The general

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

Conservative Senator Doug Finley, one of the primary architects of the Conservative party’s electoral success, who is now stricken with cancer, reflects on death and politics.

Along with his team, Finley ran one of “the most successful political campaigns certainly in Canada in the last 20 years” against former Liberal leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, who took the reins of the party in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Not waiting for the writ to be dropped, the attacks even began before the 2008 and 2011 elections. It was called “of the constant campaign” — because in the minority situation, the threat of an election was always on.

“When you offer to go into the back alley to have a fight, you better come armed to win the fight,” says Finley. He and his team came up with a strategy which would utilize the Liberals’ own words and actions against them. For Dion, it was lack of confidence. For Ignatieff, it was foreign professorial ambitions. “There were no lies or ambiguities. I would call them not attack ads, but factual ads,” says Finley. “They were based on a very strong amount of research,” he says. “As the campaigns evolved, both of these gentlemen fed into the picture we painted of them.”

Doug Finley roasted

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, November 5, 2012 at 8:43 PM - 0 Comments

A tribute dinner was held to honour Conservative Senator Doug Finley at the War Museum. Proceeds went to the Scottish Society of Ottawa.

Picking sides in Calgary Centre

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at 1:51 PM - 0 Comments

Joe Soares has the endorsements of Rod Bruinooge and Doug Finley, while Greg McLean has the endorsement of Lee Richardson, Calgary Centre’s last MP. Now, Joan Crockatt announces the endorsement of Mike Duffy.

We Conservatives have a great story to tell. Joan Crockatt is the perfect candidate to help get a strong conservative message out to Canadians. If you’ve ever seen Joan interviewed on television you know what I mean: she has an uncanny ability to control the debate and to win people over to our side.

She is a communicator who can beat Liberals and New Democrats on the doorsteps and in the media. In fact—I’d put Joan Crockatt up against Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau on a television panel any day of the week.

The vote for the Conservative nomination is scheduled for Saturday.

See previously here, here, here and here.

Another year’s federal politics in 12 chapters

By John Geddes - Friday, December 30, 2011 at 2:07 PM - 0 Comments

Stages in the legislative process that make a bill law in the Canadian Parliament; ministers (not including the Prime Minister) on cabinet’s powerful Priorities and Planning committee; former political figures (not including sovereigns or social activists) memorialized in bronze around Parliament Hill—twelve is the number in each of these interesting categories. But for our purposes here, in this second annual stocktaking of the year just ending, it’s the 12 calendar months that matter. Pick just one political story for each page, and 2011’s kaleidoscope might just take a turn from jumbled to intelligible.

January: We glimpsed how Ignatieff thought a leader should look

By the start of 2011, we had long since figured out Stephen Harper’s disciplined style and thought we understood the limits of Jack Layton’s appeal. But Michael Ignatieff had taken over as Liberal leader in an odd way, with no conventional leadership race to bring him into focus. Instead, Ignatieff had been defined for many Canadians by Conservative attack ads. For those who had paid attention to him before politics, his globetrotting-intellectual persona still loomed large.

Then came his Jan. 25, tone-setting address on Parliament Hill to the Liberal caucus, with the media invited in. This was no detached thinker. Sleeves rolled up, Ignatieff ripped through a 15-minute speech in which he mocked Harper, invoked Barack Obama, and answered his own question—“Are we ready to serve the people who put us here?”—with a shouted, “Yes, yes, yes!” Hopeful Liberals saw a fiery campaigner, astute Conservatives a man ripe for ridicule. We didn’t know it then, but this was a clear foreshadowing of the campaign to come.

February: We watched Conservatives smoothly execute a key transition

As an opposition leader and especially as Prime Minister, Harper has shown a remarkable ability to shed and replace chiefs of staff, communications directors, and other key advisors. But the one constant in his electoral machine was the beard and brogue of Doug Finley, his  campaign director. When Finley stepped down at the very end of January as he recovered from colon cancer, the party began a testing transition. Guy Giorno and Jenni Byrne stepped into new roles.

