Zaccardelli vs. Globe and Mail

(please also read my previous post for more background)

The Globe and Mail has been caught in error about Stockwell Day and RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli.

From the Public Safety committee meeting today in Parliament:

Mark Holland: And the minister acknowledged it in the house, but I think — I just want to go to another question, which comes back to the earlier question that I asked, and that is to specifically ask this time if you received any direction from Mr. Day, verbally, in the meetings that you now say that you had, written or electronic or from any member of the government suggesting that you should restrict your access to the media on this matter.

Giuliano Zaccardelli [RMCP Commissioner – ST]: Mr. Chairman, I have not received any instructions that I should restrict myself from the media at all. As a matter of fact, I was on parliament hill on sunday honouring over 700 men and women who died in the line of duty. I saw the minister. I shook hands with him. His wife hugged me. We had a good conversation. I have not restrict myself. The media was there. They asked a question, and I answered a couple of questions.

This would seem to be a direct response to the Globe and Mail’s story of Sunday’s events. From my previous post, the Globe and Mail published this story (here’s an excerpt):

Mr. Day, who is the minister responsible for the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said he would not talk with reporters Sunday if they wanted to ask about anything other than the solemn ceremony. It drew thousands to Parliament Hill, including families of 10 officers from seven different federal and local agencies killed in the past year.

Several high-ranking officers from other forces made a point of seeking out Mr. Zaccardelli either before or after the ceremony to shake his hand and offer words of encouragement. While Mr. Day happily posed for pictures with a variety of police officers, including a visiting detective from the New York Police Department, he stood away from his own top cop.

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I received an attachment containing a couple of letters Day and his staff wrote to the Globe and Mail chiding them for the mistake. Read the full letters here. Following are a couple of excerpts from the letters. First, from Minister Day:

Dear Editor,

I was shocked to read today’s front-page story, “RCMP Chief Muzzled, Friends Say.” Mr. Sallot’s article declared that I refused to even greet Commissioner Zaccardelli at a Memorial Service. This could not be further from the truth and I want to set the record straight.

My wife and I both shook hands with the Commissioner and talked at some length about the importance of the occasion.

The Globe refused to publish the letter from Day, so the Conservatives sent it to me.

Here’s an excerpt from a letter from Day’s Director of Communications blasting the Globe for getting the story wrong, and for refusing to publish the Minister’s letter explaining that the Globe was wrong:

To correct the facts, the Hon. Stockwell Day , Minister of Public Safety, submitted a letter to the editor yesterday, in which he wrote that “My wife and I both shook hands with the Commissioner and talked at some length about the importance of the occasion.”

Instead of rectifying this error, your paper refused to run Minister Day’s letter to the editor. In a message left on my voicemail yesterday, the comment editor said that “We have reviewed the footage of the event that CTV shot and I have to tell you that in no place, at no time during this service did Commissioner Zaccardelli and Mr. Day shake hands. At this moment, we can hardly run a letter which suggests something which appears not to be the case.”

Now we have testimony from the Commissioner showing that the Globe and Mail made an error (you don’t have to only take Day’s word for it now). Further, the Globe has not corrected the record.

UPDATE (9/29): The Globe has now corrected the record and offers “regret”:

A front page story Monday about RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli stated that Mr. Zaccardelli and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day did not speak with each other at a Parliament Hill ceremony to honour police officers slain on duty. In fact, both men say they spoke and shook hands after the ceremony. The Globe and Mail regrets the error.

Globe and Mail vs. Day

The Globe and Mail wrote a piece yesterday about the O’Connor ruling regarding the deportation and torture in Syria of Maher Arar. The article meant to be topical, however, the author Jeff Sallott (with files from Gloria Galloway) couldn’t find an appropriate backdrop for their writing since the focus of their piece, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, won’t answer their questions until he testifies later this week. Sallott however tried, unsuccessfully, to quiz the Commissionor at a memorial service.

Yesterday, the Globe and Mail published the following:

Mr. Zaccardelli surfaced for the first time publicly Sunday at a ceremony in Ottawa. But he refused to comment on the controversy that has swirled around him and his force since the release of an inquiry report last week that slammed the RCMP for giving erroneous intelligence to the United States that contributed to Maher Arar’s arrest and torture in Syria.

Mr. Day, who is the minister responsible for the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said he would not talk with reporters Sunday if they wanted to ask about anything other than the solemn ceremony. It drew thousands to Parliament Hill, including families of 10 officers from seven different federal and local agencies killed in the past year.

