Stephen Taylor

In and Out, Conservatives respond

A copy of a letter sent to the President of the Liberal Party Senator Marie Poulin and Executive Director Greg Fergus landed in my inbox tonight. It concerns Conservative Party assertions that statements made in a recent Liberal Party backgrounder on what they’ve named the “In and Out” scandal concerning the “Conservatives’ apparent scheme to violate election spending limits” are in fact defamatory. The Conservatives stress that “Chief Electoral Officer Marc Maynard…has not accused any of the candidates or agents of breaking the law”.

The letter concerns the defense of Michael Donison, Neil Drabkin, Andrew House, Aaron Hynes, Andrea Paine and Ian West. The letter states that “it is defamatory to suggest or imply that these individuals have engaged in illegal conduct”.

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In this document, found on the Liberal Party website, the Liberals seem to imply that rewards in the form of government jobs were received by candidates who participated in the scheme that the Liberals allege.

Liberal MP Dominic Leblanc stated,

“To date, we have learned that eleven of the former Conservative candidates and official agents implicated in this scandal were named to federal appointments or were hired in high profile government jobs. One has to wonder if there is a connection between their willingness to participate and employment by this Conservative government”

The Conservatives allege that such statements are libelous as the letter addressed to the Liberals reads, “In particular, it is defamatory to suggest or imply that the positions that these individuals have or have had on Ministers’ staffs are “rewards” for having engaged in illegal conduct.”

The Conservatives seem to assert that the Liberals must prove that their accusations are true or else the Grits have libeled the aforementioned individuals.

Please read Steve Janke’s groundbreaking posts concerning this story, here, here and here.

CBC, politics and Facebook

The other day, I discovered a tool on Facebook for advertisers that allows a prospective ad buyer to narrow down a potential target group for the purposes of showing an advertisement to a particular demographic. For example, one could select the United Kingdom, the city of London, females, aged 18-35, who like “Painting”, and have selected their relationship status as “engaged”. You’ll find that out of a pool of 1,612,980 people in London (or of 6,407,580 on Facebook in the UK), you’ll be targeting your ad to 140 people specifically based on the breakdown above.

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So, I thought another breakdown might be interesting.

Facebook boasts 7,361,720 accounts in Canada. Of these accounts, 1,340 are at “CBC / Radio Canada”. If one then checks off “Liberal” as a delimiting factor, we’re left with 180 accounts. If we uncheck “Liberal” and check “Moderate” we get 40 accounts. Now, if we uncheck “moderate” and select “Conservative” we get “fewer than 20” (Facebook seems to measure accounts for this application in blocks of 20. I assume that less than 20 could mean anywhere from 0-19 accounts).

So, to summarize, there are 1,340 Facebookers at CBC. Of this group, 180 have self-declared as Liberal, 40 as Moderates, and 0-19 as Conservatives.

Of course, this isn’t a scientific breakdown of political inclinations at CBC. After all, it could be possible that Conservatives are much more shy about posting their “Political Views” on Facebook. Further, one cannot confidently say that Facebook is representative of the population at large. This is simply data presented “as is”, for your consideration.

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UPDATE: For those that have asked about the Canadian breakdown on Facebook, out of 7,361,720 Canadian accounts on Facebook, 618,240 are self-declared Liberal, and 281,840 Conservative. This is a 2.2:1 Liberal:Conservative ratio. In contrast, CBC has at least a 9:1 Liberal:Conservative ratio among its self-declared political people with Facebook accounts.

Ignatieff laughs behind Dion’s back

I was sitting up in the gallery on the day after the Speech from the Throne to catch the show after question period. Stephane Dion would be making a decision regarding what path his party would take in response to the government’s proposed mandate for the next parliamentary session.

Observing the Commons first hand can be quite different from watching it on TV. Particularly, the television coverage, wired in and directly controlled by House of Commons staffers often omits peripheral detail when it focuses in on the parliamentarian who happens to be speaking. Thus, catcalls and taunts between government and opposition benches are often barely heard on the television feed. However, this noise can be highly distracting when one has a front row seat.

What the television coverage captured, and which I missed because of my vantage point, was Michael Ignatieff chuckling along with Conservatives when they tossed barbs in the direction of the hapless Stephane Dion when the Liberal leader was delivering his response to the Throne Speech. I had even heard from an observer afterwards that Ignatieff had placed his hand over his mouth to stifle laughter while Dion was speaking.

So, I went back to check the videotape.

The first clip shows Ignatieff smirking and even rolling his eyes at one point . The second clip shows the deputy Liberal leader smiling, grimacing hard and then finally burying his face in his hand. It appears to be a man trying, but without much effort, to contain composure.

Here’s an excerpt what Sheila Copps (former Liberal leadership candidate and now Sun columnist) had to say about the incident:

While Dion has been fighting for his political life, Ignatieff underlings are doing everything possible to finish him off. With friends like those, Dion doesn’t need Conservative enemies.

While Ignatieff has recently taken to the airwaves in support of Dion, his face during the throne speech told a different story.

One eye cocked, and a smirk bubbling below the surface, at one point he even joined Tory guffaws at Dion’s awkward delivery. With Ignatieff’s poorly disguised glee, don’t expect the hemorrhaging in the Liberal Party to end any time soon.

and from Aaron Wherry of Macleans.ca:

The catcalls, meanwhile, grew louder — the government wits even winning a laugh from Ignatieff. As those who remained in the press gallery took turns groaning, the Conservative caucus descended into fits of giggles.

It has also been reported that Ignatieff remained seated for a number of standing ovations that the Liberals gave Dion during his speech. Here’s what Don Martin wrote:

One Liberal’s reaction was particularly telling. When all other MPs rose to celebrate a rare good jab in Mr. Dion’s address, deputy leader Michael Ignatieff seemed to stay in his seat most of the time. I’m not sure whether this was a sudden attack of leg cramps or the opening shot of a leadership challenge, but the optic was hard to miss.

Here’s a video summary of the standing ovations given to Dion during his speech. Also, look for Dion’s quick check of Ignatieff who isn’t applauding like the rest of caucus at 1min 18s (-1:41)