For a lesser partisan machine, the loss of a figure as dominant as the Scottish-born Finley would have been a marked setback. Instead, the transition seemed to go off without a hitch. Spring election speculation continued unabated. As for Finely—who ran Harper’s winning 2006 and 2008 campaigns and was rewarded with a Senate appointment in 2009—Twitter awaited.

March: We marveled as the PM fell, yet defined the moment his way

It was no surprise when the Conservative minority was voted down by the opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois on March 25. The House had been an increasingly fractious and angry place. The actual non-confidence vote, only the sixth in Canadian history, found the  government in contempt of Parliament for refusing to supply full cost estimates for fighter jets, crime bills and corporate tax cuts.

Yet Harper largely succeeded in burying those reasons by asserting doggedly that the real issue was the opposition’s refusal to support his government’s budget. “There’s nothing, nothing, in the budget that the opposition could not or should not have supported,” he said. “Thus, the vote today that disappoints me, will, I expect, disappoint Canadians.” His refusal to even minimally acknowledge that the election was triggered by anything other than a clash over economic priorities carried him into the campaign and, arguably, to victory.

April: We absorbed the potential of Layton’s NDP surge in Quebec

The orange wave surged over Quebec so unexpectedly that even senior NDP veterans had difficulty knowing what to make of it. By April 23, when Jack Layton climbed to the podium at Montréal’s Olympia Theatre to address his party’s largest ever campaign rally in the province, the possibility of an NDP breakthrough was widely acknowledged. The Bloc was running scared. The Tories and Liberals were looking elsewhere in the country for any gains.

At the back of the Olympia, Layton’s young Quebec organizers spoke, wide-eyed, of a dozen or so new Quebec seats being within reach. That seemed remarkable enough. Yet had they been able to fully take in the spectacle of Layton podium performance, and the crowd’s reaction, they might have dreamed bigger. Holding his talismanic cane aloft, smiling as only he could, hitting his applause lines like the pro he was, “Bon Jack” embodied an unlikely convergence of long, careful political preparation and recent, inspiring personal determination. You can’t make this stuff up.

May: We experienced Harper’s majority win as an inevitability

It’s an illusion of course, maybe even a delusion, to think anything in politics had to happen the way it did. There are always too many variables. Still, Harper’s May 2 election victory had that it-was-written feel about it. He steadily built toward the moment, from his near miss in 2004, through his two minority wins in 2006 and 2008. The train was rolling toward this destination.

And Harper’s campaign-trail consistency was remarkable. His rallies were a model of methodical planning and error-free execution. He refused to be badgered by media complaints into taking more reporters’ questions or exposing himself to unscripted encounters with voters. He stuck to his key economic message even when Layton’s rise might have unnerved a more skittish campaigner. Election night was full of compelling stories—Bloc and Liberal failures, NDP ascent—but it belonged, in the end, to the Prime Minister.

June:  We shrugged as a political financing experiment was cancelled

On June 6 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty reintroduced his spring federal budget, which was never passed in the rush to an election, with a key twist: Flaherty added a measure to phase out the $2-per-vote subsidy to political parties by 2015-16. The taxpayer subsidy was introduced by the former Liberal government in 2004, to compensate for the curtailing of corporate and union contributions.

The Conservatives’ first attempt to get rid of the subsidy, announced in the fall of 2008, triggered the ill-fated bid by opposition parties to form a coalition and replace Harper’s minority. But with Harper leading a majority, there was no chance of his being thwarted this time. Few Canadians took much notice. And so an attempt to make raising money less central to our politics comes to an end. Constant, clever, insistent fundraising appeals to the party faithful—a Tory strong suit—will be essential to any party’ success for the foreseeable future.

July: We saluted as our troops left a battle zone still in question

When Canadian soldiers moved in large numbers into Afghanistan’s violent southern province of Kandahar in 2006, military and political leaders were unprepared for how much the mission would come to dominate foreign and defence policy. The hard fighting they were soon engaged in was unlike anything Canadians had experienced in decades. Before exit day, 158 Canadian soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan, along with a diplomat, two aid workers, and a journalist.

