe I would not be able to use her comments for this blog post as she seemed to be just reporting on what Delacourt had written, as I and others have done, but I subsequently found out later Sunday evening what she did intend to say about the March 29th date and also answered my question about the suitability of using her comments at the same time.

It all came to be when she responded to a Tweet I had made earlier in the evening.

albertaardvark: To @SusanDelacourt @jenditchburn & others pushing the Mar 29 election theory... Elections are always held on a Monday! That is all.

jenditchburn: @Albertaardvark I think the person meant Mar. 29th as the day for dropping the writ.

So there you have it.  Ditchburn was indeed trying to say that the election would be called March 29th and not be held on March 29th; making me wonder, considering how wrong she was about its contents, if she had actually read the Delacourt article that she cited on national television, but leaving no doubt at all that her comments fit into a blog post on bad journalism.

Related: another fine example of journalism from Jeniffer Ditchburn. Guergis had a history in the clubs with the hometown playboy.

 -------------------

As stated earlier, many bloggers had written about the Delacourt article. In time I will try to link to them all below. (let me know in the comments if there are others)

http://bcblue.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/who-exactly-is-this-don-burroughs-in-stars-delacourt-story/

 

http://hincheysstore.blogspot.com/2011/01/for-my-200th-post-have-i-got-story-for.html

http://unambig.com/conservatives-to-call-election-says-unknown-person/


http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-*#*#-is-don-burroughs.html (NSFW)

and of course Blue Like You where you will find plenty of comments on this subject in the comments!

CTVGate: CTV cuts 2 seconds out of Ignatieff's answer

And what a difference 2 seconds can make.

Watch the video.  (Now available on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egy2POCd8tM )

  

What Ignatieff actually said: "”We think that Bill Gates, the secretary of defence, knows full well the problems with the F-35s,..."

What CTV chose to put on the air:  ”..., the secretary of defence, knows full well the problems with the F-35s,..."

A big difference don't you think?

Imagine that, CTV left out a major gaffe by a politician. Perhaps it is their policy not to show slip ups of politicians, or than again maybe not as the very next segment aired dealt with another gaffe from a politician, this time our Minister of National Defence.

One was given its own story, while the other seemed to be edited out and never mentioned.

Why the difference in coverage?


Update: Even in their print stories on this subject, CTV manages to leave out Ignatieff's "Bill Gates" quote :
 Gates "knows full well the problems with the F-35. This thing is late, it's over-budget," Ignatieff told reporters at an event in Montreal. While Peter MacKay's comment gets fully reported on in print by CTV.     (HT to Joanne @  BLY)

Update3: How important are gaffes to CTV? Do they think they are worth covering?:  If you look at the pic from Lisa LaFlamme's twitter account below, you can see that in the week previous she made 6 tweets.

2 of those were about MacKay's gaffe and the CTV coverage of them. 

So yes, it does look like CTV not only believes that gaffes are important and worth covering, they also appear to believe that their coverage of those gaffes was worthy of promotion over the other news of the day.

So again I have to ask; why the difference in coverage between what Peter MacKay said and what Michael Ignatieff said?


Update 2: During the same presser and after the Bill Gates gaffe, Ignatieff had the gall to attack Peter MacKay on his gaffe: "Well, I just think our minister of defence should get a map," 

Too funny.  Michael Ignatieff, he does not attack people (40 second mark), he attacks irony.

HT Wilson in the comments @ Blue Like You.

Mark Holland faces reality and apologizes, something he said he would never do.

Liberal MP Mark Holland, of secret box fame, has issued an apology after asserting back in March 2008 that he would not: Mr. Holland, the MP for Ajax-Pickering, yesterday said his comments did not warrant an apology and said that no bullying or legal threats would stop him from searching for the truth...

OTTAWA, Oct 8 /CNW/ - Today Mark Holland made the following statement with regards to the legal action between him and Mr. Chris Froggatt:
In an interview broadcast on CTV Newsnet on March 5, 2008, I made certain statements regarding Chris Froggatt, then Chief of Staff to Canada's Minister of Environment, and communications between Mr. Froggatt and the Ontario Provincial Police. I have since determined that my concerns regarding Mr. Froggatt were unwarranted. I apologize to Mr. Froggatt and retract the statements that may have caused grief to him and to his family.
This action has now been settled to the mutual satisfaction of both parties.

