Persichilli le non-Québécois

By Paul Wells - Friday, September 2, 2011 at 9:15 AM - 63 Comments

Rémi Carreiro/Flickr

Our confrères in Quebec are noting with great care and no particular delight the writings of Angelo Persichilli, veteran journalist in Italian and English, and newly-named communications director for Stephen Harper. In one column about 18 months ago Persichilli discerned the presence of “the over-representation of francophones in our bureaucracy,” and complained about the “annoying lament” from Quebec.

Persichilli, whose journalism I have not often lauded to the skies, is a gentle fellow and as soon as this became trouble he promised to be super-nice to the French types. The PMO clearly has no interest in being overtly antagonistic toward francophones. Persichilli (like John Williamson, one of several unilingual predecessors in the post) will apparently spend little time talking to Ottawa reporters in any language. That task will fall, on most days, to Andrew MacDougall, a well-liked and very bilingual PMO staffer. And yet my colleagues from Quebec worry.

They are right to worry. Persichilli’s appointment is significant, not for whom it snubs, but for what it represents: a significant reallocation of Conservative attention and energy toward another target, the great big ethnic stew pot of Persichilli’s Toronto stomping ground.  Continue…

Political correctness gone mad?

By Alex Derry - Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 62 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

Canada, despite a reputation for being an inclusive society that celebrates diversity, will have to defend itself against UN concerns about racial discrimination—all over a term designed precisely to combat racial discrimination. Next year, for the second time in five years, a delegation from the Ministry of Canadian Heritage will appear before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, to answer criticisms over Ottawa’s use of the term “visible minorities.” The committee deems it to be out of step with the “aims and objectives” of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Canada’s use of the term “seemed to somehow indicate that whiteness was the standard, all others differing from that being visible,” says committee member Patrick Thornberry, a professor of international law at Keele University in Britain.

“That’s just crazy,” says Tom Flanagan, a political scientist at the University of Calgary and former adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “It’s the internal logic of professional bureaucrats gone amok.”

Canada was last brought before the 18-member UN committee in 2007. Comprised of diplomats and academics tasked with monitoring member states’ implementation of the convention, it found the term itself discriminatory. And it didn’t stop there, faulting Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act and its potential for racial profiling of ethnic groups, as well as the country’s treatment of undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers, systemic discrimination of Aboriginal people, and a disproportionate force used by police on African Canadians. But the objection to “visible minorities” topped the list of concerns. While the committee (which doesn’t include a single Canadian member) was quick to rebuke Canada’s use of terminology, it refrained from recommending any alternatives—it asked that Ottawa “reflect further” on its use.

After the 2007 rebuke, Ottawa went to work consulting experts and holding workshops. The result was a 74-page report examining “visible minorities” through the years. It said the term is “specific to the administration of the Employment Equity Act,” designed to protect visible minorities, women, Aboriginal people and the disabled against workplace discrimination. While the EEA interprets “visible minorities” as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour,” it also specifies that only employees who wish to identify themselves to their employer need do so. Flanagan traces the roots of the term to “the identity politics of the 1970s and ’80s,” when neologisms like multiculturalism entered the bureaucratic lexicon.

The EEA itself emerged from the 1984 Abella commission establishing the principle that employers must use practices that increase minority representation. Nearly 5.5 million Canadians self-identify as part of a visible minority. “I don’t see the point of replacing it, it’s not a pejorative term,” says Flanagan. The government concluded no other category adequately addressed the labour market disadvantage faced by these groups. Further, it encourages proactive accommodation of diversity in the workplace. The report also said that Canada has “no plans of changing its standard usage,” a position it will defend when it appears before the Geneva-based commission again in early 2012.

“Some people consider affirmative action and quotas as racist,” says Jason Maghanoy, a Filipino-Canadian playwright in Toronto, “but sometimes you need to force diversity.” Maghanoy says it’s a matter of choice that he identifies himself as part of a visible minority when he applies for arts grants. “I always identify myself as Asian and I don’t feel discriminated against when I do.”