The last Canadian commander of Task Force Kandahar, Brig.-Gen. Dean Milner, didn’t really want to leave. He would have preferred to stay a bit longer to help the Americans, whose troop surge into the province had put the Taliban on the run and stabilized previously volatile districts. Canadian troops remain in Afghanistan, but mainly engaged in training the Afghan National Army. But the years of fighting changed the place of the military in the Canadian public imagination—and Canadian political calculations.

August: We mourned Jack Layton, moved by what he’d come to mean

The death of the NDP leader on Aug. 22 at just 61 was not entirely surprising. The previous month Layton had announced that he was battling cancer for a second time, his ravaged face and desiccated voice shocking the country. But the way he died was unprecedented. He drafted a farewell letter and organized a public funeral in Toronto, knitting together the personal and political in his final weeks and days in a way that made them indistinguishable.

Layton came at the end to represent, in an era of deep cynicism about politics, an unapologetic zeal for total immersion in public life. All through the spring campaign, struggling back from a broken hip, Layton had exuded his relish for the democratic fray. Facing death, he didn’t shy from explicit partisanship. “Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us,” he told the New Democrats in that last letter, “that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.”

September: We were reminded by judges that even majorities face setbacks

With Parliament in session again, the Conservatives sitting pretty with their fresh majority, it seemed that nothing could slow the implementation of Stephen Harper’s vision. Then came the Sept. 30 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the federal government could not shut down Vancouver’s Insite supervised injection clinic for intravenous drug users.

The unanimous 9-0 decision delivered a rebuke to the Conservative position that Insite’s clear track record since 2003 of helping addicts avoid infections and overdose deaths should be trumped by the government’s desire to send a strong anti-drug, law-and-order message. The ruling also validated the pro-Insite positions of the British Columbia provincial and Vancouver municipal governments. For those left disheartened by Harper’s resounding spring victory, the court offered a fall tonic.

October: We witnessed the lasting emotional power of a populist cause

From the time it was implemented in 1995, the federal registry for rifles and shotguns was deeply controversial. In the broadest of strokes, rural gun owners resented it, while urbanites who feared gun crime approved. Opposition gathered steam after a 2002 report from Auditor General Sheila Fraser put estimated the registry tab would climb to $1 billion by 2005.

With hot-button right-wing populist issues like abortion and capital punishment largely off the table in Canadian politics, the long-gun registry took on disproportionate importance for that portion of the Conservative base. Harper extracted maximum political benefit from attacking the registry. On Oct. 25, the bill to eliminate it was finally tabled in the House. A drawn-out, culturally fraught episode in Canadian political life was coming to a bitter close. Even the data in the registry was to be destroyed, so no province or future federal government, not to mention police force, could make use of the information. Few outcomes politics are so categorically one-sided.

November: We took comfort from a Canadian’s prominence in troubled economic times

The Cannes summit of the G20 club of major developed and developing nations was dominated by gloomy, even alarming, news about Europe’s deepening debt crisis. This was the backdrop for the appointment of Mark Carney, the Bank of Canada’s youthful governor, to head a key oversight body called the Financial Stability Board. Never mind what the FSB does—highly technical banking stuff. Pay attention to what Carney represents—solid Canadian economic management.

Carney is a fascinating story in his own right. His assessments of the state of banking regulation, economic policy and its international coordination, are parsed closely by rapt global market players. Beyond his personal qualities, he embodies the new Canadian swagger concerning our sound banks and solid government finances. But can Canada’s political and business leaders build beyond those oft-mentioned fundamentals to more innovative manufacturing and competitive service sectors?

December: We watched a familiar national shame unfold in the hinterland

On the first day of the last month of 2011, the federal government imposed what’s called third-party management on the Northern Ontario reserve community of Attawapiskat. That meant an administrator appointed by Ottawa would run the Cree community of 1,800 on James Bay, where a crisis of abysmal housing began drawing national attention in late November.