Here is what Mark Holland said in the House (March 11 2008) on this subject and how he claimed it was his privileges being violated. In other words he had no clue and thought he could say whatever he wanted wherever he wanted.

I have repeatedly questioned the Minister of the Environment about his involvement in both the actions of Mayor O’Brien and his dealings with the OPP in this matter. It was those questions that led to the CTV Newsnet interview, of which Mr. Froggatt now complains.
It is clear that the primary goal of Mr. Froggatt is to prevent me from continuing to raise the very serious questions that I have about his actions and the actions of the Minister of the Environment with respect to the OPP investigation.
Mr. Froggatt is well aware that he is unable to directly control what I say in this House. As a result, he has chosen to attempt to intimidate me outside the House by threatening a lawsuit should I refuse to withdraw my earlier comments and refrain from accusing him of inappropriate activity.
I believe that the involvement of the Minister of the Environment in a bribery scandal and improper interference by the chief of staff to a minister are two issues that are clearly of public importance. Indeed, I have laid these issues before the House on a number of occasions. Mr. Froggatt’s attempt to stifle debate is clearly a violation of my privileges.

Smack down #1 from Peter Van Loan:

The fact that one is a member of Parliament does not give one licence to make reckless accusations that harm the reputation of any individual in this country, regardless of one's position or status.

     Any comments that are made outside of this chamber, outside of one's direct role in the House, are comments for which a member must assume responsibility, comments which they should recognize have risks and that they should have a basis on which they can defend the truthfulness and accuracy of those remarks...

  We protect members within the House to allow for freedom of speech but we also respect the rights of every citizen and recognize that there is a difference between what Parliament means and what the House means. It is by virtue of membership and participation in the House that those privileges exist. It is for the protection of what happens in this chamber that those privileges exist. It is not to give individuals licence to engage in reckless behaviour and destroy people's reputations without any basis, which is exactly the conduct that the member continues to engage in outside the House.

    On that basis, he must, as any other citizen outside the House, be prepared to defend those comments, not to cry like a baby that he is not allowed to say what he wants. He must assume the adult responsibilities for the truth of the comments he makes. If they are not true, then he should own up to the lack of evidence and own up to the lack of truth and be prepared to defend those words in court. That is all he is being asked to do.

Holland still did not get it:
 Mr. Speaker, my comments are very clear. I stand by what I say both in this House and outside of this House.

    The issue is when members of Parliament in trying to execute their duties as members of Parliament ask legitimate questions of the government about matters of deep concern to the country, matters that are well reported, are sued by individuals who try to do indirectly what they cannot do directly, to try to intimidate individuals into not asking legitimate, fair questions on matters of fact, in my opinion, that is a serious attack upon the privileges of members of Parliament.

     I believe the courts are being abused and used to try to stifle the abilities of members of Parliament to ask questions.

Smack down #2 From the Speaker: The complaint was all about statements he had made on a television program, and those are not ones that are subject to parliamentary privilege.
As has been pointed out by the hon. government House leader, a privilege exists in respect of statements that members make in this House, but also in committees. Something he neglected to mention is that comments in committee are also protected. Statements made outside the House are not protected. If the hon. member received a letter that alleges he said something that was defamatory of someone else–and that is what I sense from the segment he read–somewhere other than in the House, then the question of privilege is not available to him to have this matter somehow protected under that guise.


Now if only if he would apologize to Alberta for his remarks about nationalizing the oil sands.  Transcript of conversation here, Hollands letter denying his own words(and slamming Premier Stelmach) here.

Anyone see a pattern here?

ht The Phantom Observer 

Related:
Stephen Taylor gets letters (where is the media coverage?)


Update: October 15th (1 week later)   The Canadian MSM FINALLY picks up on the story.   What took them so long, and more importantly, if this was a Conservative does anyone really believe that the CBC, CTV, Globe and Mail, etc would have not have been all over this story from day 1 as opposed to the ZERO coverage it has received by them? 

Rosemary Barton responds with fallacious reasoning

The CBC Rosemary Barton finally responds to comments she made on live TV during the long gun registry vote. See blog post on the quote here and listen to the actual quote for yourself.

The original quote: " ..it may be fair to point out that the Conservatives are whipped on their position here, so even of there was a Conservative MP from Quebec that didn't feel comfortable taking this position they would be forced to vote ah with their party in the same way the Liberals were."