While many Canadians might dismiss the committee’s concern, it doesn’t mean the EEA couldn’t stand to be updated. Flanagan admits that while “visible minorities” doesn’t need to be replaced, “as a working term, there are some problems with it.” Michael Bach, national director of diversity, equity and inclusion at global accounting firm KPMG, supports the UN recommendation and says that while the legislation was a benchmark for progress in the workplace 25 years ago, he has never been a proponent of “visible minorities.” It’s archaic, he says, and reinforces the view that white is the norm. “We should be asking ourselves what is the right term,” says Bach. One proposed alternative is “racialized communities.” But this makes many people on both sides of the debate uncomfortable: it’s either an example of political correctness gone too far or it reinforces racial stereotypes. Ultimately, says Bach, the government should be involving minority communities in the process.

And real inequalities still exist today. “Decision-makers, those in positions of power,” says Maghanoy, “are still predominantly white men.”

Nycole Turmel disappoints Stephen Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 8 Comments

The Prime Minister says he is profoundly saddened by Nycole Turmel’s associations with sovereignists.

“I think it’s very disappointing,” Harper said when asked about Turmel by reporters while handing out scholarships at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. “I don’t know that I have a lot to say but I do think Canadians will find this disappointing. I think Canadians expect that any political party that wants to govern the country be unequivocally committed to this country. I think that’s the minimum Canadians expect.”

Mr. Harper’s own historical attitude toward Quebec politics might be said to be somewhat complicated. The NDP says, for instance, that there are two ministers in Mr. Harper’s cabinet who were previously associated with sovereignists. There is, as well, whatever he and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe discussed in 2004 and what he and Tom Flanagan wrote in 1997 about the role Quebec nationalists might play in bringing a conservative government back to power.

Two questions for Stephen Harper (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 50 Comments

After interviewing Mr. Layton and Mr. Ignatieff, Peter Mansbridge will sit down with Mr. Harper on Thursday. Assuming that the parameters of our democracy might be a topic raised, here, again, are two questions for Mr. Harper.

1. Earlier in this campaign, you explained that when you referred to “options” in the your letter to the Governor General in September 2004, you hoped only that she would give you the opportunity to assure her that you were not intending to defeat the Liberal government. University of New Brunswick professor Don Desserud has quibbled with this understanding of convention, suggesting the only options for the Governor General would have been to call an election or ask the leader of the opposition, in this case you, if he had the opportunity to form a government. Do you believe the Governor General can compel the Prime Minister to work with the opposition parties or do you believe you were given poor advice in 2004?

2. In an essay penned with Tom Flanagan some years ago you spoke favourably of an “alliance” between regional parties and lamented for the “winner-take-all style of politics” in Canada. In 1997, during an interview with TVO, you said if the Liberal majority government of the day was ever reduced to a minority government, there would be an opportunity for one of the other parties “to form a coalition or working alliance with the others.” In 2004, during your news conference with Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton, you were asked if you were prepared to form government and said such a scenario was “extremely hypothetical.” You and your party now argue that only the party that wins the most seats can form government. Why and when did your views change on the functioning of our parliamentary system?

Two questions for Stephen Harper (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 8:46 AM - 55 Comments

In light of what we saw and heard during the first week of the 41st general election, those two questions for Mr. Harper need to be updated.

1. Last week, you explained that when you referred to “options” in the your letter to the Governor General in September 2004, you hoped only that she would give you the opportunity to assure her that you were not intending to defeat the Liberal government. University of New Brunswick professor Don Desserud has quibbled with this understanding of convention, suggesting the only options would have been to call an election or ask the leader of the opposition, in this case you, if he had the opportunity to form a government. Do you believe the Governor General can compel the Prime Minister to work with the opposition parties or do you believe you were given poor advice in 2004?

2. In an essay penned with Tom Flanagan some years ago you spoke favourably of an “alliance” between regional parties and lamented for the “winner-take-all style of politics” in Canada. In 1997, during an interview with TVO, you said if the Liberal majority government of the day was ever reduced to a minority government, there would be an opportunity for one of the other parties “to form a coalition or working alliance with the others.” In 2004, during your news conference with Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Layton, you were asked if you were prepared to form government and said such a scenario was “extremely hypothetical.” You and your party now argue that only the party that wins the most seats can form government. Why and when did your views change on the functioning of our parliamentary system?