It was yet another example—they happen every few years—of a burst of media attention to the plight of an impoverished, remote First Nations village briefly forcing Canadians to contemplate the worst policy failure of successive federal governments. But how to break that desultory cycle? As Attawapiskat took centre stage, the Harper government was quietly introducing legislation to reform band council elections and improve financial transparency. Maybe this incrementalism will help where past grand gestures did little.

The charges

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 25, 2011 at 9:38 AM - 32 Comments

Elections Canada has now issued a short statement, including the official charges.

The charges were officially laid by the Commissioner of Canada Elections William Corbett. More on previous sentences and compliance agreements here.

Charges laid

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 10:41 PM - 145 Comments

An anonymous Conservative official tells the CBC, Postmedia, CTV and the Star, that four party officials have been charged by Elections Canada in connection with in-and-out campaign financing: Doug Finley, Irving Gerstein, Michael Donison and Susan Kehoe.

More background from Pundits Guide here and here. Kady O’Malley has the official Conservative talking points on this “long-running accounting dispute.”

How the Conservatives plan to turn a minority into a majority

By John Geddes - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 8:37 AM - 92 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

From his second-floor office in Parliament’s East Block—once John A. Macdonald’s lair and still appointed with some of his furniture—Sen. Doug Finley has a direct sightline across Wellington Street to Stephen Harper’s office in the Langevin Block. He points out the Prime Minister’s window for a visitor. Asked if they ever wave to one another, Finley deadpans, “Not much.” Neither man is known for his playful gestures.

What they are known for is partnering to reshape the federal political landscape. But that relationship is now changing. Finley, 64, is undergoing chemotherapy for colorectal cancer, and is stepping down as Harper’s campaign director. He’ll remain, though, a key adviser to the Tory machine, which he largely assembled and kept oiled for eight years. He recently summed up his role this way: “I’m not the world’s greatest strategist, or the world’s greatest pollster, or the world’s greatest advertising man, but somebody has to pull these bits together.”

That’s a deceptively chipper job description for a notoriously hard-driving party boss. Finley’s few moments in the public spotlight solidified his reputation as a tough customer. He was once ushered out of a House committee room by security, after he showed up at hearings demanding to testify according to his own timetable, refusing to wait to be called. He banished would-be Tory candidates who didn’t meet with his approval. He lashed out at the CBC in a fundraising letter to Conservative supporters.

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What goes on here

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 9, 2010 at 4:47 PM - 0 Comments

A day after a Conservative senator gleefully threatened an election over a legislative dispute, with the NDP leader “challenging” the Prime Minister to recall the House, the Prime Minister appointed a failed Conservative candidate to the Senate, thus rendering the previous 24 hours of facetious chest puffing entirely moot.

What happened to you guys? You used to be cool

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 9, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Two of Stephen Harper’s senators are now openly quibbling with the idea of a fully elected Senate—another three apparently reluctant to say where they stand.

Boisvenu told QMI Agency he believes Canadians are more in favour of an elected Senate but he believes the chamber should be mixed, with 50% appointed and 50% elected. “If you look currently at who is in office, I’m not sure we always elect the best people,” Boisvenu said. “The danger of going with a fully elected Senate is that you risk getting people who are more interested in politics than ideas.”

… While a handful, like staunch Ontario Conservatives Bob Runciman and Doug Finley pledged full support for an elected Senate, senators Mike Duffy, Irving Gerstein and Glen Patterson refused to say whether they still support the government’s legislation.

Hebrew University on the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, May 31, 2010 at 8:44 PM - 13 Comments

The Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held a special reception on the Hill to celebrate Canadian-Israeli partnerships. Below, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Diane Finley with her husband, Senator Doug Finley.

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(Left to right) Sammy Katz, Transport Minister John Baird and Tyler Golden.

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Carmi Gillon, vice-president of external relations for The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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The case for Doug Finley

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 11:59 AM - 14 Comments

Richard Albert bravely makes the case for senators Finley, Stewart-Olsen and Plett.

