Tag: 2008 General Election

Ormiston vs. Turner

From Garth Turner’s comment section, CBC’s Susan Ormiston describes how she tried to get to the bottom of the Turnergate story,

The facts Mr. Turner are as follows.

Our producer called you around 11 a.m. Monday morning. He identified himself as calling from CBC News. You spoke with him for a time, and then the producer asked if you would speak with me.. and said we’d like to call you back from a studio where we can record. You agreed.

We called you back within 10 mins. We were delayed a few more minutes as we tried to connect the phone call with the record booth, which we told you.
Then you and I began to talk. I started by saying we were trying to “drill down on the bloggers claims” and you responded as I reported “well I hope you are going to drill down on the kind of gutter politics that creates this crap”.

We talked for roughly 10-15 minutes. At one point you said and I am quoting from the interview transcript:

Garth Turner: “It’s one thing to have it on YouTube, you put this on CBC… ahh, I can’t prevent you, and you can do it if you want and I’ll do your little interview here.”

It is clear to us that you knew you were speaking to a CBC journalist and agreed to do so, and that you acknowledged you were doing an interview.

I might remind you when I tried to further clarify further the events of the doorknocking , you hung up on me.

At the end of the day, Mr. Turner, in your email to Peter Van Dusen of CPAC, copied to us, you were still putting blame on CPAC.
“The bottom line seems to be that CPAC was informed, prior to shooting, that the home in question was that of the son of my associate.”

CPAC has categorically denied that claim. We represented both your side and CPAC’s rebuttal, on our story Monday night.

Regards,
Susan Ormiston
CBC News

Well, Susan, there are two sides to all stories and I’m flattered you feel it necessary to use my blog to get your message out, when a national TV network is insufficient. Actually, I was asked if I wished to be interviewed by you, but before agreeing, I wanted a conversation. When you became argumentative, the futility of speaking with you further was apparent. So, I did something useful. I went door-knocking. At no point did you indicate our words were being taped. You did not ask me, as Peter Van Dusen did, if you could record. In fact, I sent you the following email after our encounter, “Re: Our Conservation. It was not on the record, as you did not indicate so. Regards, Garth.” I copied Keith Boag, which he confirmed. BTW, you never offered an on-camera interview with me, as you did with Conservative blogger Janke and CPAC’s Stringer. But, whatever. You win. Now can we talk about issues affecting Canadians? — Garth

Garth Turner gets caught

CPAC is probably my favourite place to turn for election coverage on television. They do a top job and it is virtually impossible to determine a particular bias towards one ideology or another. The cable channel prides itself on being a straight shooter and when Garth Turner’s campaign seemed to pull a dirty trick on them as revealed by Steve Janke, Peter van Dusen made sure to try to set the record straight.

Garth Turner is of course the Conservative-turned-Independent-turned-Green teaser-turned-Liberal that is never more than a few steps away from controversy. Here is the exchange from CPAC.

First, anchor Peter van Dusen interviews CPAC reporter Martin Stringer on being deceived by Turner’s campaign. Then, so that Garth can explain his actions, van Dusen catches the Liberal MP on the phone while he’s doorknocking and an awkward Turner tries to find excuses.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Garth has been caught playing outside of the truth. Flashback to my exposing of Turner fibbing about violating caucus confidentiality and the reason why he’s now trying to push a carbon tax for Stephane Dion.

Does Elizabeth May fundamentally agree or disagree?

One thing that we can all agree upon is that Elizabeth May talks too fast and this has got her into some trouble in the past surrounding her February 2007 comments on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin where she says “All the other politicians are scared to death to mention the word ‘tax’. And they think Canadians are stupid — and cannot — and I fundamentally agree with that assessment.”

As I mentioned in my interview on CBC, I was never of the mind that she had said “I” rather than “they” in the sentence where she says “they think Canadians are stupid”. What stunned me was the part where she said “and I fundamentally agree with that assessment”. I didn’t realize there was ambiguity over the pronoun until it was raised by other who saw my video and made comment over at Buckdog.

Now, as it has been confirmed, the audio was “they” but now May reveals that the real difference in interpretation was that she either meant “agree” or “disagree with that assessment”. In Steve Paikin’s Friday interview of May, the Green Party leader explains that she said “disagree”.

However, on Sunday’s CTV Question Period May has a different story that contradicts her explanation to Paikin. May said that she said “fundamentally agree with that assessment” in reference to another panelist who had made an observation that wasn’t recorded.

Most people that run for political office do it out of a love of service for their fellow Canadians. I do not doubt that May’s heart is in the right place. However, her reported off-hand comments after the panel discussion might reinforce for us another element of her thinking. She said “No I want [Hummer drivers] shot actually, jail is not good enough for them!” Of course, any reasonable person would understand that May was joking. However, some might interpret this as a streak of elitism in Ms. May. Some Canadians may get the impression that while she wishes to serve Canada, she likely thinks she knows what’s best for us.