A Brief Note On Polling Contracts and Finance Circa 1995

Stephen Harper and the media only wish the public would pay as much attention to Paille as they did to Gomery. They won't. And unfortunately, as with Gomery, the judge will more prominent than any testimony or document, and the politics will more memorable than any part of the report.

On that note, Steve Janke has written some not-so-nice things about some friends of mine , so I started to write a response to him on his blog. I thought it was important to copy it here.

And just one last thought: the things people are accusing David and Terrie and Paul and everyone of doing, these are criminal acts. There's a system for that. Three-Ring-Circus not required. I think that's what Chretien said about Gomery; I think he was right.

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Hi Steve,

I commend you for the length of your blog post. It was a long, and probably time-consuming task to bring this long piece to fruition. So thank you for your effort.

I would, however, like to point to what I see as a few of the problems with the basic contention of your post, which is that there was, in fact, bad behavior in polling in Finance in the mid '90's.

Firstly, and Mr. Holland makes this point quite well I think, Mr. Kinsella did have animosity with the Martin team. This should be taken into account when we consider his criticisms of Martin, Martin's campaign chair, and Mrs. O'Leary.

To emphasize this point, it is perhaps also important that Mr. Kinsella, during his testimony at the Gomery inquiry did accuse Mrs. O'Leary of swearing at him. This, of course, has no bearing on the workings of Finance or Mr. Hearly's old firm, but it does show the personal nature of this dispute, and this should be considered when assessing the value of all witnesses.

Secondly, from Mr. Kinsella's testimony we understand that many of the pertinent documents were not yet tabled because of translation problems. Before forming an opinion on a matter such as this, a reasonable person would want to see the original documents that dealt with the contracts. res ipsa loquitur. Failing that, all we are left with are the vituperations (under oath, I grant) of political opponents.

Thirdly, we must understand this testimony in the context of a minority parliament. The opposition parties held a majority of the votes on the committee, which chose to subpeona Mr. Kinsella to come and testify. The committee also voted to exclude the consideration of chapter five of the Auditor General's report, which members of the Liberal Party (i.e. Mr. Holland) would have liked to have considered. For this third reason, we should think critically about the outcome of this committee meeting because of the partisan choice of witnesses, which intentionally favoured the opposition, as did the choice of chapters.

Fourthly, it is important to understand that litigation followed this meeting. The truthfulness of some of the testimony was brought into question, and legal action was taken. For this reason, the testimony before the committee should not be read alone to form an opinion on the conduct of Finance and/ or Mr. Herle's old firm. There are more documents, more proceedings, and more testimony to consider in addition to the committee meeting that bears directly on the decision.

Fifthly, while this is a good post, it is good in the sense of good opposition research. This is the work of a Conservative Party supporter who has chosen selectively from the public record in order to support a certain view of events. To that end it is, read alone, scandalous; moreover, it tries to be. To that end it is well done, but it is also not judicious.

Ultimately, however, the post will be helpful in stirring in involved, detailed, and fruitful discussion about the government, so I thank you. And while I think we should appreciate the limitations of the committee, its members, its witnesses, its documents, its context in history, and the author of this compilation, it does still raise important issues. No doubt more detailed and thorough coverage will follow as we await the new inquiry.

Then we can decide whether to be indignant.