That the prime minister chose to reward party stalwarts should come as no surprise. If ever there were an immutable law of political leadership, there it is, in full bloom. Patronage, neither a good thing nor a bad thing, is the lifeblood of politics, a simple fact of conventional political practice. But what critics failed to appreciate is that Harper’s choice of Finley, Olsen, and Plett reflects principle, not patronage…

Sure, the Harper troika exercised immense power in their respective roles as advisers to the Conservative party and the PMO. True, they were all close to the centre of the political universe. And it is certainly undeniable that they now take pride and pleasure in serving in the august Senate, one of the greatest privileges in Canadian politics. Yet none of these reasons was the impetus that spurred them to action years ago when the Conservatives had not yet even been reunited and a return to 24 Sussex seemed virtually impossible.

Harper's Nine

By kadyomalley - Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 11:19 AM - 78 Comments

THE MOST IMPORTANT UPDATE OF ALL: Confirmed, finally — the nine new senators:

• Claude Carignan
• Jacques Demers
• Doug Finley
• Carolyn Stewart-Olsen
• Don Plett
• Judith Seidman
• Linda (Frum) Sokolowski
• Kelvin Ogilvie
• Dennis Patterson

Official PMO bios available here.

So, according to Stephen Taylor’s secret inside sources, the latest round of Senate appointments could be announced as early as 1pm today — although that could just be a cruel prank by a puckish PMO that has no intention of breaking with tradition, and will instead keep us hanging and wondering and pestering an increasingly surly Doug Finley with phone calls until sometime next week. What? I’m just saying there’s a reason why that 4:57-p.m-on-the-Friday-before-a-long-weekend timeslot is such a cliché.

This is, alas, one of those waiting games that really doesn’t lend itself terribly well to ITQ’s style of breaking news coverage, what with there being no formal ceremony — it’s not like the lucky nine have to head over to Rideau Hall to be sworn in by the Governor General — but that’s not going to stop her from liveblogging the latest developments in this post, which the rest of y’all can feel free to use as an open thread.

To get you started, a few links to the coverage so far:

CanWest News: Harper poised to make 8 Senate appointments
The Globe and Mail: Harper to appoint close Tory backers to Senate
The Canadian Press: Published reports say Harper ready to fill up to nine Senate vacancies
CBC.ca: Harper Senate appointments coming: sources
Winnipeg Free Press: He united the right, now he’s in the Senate

Unlike cabinet shuffle speculation — a guilty pleasure in which we haven’t gotten a chance to indulge in far too long, incidentally — everyone seem to be hearing the same three names from their respective sources: Doug Finley, Don Plett, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen. CanWest’s David Akin – who, ITQ should point out, was first out of the gate with the leaked names — reports that Bob Runciman is likely to get the second Ontario spot — after Finley, of course — and also lists  as defeated Conservative premier Rodney MacDonald as the favourite for the Nova Scotia seat, and Conservative organizer Judith Seidman for one of the two Quebec slots.

That’s all for now, but be sure to check back for updates throughout the day.

12:01 PM

Okay, now ITQ is nonplussed — via twitter, Taylor now says that the announcement could come as early as, well, now-ish, since the PM has an event in Quebec. Which sort of makes her go “Huh?” since prime ministers very rarely announce senate appointments at an event, especially before a media availability, but whatever. Also, he’s up against Manitoba premier Gary Doer possibly announcing his resignation, and wow, this day is totally getting interesting, isn’t it?

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'A better democracy'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 7:02 PM - 81 Comments

Conservative election platform, 2006. Canada is a democracy, yet our democratic system has not kept pace with the needs of a changing society. Paul Martin used to talk about a democratic deficit, but his actions as Prime Minister have deepened it. A new Conservative government will be committed to significant democratic reform of our Parliamentary and electoral institutions.

