From CTV:
"The day they made the announcement they phoned us and said something is going to be said," [Bill Gleberzon, the Director of Government & Media Relations for Canada's Association for the Fifty Plus (CARP)], told CTV News Wednesday night.
Gleberzon said the call came from a senior policy advisor in the finance minister's office, someone his group had been dealing with all along.
However, on Thursday morning, Gleberzon and CARP issued a news release denying any advance knowledge of Goodale's announcement.
"At no time was CARP given an indication by the Minister's office of when the announcement would be made or what it would say," the release said.
But then what did he tell CTV?
CTV's Kathy Tomlinson talked to Gleberzon after the release was issued. He confirmed what he had said in the previous interview, but now maintained he had misspoken.
So he misspoke when he said he got a phone call? How do you get a basic fact like that confused?
At first, Gleberzon said no one from the finance minister's office had contacted him about the interview.
When told that the finance ministry's communications director, John Embury, had already admitted to calling Gleberzon Wednesday night, he explained:
"I did speak to him …. I shouldn't have said that I didn't, but I did," Gleberzon told Tomlinson.
So he's lying? Was he lying then? Is he lying now?
But it gets better. Embury was then trying to coach Gleberzon, while at the same time undercutting his credibility with the media by alleging some sort of age-related dementia:
"They phoned me and they asked -- they found out about the interview. He asked me what was going on, I told him, but it's when we were talking about the timing issue that I realized how important it was," [Gleberzon said.]
Gleberzon said Embury told him: "We don't want to coach you, we don't want to tell you what to say, we just want to know what to prepare for."
Embury was aware of the story earlier in the day, and sent an email to CTV Wednesday night, before the newscast aired, saying of Gleberzon: "He denies saying what he is supposed to have said to your reporter."
In a phone call later, Embury told CTV's Robert Fife that Gleberzon was old and confused.
We don't want to coach you, but we want you to be prepared.
Um, isn't coaching defined as preparing a person for some sort of contest?
And calling Gleberzon old and confused? That's cute. Apparently, Embury has apologized.
Maybe Warren Kinsella can help sort this out.