What Stephen Harper was writing in 1997

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 25 Comments

Terry Milewski digs up an essay penned by Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan around the same time the former was saying things like this. It sketches a potential Reform-Progressive Conservative “alliance”—as opposed to a merger—and then turns to the question of Quebec.

If Quebec stays in Confederation, the Bloc will either disintegrate or become an autonomist party, participating in federal politics as a representative of Quebec’s specific interests. Philosophically, it is logical for liberals to offer Quebec money and privileged treatment, while conservatives find it easier to offer autonomy and enhanced jurisdiction. On that basis, a strategic alliance of Quebec nationalists with conservatives outside Quebec might become possible, and it might be enough to sustain a government.

None of this will be easy or even likely. But experience shows that a monolithic conservative party is unworkable; so conservatives who are unhappy with a one-party-plus system featuring the Liberals as the perpetual governing party may have little choice but to construct an alliance, at least of the two anglophone sisters, and perhaps ultimately including a third sister. An alliance would face many difficulties, to be sure, but it would also have two great advantages. It would reflect the regional and cultural character of Canadian society, and it would give that character an institutional expression. Also, it would allow leaders of the regional parties to defend necessary compromises as precisely that — necessary compromises. In a single national party, compromises have to be defended as party policy, which tends to drive dissenters out of the fold.

Mr. Harper and Mr. Flanagan then concluded with an ode to political cooperation, including mention of the “coalition governments” that exist in Europe. Continue…

Stephen Harper and constitutional convention

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 9:48 AM - 54 Comments

Tom Flanagan, a former advisor to Mr. Harper, is asked for his opinion on the 2004 gambit.

Asked if Mr. Harper might have had a different motivation for sending the letter to Ms. Clarkson — one other than ensuring that she explored the option of Conservative-led minority if Martin’s government fell — Mr. Flanagan replied: “I can’t see what other point there would have been in writing the letter except to remind everybody that it was possible to change the government in that set of circumstances without an election.”

Meanwhile, John Geddes talks to Don Desserud, who finds Mr. Harper’s understanding of convention to be “odd.”

How about "Somewhat benign, but sort of an a-hole"?

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 8:16 PM - 89 Comments

Historian Michael Behiels commences his Citizen op-ed on the present constitutional emergency by describing the prime minister as “our not-so-benign dictator”. Kind of a remarkable rhetorical ploy, that. I’m from the tribe of Westerners who used to gripe about the Liberal “benign dictatorship”, but I realized how and silly overwrought this sort of language was on the day the B.D. Himself was ousted by his own caucus without so much as a “Thanks for the customized golf balls”. Ever since then, my Zen answer to every kerfuffle, foofaraw, and flibberty-floo about Parliament and its powers has been the same, no matter who was in power. Parliament has just as much power as its members care to take. No more, no less.

But little did I realize what a favour I was doing the dictator of old by consenting to describe him as “benign”, despite actual ethical misgivings about several of his policies! The Tom Flanagans of the world felt the need to throw that word “benign” in there as a pre-emptive apology for their own excessiveness. But now Behiels–unashamed! Unflinching!–has upped the ante: Stephen Harper’s not just a dictator, he’s one of those evil dictators. McLuhan would weep to behold such mastery of figure-ground effects.

On second thought

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 11:01 AM - 58 Comments

Tom Flanagan talks to the Winnipeg Free Press about Michael Ignatieff, attack ads, the coalition and political party funding.

During last winter’s constitutional crisis, Flanagan wrote in The Globe and Mail that “Gross violations of democratic principles would be involved in handing government to the coalition without getting approval from voters.” A week earlier, Harper, too, claimed the opposition could not take power without an election.

Flanagan now appears to have shifted his position and backed away from Harper’s. “I wouldn’t rule out parties coming together to form a coalition and whatever Mr. Harper may have said in the heat of the moment I don’t think should be interpreted as constitutional theory because he was in a fight for his life.”

