The Conservatives have run advertising comparing Liberal leader Stephane Dion to an out-of-touch academic who doesn’t care about the priorities of average hard-working Canadians.
In this video that I captured from a press conference Dion gave in Richmond BC just minutes ago, Dion says “I like to have a lot of PhDs in Canada but we need also to have plumbers, and all the skilled workers that are needed must have the ability to come here in Canada. Not only PhDs”
While Stephane Dion would like to have Canada populated by like-minded academics like himself, he seems to begrudgingly concede that Canada also needs plumbers.
Imagine if you were somebody with skills that the Prime Minister of Canada only needed rather than liked.
I received an email from a reader which reads,
Professor Dion showed his true colours on the issue of immigration– He would prefer Professors coming from other lands– but knows that he needs plumbers etc.
This is elitist and reveals the true attitude towards the Liberal Party’s view of immigration. We are looked down upon– by this elitist group. Incredibly this elitist view makes the “beer and popcorn” seem tame in comparison.
Signed,
An Immigrant that came to Canada on December 20th 1959
Fact: “TVO confirms that the audio of the clip in question is intact”
Fact: “TVO is not and will not be pursuing legal action of any kind on this matter”
and finally (from me),
Fact: stephentaylor.ca nor Buckdog Politics are fronts for the Conservative Party. I am a conservative and want to see the Conservative Party elected.
Perhaps the first lesson of doing damage control against a viral message is to stop fuelling it. By threatening legal action and making a video even more interesting by trying to make it forbidden will only drive people’s interest. Of course, the interest will lead people to watch the video of Elizabeth May in her own words.
I’ve met Elizabeth May, I think she’s a nice person and I believe she is quite committed to her ideas, and this is in itself admirable. However, as my motive was questioned in an interview today, “why would you do this to May if you think she’s a nice person”, I responded by saying that May has gone prime-time and she’ll hit the national stage in the leaders debate and though she is not running for Prime Minister (she has already endorsed Dion), she is running to elect Members of Parliament to the legislature. May deserves scrutiny. My motive is that I support the Conservatives and wanted to put up May’s words, undoctored, for Canadians to understand. I think that May is wrong on the issues and wrong on her support for a carbon tax. Does Elizabeth May say Canadians are stupid? From the video, that was and is my honest interpretation of her words. What did it for me was her statement of agreement with the assessment that comes right after the words “[I/they] think Canadians are stupid.”
Perhaps May was expressing frustration in her belief that Canadians cannot understand the complexity of a complete reconfiguration of the Canadian government’s system of taxation. Poorly considered quips, asides and gaffes can happen to us all. Do I believe that May believe in her heart of hearts that Canadians are stupid? No.
And through this exercise, my credibility has been questioned and prior to their backing down I was called a liar by the Green Party of Canada. This isn’t the first time I’ve been on the receiving end of this sort of kneejerk smear but this usually occurs when leftwing partisan bloggers don’t want to believe what clearly sits in front of them on their computer monitors. As for the Green Party, Kady O’Malley quotes another GPC spokesperson Camille Labchuk who says that this “was a misunderstanding on John Bennett’s part about the way that YouTube works”.
Lying about TVO’s legal intentions, accusing me of doctoring audio and threatening bloggers with legal action from the Green Party? And it’s my motive that is questioned?
There’s a lot of brouhaha in the blogosphere and in the Green politicosphere about this video:
A left-wing blogger named Leftdog re-posted it on his blog called Buckdog and got a legal threat from John Bennett, the director of communications to Elizabeth May.
I’d like to say leave Leftdog alone because I produced that video. You can check it out on my YouTube account here.
According to thetyee.ca, John Bennett told them “It’s an attempt by the Conservatives through a front website to attack the credibility of Elizabeth May… They took what she said, cut it up, then put it back together.”
Unfortunately for Bennett, truth is a defense and the May quote unedited and unspliced. I even provided further context to what she said in my original blog posting.