Several high-ranking officers from other forces made a point of seeking out Mr. Zaccardelli either before or after the ceremony to shake his hand and offer words of encouragement. While Mr. Day happily posed for pictures with a variety of police officers, including a visiting detective from the New York Police Department, he stood away from his own top cop.

Stockwell Day wouldn’t even shake his hand? The intrigue! What’s going on here? Are there political machinations going on behind the scenes here? Who’s allying with whom, who is on the outs? The Globe and Mail has us ponder all of these questions as it tries to frame Day and Zaccardelli in an unamiable context.

Today, I received an email from the Conservatives that asserts that the events written by Sallott are either untrue or uninformed. Attached were a couple of letters sent into the Globe and Mail by Minister Day and his staff to clarify what they assert to be untrue scribblings by the country’s so-called newspaper of record. Here’s the kicker: faced with contrary information from their own reporters and Stockwell Day and his staff the Globe and Mail refused to publish the Day’s letter (in whole or in part) to give the full record to their readers.

Here is Day’s letter, unpublished by the Globe and Mail and presented here as an exclusive:

Dear Editor,

I was shocked to read today’s front-page story, “RCMP Chief Muzzled, Friends Say.” Mr. Sallot’s article declared that I refused to even greet Commissioner Zaccardelli at a Memorial Service. This could not be further from the truth and I want to set the record straight.

My wife and I both shook hands with the Commissioner and talked at some length about the importance of the occasion.

On a day to commemorate our country’s heroic police and peace officers who died to protect our communities, I was asked three times by Mr. Sallot to be interviewed about matters not pertaining to the solemn occasion. What I explained to Mr. Sallot-and what he evidently failed to understand-was that the 29th Annual Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial Service was not the appropriate time to discuss such matters. Rather, it was the time to pay tribute to our fallen officers.

Out of respect for the police and peace officers who died in the line of duty as well as their families, I did not wish to comment on unrelated matters. On a day of such sorrow and out of respect for our fallen officers, I would expect more responsible reporting.

Mr. Sallot’s professional lapse appearing on the front page of this paper, have been a source of distress to the people affected and deliberately painted in a false and harmful picture that deserves to be corrected.

Stockwell Day,

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Here is the followup letter from Minister Day’s Director of Communications blasting the Globe and Mail for its bias. Will the newspaper publish it?

Re. Jeff Sallot’s inaccurate article

On Monday, September 25 inaccurate information was published in your front-page story, “RCMP chief muzzled, friends say”. In Jeff Sallot’s article, he incorrectly stated that Minister Day and Mr. Zaccardelli “did not speak”.

To correct the facts, the Hon. Stockwell Day , Minister of Public Safety, submitted a letter to the editor yesterday, in which he wrote that “My wife and I both shook hands with the Commissioner and talked at some length about the importance of the occasion.”

Instead of rectifying this error, your paper refused to run Minister Day’s letter to the editor. In a message left on my voicemail yesterday, the comment editor said that “We have reviewed the footage of the event that CTV shot and I have to tell you that in no place, at no time during this service did Commissioner Zaccardelli and Mr. Day shake hands. At this moment, we can hardly run a letter which suggests something which appears not to be the case.”

In disbelief over such bizarre logic used by your comment editor, I listened to his message five times. I find it difficult to believe that the lack of television footage of Minister Day shaking hands with and speaking to Mr. Zaccardelli could be sufficient grounds for not publishing a letter to the editor.

I find it regrettable that the Globe and Mail would choose to muzzle Minister Day by not printing his letter to the editor. Furthermore, I am disappointed to note that one of your journalists, Jeff Sallot, missed a great opportunity to cover our heroic police and peace officers who died in the line of duty. Three times Mr. Sallot asked Minister Day for an interview on issues not pertaining to this solemn occasion. Three times Minister Day replied that “the Annual Canadian Police and Peace Officers’ Memorial Service was not the appropriate time to discuss such matters. Rather, it was the time to pay tribute to our fallen officers.”

Last night, Mr. Sallot called me to request another interview with Minister Day. Three times he asked me whether or not Minister Day greeted Commissioner Zaccardelli. I repeatedly assured him that Minister Day did. Nonetheless, Mr. Sallot refused to accept the truth and suggested that your newspaper would not clarify the facts before obtaining a personal interview with Minister Day.

I personally attended this service with families and thousands of uniformed officers. I and many others witnessed Minister Day and Mr. Zaccardelli paying their respects as well as supporting those family members who have lost loved ones in the line of duty. Your paper missed an opportunity to correct an extremely misleading and inaccurate story. I hope your will reconsider and publish this letter to the editor in efforts to assist your readers and set the record straight.