Here is what she had to say today on Twitter. (my thoughts in parenthesis)

From BC Blue: @RosieBarton Rosie, is it true you called the Con caucus "whipped" on the Registry vote?

RB Reply:  @bcbluecon I said they were voting along party lines. Is that wrong?  (that is not what she said)

My reply:  @RosieBarton Actually you said CPC "are whipped on their position here... forced to vote with their party in the same way the Liberals were.

RB: @Albertaardvark do you have proof that's wrong?  (No proof for her statements, asks me to disprove her words instead)

My reply: @RosieBarton I know it is wrong but I didn't make the statement. BTW do u have any proof for your allegation?

RB: @Albertaardvark well, I guess we'll just disagree on what we know then. Cuz I'm not sharing either.

My reply: @RosieBarton So U will not offer proof of YOUR statement but it is up 2 me 2 disprove what u stated.Is that how accountability is done @CBC? 

Wow. The logic she is using  is mind blowing. No proof or defense of her own statement but rather she calls on me to disprove her words! I believe that this would be called fallacious reasoning and I can't seem to find it anywhere in the CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices.



Try that same logic with this one Rosie:
I say that the CBC has many Satan worshipers in its employ.*    Prove me wrong! 

The burden of proof lies with the person making the affirmative statement, and should not be placed on someone else to disprove that statement, which in the case of Satan worshipers at the CBC or the existence of unicorns would be impossible to do.






I thought I did a good job of showing why there was no need to whip the CPC to vote for what is a CORE policy of the party on this vote in my original post but let me add another quick point. Michael Ignatieff is out on record, multiple times, saying that he is whipping the Liberal vote, there is no record of PM Stephen Harper doing likewise. Does that sound like CPC MP's were "forced to vote ah with their party in the same way the Liberals were."


* exaggeration  for effect. Or was it. Prove me wrong.







UPDATE: Rosie, who it appears can't take criticism or defend her own statements, has blocked me from following her on Twitter.  Stay classy Rosie.


Latest Update 25 Sept: Rosie has now Protected ALL of her Tweets from being viewed. You now have to be one of the elite few selected by her to have the pleasure of seeing what she does while at work at the CBC on your dime.




  

Globe and Mail Televison reporter angling for a different assignment?

Be afraid, be very afraid; because John Doyle, the Globe and Mail TV reporter (yes that really is a paying job) is on to us and our evil right wing ways. In his latest he goes on the attack of the proposed SunTV and happily smears a good percentage of the population in the process, and in typical lefty fashion does the same thing that he accuses others of doing, missing the irony of it all.

Some excerpts: (my comments in parenthesis)

..if it’s anything like the Fox News channel in the United States, it certainly won’t be a news outlet. It will be entertainment. Fluff. Frivolous opinion delivered as fact. That is, showbiz. (What was that you wrote about opinion delivered as fact again? To save me typing, feel free to apply this comment to the rest of Doyle's 'facts')

Right-wingers are as predictable in their news-babe preferences as they are in their conspiracy theories about the CBC. ( That is a mighty wide brush you are painting with there John)

The barking-mad Fox News Channel is something that most Canadians have only heard about. They could watch it, because it is widely available here, but hardly anybody can be bothered. Except, obviously, for those behind this new outfit – Quebecor Media President Pierre Karl Péladeau and its VP of development Kory Teneycke. (Seriously, Barking mad? And yes, only 2 people in Canada have watched Fox News)

Teneycke used to be “Our Glorious Leader” Harper’s snippity spokesthingamajig. Recently, he’s been a pundit on CBC News Network, doing his best to imitate a Fox News pundit, all drive-by sneer and shaky foundation. ( Doyle, all fact all the time. No time for hyperbole with him.)

Instead, I suspect, it will be Erickson swapping bons mots with a giggly Levant, while Rex Murphy, the Red Green of political pundits, waits off-screen to deliver a thundering denunciation of people who oppose catastrophic oil spills. ( Attacking Rex Murphy is never a bright move John. Rex shows more writing skill when addressing a letter than you have with this entire article.)


