Long-time readers of this blog will know that whenever I spot Globe and Mail journalist Gloria Galloway using “anonymous” or unnnamed senior Conservative activists to qualify her Conservative attack pieces, I like to point it out.
Today, Galloway writes,
OTTAWA — Canada’s pharmacists say the drug supply in this country is threatened by the federal government’s refusal to fight a recent U.S. decision to allow Canadian drugs to be shipped across the border in small amounts.
“Ontario pharmacists are gravely concerned about the imminent threat to Canada’s prescription drug supply, and the corresponding public health and safety threat to Canadians, arising from legislative changes and relaxed enforcement measures in the United States,” Marc Kealey, chief executive officer of the Ontario Pharmacists Association, wrote yesterday in a letter to federal Health Minister Tony Clement.
“From our perspective, there has been radio silence from Ottawa on this from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Health and right on down,” Mr. Kealey said in a telephone interview.
Although shipments of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada into the United States are still technically illegal, U.S. customs officials say they will no longer enforce the regulations on 90-day personal supplies. The American ban on drugs from Canada had contributed to a 35-per-cent decline in the earnings of Canada’s internet pharmaceutical companies since 2004.
The CEO of the Ontario Pharmacists Association said that? Well, yes. But there’s more to the story here.
Galloway, departing from her usual style, doesn’t label the source as either partisan or anonymous. This must mean that the source isn’t a Conservative. When she originally quoted Carol Jamieson, a long time disgruntled “conservative” that organized against conservative leaders from Diefenbaker to Clark, to Day and most recently against Harper, she quoted her anonymously as a “one key Conservative organizer in Toronto“. See more background here.
The fact is, Marc Kealey “was an advisor to Prime Minister John Turner and Premier David Peterson from 1984 to 1991” a fact revealed from a simple Google search and an important qualifier ommitted by Galloway.
Does Galloway list the source as a Liberal? No, because this would diminish the credibility of the attack against the Conservative government. She quotes a Liberal partisan attacking the Conservative government without noting that he’s Liberal.
Galloway’s Rules for writing a Conservative hit-piece:
If the source is a so-called “Conservative” (big C, as in the party brand), the source is anonymous. (and we later find out that the “Conservative” isn’t really all that genuine)
If the source is a Liberal, partisanship is not disclosed.
UPDATE: A reader writes and informs me that Gloria Galloway is married to Liberal communications strategist, Mark Dunn. From the Hill Times no. 654:
Immigration Minister Denis Coderre’s communications director Mark Dunn tied the knot on the weekend to long-time long-distance love Gloria Galloway, deputy national editor for The Globe and Mail in Toronto.