Canwest News Service, tonight. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is preparing to reward some of his longest-serving and most loyal political operatives with Senate appointments that could come as early as this week, Canwest News Service has learned. Doug Finley, who has been the political master strategist for the Conservative party in its first four general elections, will lead a pack of eight Senate appointees that includes Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, who was Harper’s second-longest serving aide before her retirement this summer, and Don Plett, who will have to resign as president of the Conservative Party of Canada if he accepts the $132,000-a-year job as senator.

'We have bonded ourselves to our fantasies'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 11:27 AM - 40 Comments

Glen Pearson responds to Peter Donolo’s response to that Conservative fundraising letter.

How does getting anyone angry over nothing assist the political process? It doesn’t. In fact, it demeans it. Proof of this just came out over the weekend. New statistics were released showing how people view our federal political system, specifically for the years between 1999-2009.  Approval of the federal system during that decade dropped to 50% from 65% in Atlantic provinces; to 55% from 68% in Ontario; to 54% from 61% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan; and to 40% from 64% in Alberta.

The awful thing about this is that all parties know it, especially the present government, and yet it continues. Why talk about democratic renewal within parliament when we’re all bleeding voters in the country through a collective act of self-flagellation? If we admit that the more negative we get as parties the more the voter turnout declines, then why do we do it?  The answer? Because the first party that blinks could get crunched by the one that doesn’t. And so we continue, one maddening negative ad after another.

'Mine the anger'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 3:58 PM - 7 Comments

Peter Donolo finds hope in fury and indignation.

“[The Finley letter] is right on target in terms of the type of appeals they make, and Liberals in opposition need to be able to mine the anger, anxiety, concern that is out there with a large cross-section of the population that they hope to win votes from and translate into cash,” Mr. Donolo said.

You know what we do to people like that

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 10 Comments

Doug Finley wants to know who might’ve whispered sometthing to the Telegraph-Journal.

Presumably so that person can be given a high-ranking job in government.

Apropos of nothing (IV)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 6:40 PM - 88 Comments

So we’ve touched on Doug Finley’s life outside Canada, the variety of Conservative MPs who’ve spent time beyond on our borders, the formative years of our most well-travelled prime minister, and the details of what Michael Ignatieff did with those 34 years. And we’ve clarified that no citizen should have his or her commitment to this country questioned on the primary basis of time spent living or working abroad.

Some questions for further discussion. Continue…

Apropos of nothing (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 6:00 PM - 44 Comments

A very rough—and not entirely chronological—sketch of Michael Ignatieff’s time abroad.
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A reader writes (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 15, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 77 Comments

Susan Delacourt links to yesterday’s clarification and receives a similarly worded letter of outrage. Citing her father’s birth in Glasgow, she has declined to clarify her views on whether time spent outside this country can be used to judge one’s commitment to it.

Pointing to the above precedent, I again asked my reader if his letter could be posted here. And Mr. Sparrow, communications director for the Conservative Party of Canada, has now agreed. Full text after the jump. Continue…

A reader writes

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 3:50 PM - 45 Comments

A humble reader—he’s not yet passed along permission to have his letter posted here in full—writes to express his concern with this post. He suggests that I owe Doug Finley an apology.

For sure, I sincerely apologize if Mr. Finley takes or took any offense. None was intended. Nor did I mean for there to be any insinuation that Mr. Finley’s Scottish heritage is at all indicative of his commitment to this country. I have no doubt that Mr. Finley loves this country. And I believe wholeheartedly that no citizen should have his or her commitment to this country questioned on the primary basis of time spent living or working abroad.

The better Canadian

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 12:46 PM - 42 Comments

The Conservative party sent out a letter to supporters last night heralding its new campaign against Michael Ignatieff. The letter was signed by Doug Finley, the party’s national campaign director, and it begins as follows.

Did you know that Michael Ignatieff spent over 30 years away from Canada – more than half his life? Did you know that while away he went so far as to call Britain and then America his country?

There are two additional references to Mr. Ignatieff’s time spent overseas.