And my favorite:

An entire channel run by, and aimed at, people who believe that political or social dialogue is advanced by name-calling. The people who support Fox News – here and in the U.S. – must be the most uncivil and foul-mouthed creatures on the planet. They'd give soccer hooligans a run for their money. This is an informed opinion. (Again that rather large brush of smear comes out but this time it is more than just baseless slander, it is an "informed opinion". What is this informed opinion on supporters of Fox News "here and in the U.S" based on you ask? "E-mails from Fox News devotees in the U.S.", and none from Canada.)


And he wrote it all without ever watching a single second of SUN TV!


I look forward to Doyle's next column on the make up and thoughts of the people of New Jersey based entirely on his opinion and the Jersey Shore.

Something for Kory Teneycke to consider the next time he is interviewed.

Here is something that Kory Teneycke could consider doing the next time that the media attacks interviews him on the proposed Sun TV where predictably he will be called out for being an conservative and asked if that will influence the new networks balance.

When asked about his conservative stance, which to his credit he readily admits, Kory should again say that yes he is a conservative and that he has no problem admitting this; then he should turn to whomever asked him that question and ask them:

What about yourself? Who do you support and why don't you let your viewers know so they can filter your work and possible biases appropriately?


Watch this little exchange on CBC's Power and Politics with Don Newman for an example of what I am talking about. What would have Newman of Soloman said if he would have asked them to come clean and be honest with CBC viewers?

Want to make a bet that he would not get an honest answer if he did ask?

Sorry about that. We already know what would happen and I don't expect anyone to be dumb enough to actually make a wager on a question that is the definition of a sucker bet.


The only downside is that Kory wants to get media attention; not drive it away.


Related: Mark Steyn's thoughts on the hyperventilating media. (I hear he may be looking for a TV gig ;)

Nik Nanos thinks dissent will kill the Liberals election chances

Nik Nanos thinks dissent will kill the Liberals election chances.



Maybe they need to start a culture war to save the day. Oops, wrong pollster.


Related: I wonder if KoryVision is looking for an in house pollster?

BTW KoryVison looks to have hired Krista Erickson, Yes that Krista Erickson.

They have a handful of hires and they are already more balanced than the CBC!

If Don Newman doesn't like Fox News, why did he steal Bill O'Reilly's slogan?

Most of you are already aware of the proposed "right leaning" news network that is being put together by Kory Teneycke for Sun Media and the recent bizarre article written by Don Newman against such a network.

I use the word bizarre for a couple of reasons. First because nobody who works at a government funded network that does not have to raise it's own money to operate has any business ever criticizing a privately funded network, which is forced to compete against it's own government (CBC), and second, because Newman spends more time writing about the merger of the Liberals and the NDP ( BTW Don believes this to be some kind of conservative plot which shows just how messed up his thinking really is) than he does about the proposed new network.

Don writes in his article that "Fox News has been hugely polarizing. It specializes in drive-by attacks and misrepresentations, and is positively Orwellian at times, claiming to be "fair and balanced" while implying that its competitors aren't. The reality is that it mainly spews out propaganda that is dangerously misleading and often factually wrong."

This is all kind of funny considering that Don Newman, while he was the host of "Politics" on the CBC, "borrowed" the well known tag line (The spin stops here) from the very popular Fox News show The O'Reilly Factor (the highest rated news program in the USA).

I guess when you use the "propaganda" for yourself Don that makes it all OK. Do yourself and the rest of us a favour and stay retired.




Bonus video courtesy of Proud to Be Canadian who has been on top of the shenanigans at the CBC for years.

Bill O'Reilly on Don Newman and the CBC: "The theft starts there."

The coalition returns: It’s not hyperbole to state that on the outcome of the next election rests the future of Canada as we know it.

"It’s not hyperbole to state that on the outcome of the next election rests the future of Canada as we know it."

Um, yes it is, but don't let that stop you Glen Wheeler. Tell us more.

"In sum, we have social conservatives in government slowly remaking the country according to their own political vision."

"Despite the odds in favour of the most right-wing and reactionary government in living memory retaining its hold on power in a federal election likely in less than a year..."

"As a Liberal and executive member of a Toronto riding association, I have some fear myself of being labelled disloyal. My day job as in-house lawyer for a labour union may provide more fodder for accusations that I am an NDP interloper and not a true Grit." (Glad you said it and not me)

"Unlike career hacks, we peons have little to lose, other than the country as we know it."


Hyperbole much Glen?



