Angry in the Great White North

Update: Will Speaker Peter Milliken and the all-party Board of Internal Economy get involved in this?

First, check out the video being played out across the Canadian blogosphere.

Now consider this screen capture:

Going to 320-3.

That designation refers the location of the Office of the Prime Minister, better known as the Prime Minister's Office or PMO. I know because I asked someone at the PMO.

Clearly the label shows that the boxes were the property of the PMO.

Clearly the label shows that the boxes were to be located in the office of the PMO. Movers would be around to get them.

Maybe the movers weren't called. Maybe they forgot some boxes. Or maybe the boxes weren't where the movers expected to find them. That last possibility is the scariest, because it leads to questions of government documentation being moved around, perhaps to purposely prevent them from being correctly delivered.

So what is the Liberal Party spin? That the boxes were abandoned, as if there was no interest in moving them:

The Conservative government's blatant disregard for the privacy of their own employees raises serious questions about their competence to protect the privacy of all Canadians, the Liberal Opposition said today as they handed over boxes of confidential personnel files the Conservatives left behind in Opposition offices.

"Today we're returning five years worth of personal performance appraisals of Conservative staffers that this government negligently left behind," said Liberal MP Mark Holland.

"These are confidential documents on their own staff. Such gross ineptitude makes me very nervous about how this government handles other issues of a private nature," he added.

I would be nervous too, if I left a sealed box or envelope in the presense of Mark Holland. Apparently, that is an invitation to start rifling through the material, and then giving it out to the press.

I bet Mark Holland was great fun as a kid -- opening up Christmas gifts on December 21 just to see what he would be getting.

But here's the funny thing. The story about the papers is going under a subtle shift. Two days ago, the Liberal Party was saying they found the papers left behind:

Mr. Holland indicated that other documents left behind may contain information in the public interest. The Liberal Opposition is currently examining these documents and will turn them over to the RCMP and other relevant officials if further evidence of criminality or breach of ethics rules is found.

A week ago, though, it was a Deep Throat operation, with some shadowy figure doing the work of examining government papers, and delivering the goodies to Mark Holland:

At a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Holland said he was given documents anonymously earlier this week that indicate otherwise.

Holland says the documents show that Hart requested compensation totaling $22,674 in exchange for stepping down and that party officials and officials in Day’s office agreed in advance of Hart’s resignation to pay the compensation.

So which is it? The documents were left behind? Or that they came into the possession of this anonymous person? Were the boxes in the office all along, or were they brought there from somewhere else, essentially waylaid?

Here's what I think is going on. Mark Holland delivers the Stockwell Day memo regarding the resignation of Jim Hart, suggesting Hart was enticed to give up his seat for Day. A bit of stress for the government, but then the Quebec election happens, and everyone is talking about just how Stephen Harper is so masterful at running this government, and how Stephen Harper's plans are firing on all cylinders. A majority just around the corner, it seems.

So now the Liberals add a scandal to the scandal. Instead of the anonymous tip, there is the notion of "abandoned" documents, that somehow Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are leaving sensitive material all over Parliament Hill. The video shows the new circus act of the documents being delivered by the Liberals who are so respectful of document control that they intend to deliver the balance of the boxes into safer hands -- once they've been through them, of course, and released anything interesting they find to the press.

And if that doesn't work, they can change the story again. Maybe this time Mark Holland tried to get the movers to come get the boxes, but they were so heavy and stacked in such a dangerous manner by Conservatives (who obviously have no consideration for workplace safety) that they spontaneously began to tip over. Only his quick reflexes managed to save a group of nuns and orphans who had come to his office to plead that the oilsands be nationalized for the good of the environment from being crushed. The boxes opened inadvertently, and the memos about Stockwell Day and Jim Hart just happened to fall at his feet.

Sure. And if Stephen Harper continues to get good press despite this, add some kittens or baby seals or something.