Great moments in candour (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 3:59 PM - 59 Comments

The NDP dispatches Charlie Angus, the party’s truthiness critic apparently, to comment on Tom Flanagan’s honesty.

“That’s as cynical a statement as I’ve ever heard about how the Harper Conservatives will fight the next election. Their contempt for voters seems to have crossed a line to where power means more to them than truth. Canadians expect leadership from political leaders, not manipulation. Canadians deserve better than toxic campaigns based on misinformation. Canadians are calling for real solutions,” Angus pointed out. “I don’t know why anyone would trust them.”

Great moments in candour

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 11:45 AM - 46 Comments

Tom Flanagan considers the Conservatives’ intent to run against the specter of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition.

“They can tie the two together and say … ‘He will force an election even when there is no reason for it and there is no policy distance between the two parties on any major issues. And he’s forced an election which will lead to him rebuilding the deal with the other two parties,’ ” said University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Harper adviser. “It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible and it strikes me as plausible.”

The readable Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 4:29 PM - 37 Comments

Interestingly enough, Stephen Harper’s Parliamentary bio does not list him as minivan-driving middle class hockey dad, but as an “author, economist, lecturer.” Unfortunately, the Prime Minister lacks the easily accessible paper trail of his primary rival. Though there are a few good reads to be found.

Continue…

Battle of the Globe and Mail political strategists: Bruce Anderson defends dignity, civility, schoolgirls

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 1:22 PM - 40 Comments

Take that, Tom Flanagan — the high road, that is:

As a citizen who cares about politics and public life, I hope more political leaders will ignore advice to take the low road, and perhaps not even bother trying to do the political calculus. I’m well aware that proving that the high road leads to more votes is difficult. It’s far easier to show how destroying an opponent works.

Mr. Obama’s victory is an example of how dignity can be rewarded, but it also raises the question of whether turning dignity into a winning political formula requires exceptional communications talents. Stylistically, attack is less demanding.

At the risk of sounding all schoolgirlish, shouldn’t dignity and courtesy be embraced for their inherent rewards, as a better way to live a life? For those in politics, respect should be earned by doing things of real public virtue, and to me that isn’t a test of who has better knife skills.

UPDATE: Commenter Hanging Out demonstrates the awesome perspective-in-putting power of Wordle:

*IMPORTANT UPDATE: Yikes! As Commenter A Reader points out, ITQ mistakenly identified Bruce Anderson as a Conservative strategist, which he isn’t — that would be Brother Rick. Apologies to all and sundry Andersons and readers alike.

The Commons: General Canada

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 13, 2009 at 4:46 PM - 31 Comments

Rick Hillier started with a joke about something his late father had said. Then one about his wife and his propensity to talk. Then one about missing his flight. Then one about his Newfoundland heritage. Then about the stature of his audience. Then about George Stroumboulopoulos. Then about Alex Trebek and Wheel of Fortune.

The occasion was a dinner in a hotel ballroom in downtown Ottawa to mark the beginning of a weekend conference of “conservative-oriented” thinkers. General Hillier, formerly the top-ranking soldier in the Canadian military, was preceded to the stage by Preston Manning, former leader of the Reform party. Manning, with remarkably blond hair for a man of 66, was preceded to the stage by Monte Solberg, a former Conservative government minister who has left politics and now has a blog.

In front of the stage were approximately 20 tables with approximately 10 people seated at each. Each table had a brown tablecloth and a vase of red or white flowers. Men, each in a black or navy blue suit, outnumbered women by a factor of three to one. Waiters in black suits, white shirts and black bow ties served roasted butternut squash with green valley apple bisque to start and a main course of slowly roasted rib eye of western beef with fresh herb pan juices, roasted potatoes and seasonal fresh vegetables.

As guests—including half a dozen Conservative MPs and political science professor Tom Flanagan—nibbled at their dessert (a granny smith and caramel tart tatin with vanilla bean ice cream), General Hillier proceeded with his speech.