Mélisa Leclerc
Director of Communications
Office of the Hon. Stockwell Day,
Minister of Public Safety

Stockwell Day and his staff assert that the Globe and Mail has published an erroneous account of events which occurred. These events were construed to be political in nature and negatively so. Therefore, Day and staff wrote the editor a couple of letters. The editor has refused to publish Day’s letter. Why? Will they publish Leclerc’s letter?

NEW DEVELOPMENTS. See my next post for details. Click here

Liberal calls border guards “wimps”

Yesterday in the House, Derek Lee, the Liberal MP for Scarborough-Rouge River had a few choice words for the 60 Canadian border guards that walked off the job in the face of an armed American that was on his way to the border.

Canada-U.S. Border

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor–Tecumseh, NDP): Mr. Speaker, yesterday 60 Canadian border guards were forced to walk off four Canadian border crossings because an armed and dangerous criminal was approaching the border.

Mr. Derek Lee: That’s because they are a bunch of wimps.

Later on, MPs from both the Conservatives and the NDP raised their objections to Lee’s comments:

Canada-U.S. Border

Hon. Stockwell Day (Minister of Public Safety, CPC): Mr. Speaker, today in question period, when I was responding to a reply about our border officers, the men and women who serve our country at the nation’s frontiers, a member of the Liberal Party, the member for Scarborough-Rouge River, was shouting out and referring to our brave men and women as wimps.

We tried to ask him informally to cease doing that.

An hon. member: Fifteen times.

Hon. Stockwell Day: It was recorded at least another 10 to 15 times. He continued to refer to our border officers as wimps.

Yesterday on Parliament Hill we attended a service of commemoration for peace officers who have died in the line of duty. The men and women who serve us on our borders do so without side arms. In any given year many times they must apprehend suspects, seize drugs and there are times when they must attempt to seize illegal weapons. They have been asking for side arms and to be trained for such for 10 years but the Liberals refused to do that. We are moving ahead on that.

Regardless of that debate, it is unacceptable that courageous men and women who serve us every day and night in this country are referred to as wimps. We would like a full and complete apology for that.

Our border officers are not wimps. Every day and every night they are on the line for us unarmed because they never received support from the Liberals. I want to hear an apology to our border officers. They are not wimps. They are brave and courageous men and women.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to recognize the strength, fortitude and courage of all of the people who man our borders. I am not referring to our police or to our military. I am talking of the people who man our borders. I commend the courage of all the people who man our borders if they stay on the job.

I was referring to those who walked off the job merely because apparently there was an American who had a firearm. There are over 200 million firearms south of the border. I admire our border service professionals who stay on the job, not those who walk off. We have never had armed border service professionals, not in the entire 138 years of this country. I admire those who stay on the job, not those who walk off.

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, NDP): Mr. Speaker, when the member for Windsor-Tecumseh was trying to ask questions about the safety situation facing our border guards, he was shouted down by the member for Scarborough-Rouge River again and again, to the point where I could not hear the question properly even though I was sitting so close to him.

I feel this is an important issue. It is not just the disrespect to the House or the disrespect to the men and women who are out in the field. This sends the message that there are some people in Parliament who show an absolute contempt for people who put their lives on the line. For those members to stand in the House today and have the nerve to tell us that they respect people who work but call people who stand up for their legal right to refuse unsafe conditions wimps is a disgrace.

I am speaking on a question of privilege because as a member of Parliament I feel ashamed that people like that would even stand in the House and–

and… then the Speaker ruled the complaints out of order.

That said, the Liberals sure made Canadians scared of Americans and guns during the last election and now Derek Lee is calling border guards — whom the previous government, of which he was a member, dangerously neglected to arm — “wimps” for walking away from a potentially fatal situation in which they were woefully unequipped to handle? Lee should realize how insulting his words are and the context in which he has chosen to speak them.

Lee should also speak to his Liberal caucus colleague Mark Holland, who at the beginning of this month wrote the following (3rd person voice) in a press release:

Holland argues that the House Committee on Public Safety and National Security should examine how this is implemented and the extent to which the new policy is needed. He pointed out that studies done for the previous government found the arming of guards to be unnecessary and recommended that RCMP be used instead when weapons are required.

The Liberals didn’t arm our border guards. Mark Holland insists the guards don’t need sidearms and Derek Lee calls them wimps. What kind of bizarre macho nationalist anti-gun logic is this?