My favorite line: "That way, coalition will appear to be an answer to public pressure rather than the last resort of losers."

Nice use of the words "will appear" as in it will look like, but in reality will still be, the last resort of losers.

Finally some truth.

"I decided to disclose this event to the public because I play a public role and consider that I must be transparent at all times,"

Pablo Rodriquez: "I decided to disclose this event to the public because I play a public role and consider that I must be transparent at all times,"

All is good except for the little detail that Mr. Disclosure and transparency came clean a full 28 days AFTER the incident.


I wonder what took him so long and if the the big news 28 days ago might have had some influence on just how transparent he was.


ATTENTION MSM: When did Ignatieff find out about this, and was he running in front of any camera available slamming Rahim Jaffer knowing full well what was going on with his own MP?

You might want to ask Iffy the next time you see him because he is all about good timing. Or is he?


Monday update: Bias? What bias?

CBC to investigate if its news is biased.

What they should be investigating is reporter bias, which in turn leads to biased stories, but at least this is a start. (or an attempt to whitewash?)

The CBC has commissioned a study to determine whether its news is biased, the president of the public broadcaster told the Senate finance committee this week.

“Our job — and we take it seriously — is to ensure that the information that we put out is fair and unbiased in everything that we do,” CBC President Hubert Lacroix said.

I am not sure who the third party is that will be doing the study but if they want examples, the blogs are full of them.


Updated: As I noted above, the blogs are full of examples of, lets call it shaky, CBC coverage.

CS put this up tonight listing a few recent examples and his comments are a great place to list the examples you know of, but if you really want a more complete look at all things CBC visit Joel at PTBC.

Feel free to let the CBC know your thoughts here.

Even when they are writing about bias they still take a shot at conservatives: "Lacroix’s comments come on the heels of weeks of criticism from Conservative loyalists who disagreed with the CBC’s decision not to acknowledge that one of its house pollsters and frequent guest on the air also donated substantial sums to the Liberal Party."

"Conservative loyalists"? Labeling people just because they disagree with you is not the way to show that you have no bias CBC, but then again EVERYONE who had issue with this had to be a conservative, right?

And on the Graves thing, it is not about donations specifically but rather that his loyalty or his advice to the Liberals based on polls paid for by tax dollars was NEVER disclosed. Say it with me; full disclosure.

The Star, G&M, and Canwest forced to CHANGE reporters at Gitmo.

Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, Steven Edwards of Canwest, and Paul Koring of the Globe & Mail have been banned by the Pentagon from returning to Guantanamo Bay.

The Pentagon noted that this ruling can be appealed and now Canadians everywhere along with the Obama administration await to hear what Canwest, The Toronto Star, and the The Globe and Mail have to say?


Initial reports from the NP here. The Star here. Globe and Mail here.



Pissing off our allies. Just another reason why military documents should not be seen by the press or any Gilles, Jack, and Iggy who happen to temporarily occupy an office in Ottawa.

Helena Guergis beat me up and stole my lunch.

Traffic has been kind of slow lately so I figured I would try to get picked up by National News Watch. For those of you that don't know, NNW had a link up yesterday to this story and continued to keep the link up even though within a short period of time the story was debunked by many people, including the author of the blog that the Hill Times blog entry was supposedly based on.

One good truth deserves another, so here is my 'truth'.


Helena Guergis beat me up and stole my lunch.


Wow. That was kind of liberating. As my therapist says; the road to healing starts with being able to speak about traumatic events, and let me tell you the day that Helena beat me up and stole my lunch will live in infamy in the annals of my personal traumatic events.

It also feels good to join the pile on; you should give it a try as well. I hear that it is all the rage at present.


Come on National News Watch, what are you waiting for? Do I need to write a letter to my MP to get some action from the press on this outrage?

This guy is going to get himself fired from The Star...

Thomas Walkom is going to get himself fired from the Toronto Star if he keeps writing stuff like this.

Some excerpts from "How Harper won the recession":

"International finances remain wobbly.

Governments around the edge of Europe, in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece, are in danger of defaulting on their debts. Questions are being raised even about Britain's debt load.

Spooked European governments are being pressured to cut back on the very spending that has kept these nations from collapsing into depression....