“Life is good, isn’t it?” he asked. “We live in the best country in the world … You need to stop and remind yourself of that.” Continue…

Middle-brow

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 8:26 PM - 41 Comments

From the Canadian Press assessment of Patrick Muttart’s departure.

Muttart also overhauled the party’s election ads. He pushed for extremely bland ads of Harper being asked questions by a fictional TV newscaster.

“The ads were artfully middle-brow,” Flanagan wrote in his book, Harper’s Team.

“Although many observers said they were hokey, they were well-conceived for the job they had to do — to communicate the essence of our policy to middle-aged or older, family-oriented, middle-income people without high levels of formal education.”

The Commons: Michael Ignatieff and the herd

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 7:36 PM - 41 Comments

The Scene. The early reviews are in and Michael Ignatieff is a disaster. A blight upon our democracy. A threat, no less, to the very notion of this nation we hold dear. Ottawa, it is safe to say, is unimpressed.

“Just who is running the Liberal caucus?” begged the Globe and Mail’s editorial board this morning, thoroughly perplexed at Mr. Ignatieff’s decision to let half a dozen Liberal MPs from Newfoundland vote of their own volition. “Whether or not this proves to be a ‘one-time pass,’ as Mr. Ignatieff has claimed, it could have far-reaching consequences for him, for his party, and potentially for the country.”

“I think it’s a total lack of leadership,” concurred Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, he of nearly two decades in Ottawa.

“It can be described lots of ways but it can’t really be described as leadership,” scolded the NDP’s Jack Layton, speaking from his 26 years of political experience.

“Certainly,” chirped baby-faced Conservative Pierre Poilievre, a keen student of this stuff, “Prime Minister Harper is a strong leader and you’ll notice that his caucus is unanimous in voting with him. I think that is the mark of a strong leader.”

Anonymous Liberals were said to be perplexed. The men on the CTV nightly news were positively aghast, shocked at the Liberal leader’s unprecedented decision to emasculate himself so publicly.

Trying to grasp the sheer enormity of Mr. Ignatieff’s misstep, the Globe consulted professor Tom Flanagan, a former associate of Mr. Harper’s and, consequently, a man intimately familiar with the mystical qualities that make one a proper leader of men. ”It is a sign of weakness in the brutal world of politics,” the professor concluded. ”Harper, would never do something similar.”

No doubt Mr. Ignatieff thought that last bit a compliment. But then he and the herd don’t know quite what to do with each other. Continue…

'A bunch of self-serving exaggeration'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 10:59 AM - 31 Comments

Canwest is presently running a five-part—only five?—series on the decline of our politics. The first part was entitled, “How the public lost faith in politics” and you’ll never guess who turns out to be the most cynical cynic quoted…

Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Flanagan.

Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary academic who has managed and advised several Conservative election campaigns, considers negative ads “part of the weaponry of politics.” He says if parties only promoted their own candidates, “voters would be confronted with a bunch of self-serving exaggeration.” In contrast, negative tactics and attack ads keep people honest.

“In a democracy, it’s a healthy thing for people to have a degree of skepticism about political leaders,” he says. “It’s a good thing that people don’t really trust politicians, and don’t expect too much from government. Negative campaigning is all part of cutting politicians down to size.”

Fair enough, one supposes. If only because Prof. Flanagan’s last public showing inspired negative campaigning such as this.

Part Two of the Canwest series is here.

The past and future tense

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 10:20 PM - 13 Comments

CBC tonight referred to an essay—Our Benign Dictatorship—authored in 1996 by Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan that refers specifically to the relationship between conservatism and Quebec nationalism.

Below, the excerpt highlighted by the CBC.

“If Quebec stays in Confederation, the Bloc will either disintegrate or become an autonomist party, participating in federal politics as a representative of Quebec’s specific interests. Philosophically, it is logical for liberals to offer Quebec money and privileged treatment, while conservatives find it easier to offer autonomy and enhanced jurisdiction. On that basis, a strategic alliance of Quebec nationalists with conservatives outside Quebec might become possible, and it might be enough to sustain a government.”

Later, there’s this.

