The Commons ethics committee heard testimony from former prime minister Brian Mulroney with regards to allegation made by Karlheinz Schreiber that Mulroney had accepted bribes while in office.  The Liberals would very much like to tie this 15 year old story to the current government, and yesterday, Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez made such an effort.

Pablo Rodriguez asked Brian Mulroney is Mulroney had any contact with the government with regards to the wireless spectrum auction issue.  That raised the hackles of the Conservative MPs, who thought this went well beyond the mandate of their hearings, which until now was focused on Airbus and Thyssen.

But the real fireworks started later, when former Liberal MP and CTV news analyst Jean Lapierre revealed to Mike Duffy that he knew that Rodriguez was going to bring up the wireless spectrum question because a Liberal parliamentarian had told him the day before that a CBC reporter and Rodriguez had been working together on preparing questions for Mulroney.

Though Rodriguez denied it, a Liberal staffer confirmed the allegation to Mike Duffy, though he explained that the CBC had merely told them what to ask, but that the Liberals did all the typing...or something like that.

The question of collusion is a tricky one.  Personally I'm concerned that favoured reporters or networks would be able to do their questioning with the power of a parliamentary subpoena.  Worse than that, a news organization would prepare stories ahead of time, and then frame questions designed to evoke the "break" required to make the story suddenly newsworthy.

Apparently, the CBC is concerned too.  The CBC is planning to check on these allegations:

The CBC has begun an internal investigation and possible disciplinary process after one of its parliamentary reporters suggested questions to a Liberal MP on the Commons ethics committee.

The probe follows a formal complaint by the Conservative party.

The complaint centres on claims that Liberal Pablo Rodriguez directed questions from the CBC to Brian Mulroney during a highly anticipated Commons committee hearing on Thursday.

CBC News says the reporter, who it did not name, "may have been in pursuit of a journalistically legitimate story."

But the broadcaster says it was an "inappropriate way of going about it and as such inconsistent with our journalistic policies and practices."

The Liberals are denying that they did anything wrong.  Perhaps this CBC reporter is being left to twist in the wind. 

The first question to ask is whether the CBC should even be investigating itself.  The story does not say what element of the CBC is conducting the investigation, and whether it is sufficiently independent of the news arm of the CBC. 

Hopefully these and other details will be forthcoming.

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