Angry in the Great White North

During Brian Mulroney's appearance in front of the Commons ethics committee hearing looking into allegations made by Karlheinz Schreiber, Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez created quite a ruckus when he posed this question:

Conservative MPs were upset that Rodriguez seemed to go so far off the Schreiber story, but the real fireworks started later when former Liberal MP Jean Lapierre, now an analyst with CTV News, alleged that the question was actually written by a CBC reporter, and that Pablo Rodriguez was merely a proxy.

The question of CBC collusion with the Liberal Party has been debated a lot in the blogosphere, and the Conservative Party demanded answers from the CBC.

Aaron seems to have part of that answer in hand.  From Aaron's blog:

Amazing what a little Bourque-driven traffic will do to stimulate interesting emails. This just showed up in my mailbox, forwarded from, if you can believe it, a vice-president of the CBC:

I wanted to let you know that CBC news chiefs have looked at the allegations made yesterday.

They feel that the reporter's actions in pursuing the story were inappropriate and against CBC/Radio-Canada's Journalistic Standards.

They are continuing to investigate the particulars and will follow the disciplinary processes outlined in the CBC's collective agreement.

I imagine that the CBC Ombudsman will be responding to complaints and investigating what happened as well.

They want to make sure this doesn't happen in future.

Read the whole thing, but clearly there are some remarkable elements to this break in the story:

• Despite Liberal protestations that this amounted to nothing and that everyone does it, the CBC news chiefs have decided that it indeed was inappropriate.
• The seriousness of the situation requires disciplinary action.
• The CBC news chiefs are not waiting for the Ombudsman to report on his investigation.
• The CBC news chiefs want to make sure this won't happen again, which suggests the person being disciplined will be held out as an example of the consequences of getting too close to any political party.

The CBC is moving quickly to respond to this situation.  If the CBC felt that the Liberals would be forming the next government anytime soon, I doubt they would be acting so briskly. 

This leaves Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez in a delicate position.  He has stated that the notion that the CBC framed his questions was absurd.  If it was so absurd, why does it look like a CBC reporter is about to be disciplined over the allegation?  Expect a fair amount of not-so-good-natured ribbing aimed at Rodriguez for the next while every time he tries to ask a question.

Did Pablo Rodriguez and other Liberals offer to support the CBC in fighting off the allegation?  If so, did the CBC decide it was better to discipline the reporter rather than accept any favours from the Liberal Party?

If there is discipline levelled against a CBC reporter, and the idea that the Karlheinz Schreiber affair was manufactured by the CBC starts to take hold with Canadians, will the whole business just evapourate?

How might this affect relationships between the Liberal Party and any media outlet in the future?

How much blowback can the Liberal Party expect to suffer if it is confirmed that it has secret media allies in the fight to unseat the Conservatives?  Will Canadians appreciate shadowy cabals operating in our democracy?  Will the Liberal Party be forced to defend itself against allegations that it manufactures the news Canadians are seeing?

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