“Bereft of carrots, the Liberal government is resorting to ever heavier sticks against separatism. In our view, only a conservative vision that takes government back to its proper role, and thereby concedes to Quebec the space required for its own civil society, can hold the country together for the long term.”

The full essay appears to be here.

Too much is never enough

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 28, 2008 at 10:50 PM - 61 Comments

Four years ago I wrote about Tom Flanagan’s first book, Game Theory in Canadian Politics. This passage seems germane to the challenge facing Liberals, New Democrats and separatists over the next nine days:

One tenet of game theory is the notion of the “minimum winning coalition” – that it’s better if fewer actors share a prize than if more do, because the payoff for each player is bigger and because it’s easier to hold a small coalition intact. Say either three players can share a one-dollar prize, or two can. Well, you’d really rather be in a two-player coalition: you can win 50 cents instead of 33, and you don’t have to listen to the third guy whining all the time.

Flanagan showed that this is true in Canadian electoral politics, too. Continue…

Michael Chong Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 3:34 PM - 8 Comments

First, this. Now, this.

An opinion piece published Friday in the Globe and Mail by Tom Flanagan, a past Conservative campaign director, suggested that ethnic voters are “easier to woo” than Quebec voters in Harper’s quest for a majority.

“Ethnic voters don’t rally to the fashionable causes of the left, such as gay marriage, carbon neutrality and the 100-mile diet; and they don’t make many demands except to be accepted as good Canadians,” wrote Flanagan.

Chong disagreed. “New Canadians are as diverse as the population at large,” said Chong, and the party has to continue to broaden its appeal, not through narrow-casting, but by presenting a moderate, diverse political option.

"It's Australia on line one … something about royalties."

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 3:33 PM - 26 Comments

[...]Stephen responded on 20 March with an eloquent speech in the House of Commons, which, though it did not call for sending Canadian troops to Iraq, supported the US initiative. [...] We printed the speech in pamphlet form and mailed out thousands of copies. As far as I could judge, there was strong support from the grassroots of the party. Stephen also drew from his speech to expound his position in interview and op eds.

-Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power, Tom Flanagan (2007)

Megapundit: What Julie Couillard has to do with Mikhail Gorbachev

By selley - Monday, June 16, 2008 at 2:02 PM - 0 Comments

WEEKEND ROUNDUP

Must-reads: Scott Taylor on Afghan governance; Christie Blatchford, Rex Murphy and Daphne Bramham on the residential schools apology; Greg Weston on Oily the Splot; Don Martin on the Couillard affair.

What can we learn from Julie Couillard?
And other pressing federal questions…

At this point in the Bernier-Couillard debacle—now that her “random dating pattern[s]” seem to have “jell[ed] into a potential purpose”—the Calgary Herald‘s Don Martin says “circumstances have evolved” far past the point where the opposition’s questions can be dismissed as “sordid little inquiries.” Unfortunately, he notes, the government’s position on the matter—stonewall at all costs, basically—is stuck in the Neanderthal era. This cannot last.

If this whole affair isn’t enough to spur reforms on background checks, security clearances and sensitive document management, L. Ian MacDonald, writing in the Montreal Gazette, hopes a 23-year-old anecdote of his own experiences as Brian Mulroney’s speechwriter will do the trick. It involves everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Nick Auf der Maur, and its connection to the topic at hand is tenuous at best.

Continue…

Only tangentially tape-related: Remember all that confusion over when the meeting took place?

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 6:02 PM - 0 Comments

A quick recap, in case you’ve forgotten: Dona Cadman told Zytaruk that she found out about the offer on May 17th, 2005, but Doug Finley and Tom Flanagan – the two men who claimed to have met with Cadman to discuss his possible return to caucus were adamant that the meeting actually took place two days later, on May 19th. The publishers eventually took the extraordinary step of removing the date completely from the final text of the book.

In an affidavit dated May 23, 2008, Dona Cadman once again states that her husband told her about the offer after meeting with Conservative officials on May 17th – not May 19th, as alleged by Tom Flanagan and Doug Finley:
Continue…

The Commons: So it goes

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:12 AM - 0 Comments