...However, in Canada, all of this seems very far away. In Toronto, housing prices remain hot. Interest rates are at rock bottom. Inflation is low. Unemployment, while high, remains below the levels experienced in the recessions of the '80s and '90s.

Unemployment is America's number one topic. Here in Canada, pundits fret not about joblessness but the federal deficit.

The Harper Conservatives have used all of this to shift public discussion into what they hope will be more optimistic channels.

That story, sketched out in Wednesday's Throne Speech, is that the bad times are effectively over and that the country can now set its sights on a brighter future – one in which, under the leadership of a far-sighted Harper government, Canadians will be able to replicate the achievements of their Olympic athletes and create a brand new tomorrow.....

....None of this means that Harper is necessarily fated to win the next election. Much can happen between now and then.

What it does mean though is that, barring a second economic crisis, he will not be blamed for this recession. He may even be credited for any recovery.

And that is a very big plus."

Read the entire article at the Star, and wish Thomas luck. He might need it.

You may have missed this yesterday

A couple of things that you may have missed yesterday thanks to the ever vigilant and balanced Canadian MSM.

McGuinty prorogues the Ontario legislature. Heard about it? No; why not? Wasn't the outrage over the "anti-democratic" practice of prorogation recently the subject that the media couldn't stop talking about? When the PM prorogued it was on TV for days on end, it was the subject of hundreds of columns in the papers across the country, and there were few if any political blogs that didn't weigh in on the topic. But when McGuinty does it we get almost nothing for coverage other than a couple of stories and some of those deal more with a bizarre press tradition than the subject of prorogation, which we were recently told by that very same media, outraged Canadians so much. Why the double standard? Kady? Anyone?

Does anyone but me find it odd that legislative press galleries have actually developed their own traditions revolving around prorogation? It is almost as if proroguing was a common occurrence or something, but that couldn't be because that same press was saying something entirely different just a few weeks ago. Weird.




And speaking of outrage, or rather a lack of it, where was the MSM on the recent revelation that an outbreak of Liberal flu is imminent and that they are going to be playing games with the vote on the budget?

Yesterday Ignatieff came out and said that the Liberals were going to vote against the budget, but there would not be enough Liberals to show up to vote against it to force an election.

Wow. Just freakin' wow. Why is the MSM in this country just regurgitating Liberal press releases and taking democracy lessons from Ignatieff, a man who has NEVER won any nomination/leadership contest in his life, or the Liberal Party who ignored the wishes of its own members and party constitution by letting a handful of unelected people appoint Ignatieff?

Think about it for a minute. There are only 2 possible ways that the scenario Ignatieff expressed can occur. The first is to ask for volunteers from among the ranks of Liberal MP's for those who want to avoid doing their job (remember prorogation and how important it was to be on the Hill working) and to not represent those that elected them by being absent from the vote, or Ignatieff chooses which MP's are going to be allowed to be there to represent the people who elected them to do their jobs. Either way it is not an example of how democracy should work and considering all of the outrage over prorogation from the Liberals since before Christmas and which continues to this day as shown yesterday when in oral questions the first question that Ignatieff asked was on prorogation, how the hell are the Liberals getting such a free ride from the media on the hypocrisy of the whole thing?


I should not get my hopes up too high because even if the media did ask Ignatieff about the particulars of how he is going to accomplish his plans for the budget vote (or on anything else for that matter) he would use his standby answer and say that he 'does not answer hypotheticals' in one breath and then claim that he is offering the Canadian public a real alternative in another. An alternative that does not answer any specific questions or offer up any policy I guess, but the media would buy it and give him yet another pass. I might as well hope that the MSM call out Jack Layton for his complaints about tax breaks for banks and corporations, the very same tax cuts that he signed off on and agreed to implement when he was negotiating to be part of the coalition. Sadly though I doubt that either one will happen.


Update: another Liberal talking point bites the dust.
"Flaherty’s travel arrangements became news last weekend when CTV broke the story that he had flown to London on a government jet rather than going commercial at a cost of $800.

As it turned out, one reason Flaherty used a government plane was so he could be up in time to do an interview with, uh, CTV, which initially reported he had commandeered a Challenger at a cost of $9,000, much more than the Cessna Citation he actually flew on at a cost of $3,100. Oh, and because he was doing 11 radio and five TV interviews in the morning, three staffers were along. So their equivalent commercial costs of $2,400 meant Flaherty was actually saving $100."