Fun facts about Mr. Finley: He was born in England, raised in Scotland, first entered politics as a Scottish Nationalist and appears to have come to Canada at the age of 22. He is reported to prefer Celtic and Manchester United.

Update. Clarification here.

UPDATED: Who needs the Little Shop of Tories – The whole world is their War Room!

By kadyomalley - Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 11:47 AM - 113 Comments

Hey, this is kind of fun.

I don’t have time to go through all the other regions, but commenters are encouraged to type in their postal code to find out exactly what Doug Finley wants outraged Conservatives to say when calling up talk radio shows in their respective regions. Feel free to paste the results in the comments, too — let’s see whether they’ve had time to give a lovingly targeted Muttartian massage to the message in different parts of the country, or are relying on quick and dirty boilerplate shock and horror.  

UPDATE: Aw, poor Tory MPs. They’re stuck with the same talking points, according to the super-urgent-top-priority-all-hands-on-deck Giornogram dispatched to caucus on Friday, which was – gosh, this isn’t a good sign, guys – promptly leaked to the Globe and Mail.  Oh, unless this is one of those Doug Finley double-reverse mind tricks, where he actually wants his party’s footsoldiers to look like they’re incapable of coming up with their own words to express their fury. 

 As noted in an earlier post, Montreal Gazette reporter Elizabeth Thompson has the Montreal hotlist, and here’s what I got when I plugged in my downtown Ottawa coordinates: 

Opposition lacks mandate to take power

• Is anyone else outraged by what the Opposition Parties are doing in Ottawa?
• We’re not even two months removed from the last election, and a group of backroom politicians are going to pick who the Prime Minister is. Canadians didn’t vote for this person. We don’t even know who this person will be.
• Not a single voter voted for a Liberal-NDP coalition. Certainly not a single voter voted for the Liberals to form a coalition with the separatists in the Bloc.

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Elections are no time to talk about serious issues – but lobby ministers? That all depends.

By kadyomalley - Monday, October 20, 2008 at 11:33 AM - 16 Comments

Speaking of the rumoured push to privatize – or PPP-ify, at least – the fiscally-beleagured AECL, guess what minister has been holding regular get-togethers with Bruce Power CEO Duncan Hawthorne since August, including four meetings during the five-week federal election campaign?

Not, as one might expect, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn or Environment Minister John Baird, or even Industry Minister Jim Prentice, but Diane Finley, currently Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, but more importantly, at least in this context, the MP for the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk, where the company hopes to replace the soon-to-be-mothballed Nanticoke Generating Station with a Bruce Power-branded nuclear reactor.

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(Agent of) Karma MacGregor

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 7:04 AM - 0 Comments

The official agent for a Conservative candidate in Toronto told The Canadian Press yesterday that he and other potential witnesses were told by an organizer for the federal party as late as Monday that they didn’t have to testify at the inquiry if they didn’t want to.

Douglas Lowry said the organizer, whom he named as Carmen McGregor, gave the advice after he and others received summonses from the Commons ethics committee.

“We’ve all been told,” Mr. Lowry said.

[...]

He said he and the other Conservatives were given the advice Monday, adding that Ms. McGregor said it in her capacity as a party official.

“She said it, but she’s from the party. She would contact whoever the executive director is.”

Conservative MP Dean Del Maestro confirmed the party has a Toronto regional organizer named McGregor, but said he believes her first name is Carma not Carmen. Party spokesman Ryan Sparrow did not respond to an e-mail asking for a comment or response from Ms. McGregor. {Tim Naumetz, Canadian Press]

Perhaps The Sparrow was thrown off by the fact that her name is actually Karma MacGregor – not “Carmen” or “Carma” (and many thanks to the reader who alerted ITQ to the name confusion).

Otherwise, he would certainly have had something to say about Lowry’s allegation that a Conservative organizer known as  “Finley’s GSA axe-woman”, according to a local Blogging Tory, was apparently offering somewhat dubious advice to at least one former candidate and future witness as recently as Monday (and whose more recent involvement in a hotly contested Mississauga nomination battle is chronicled here).

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