Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre stepped in it in a big way yesterday, on the day Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered up what is generally being received as a heartfelt and sincere apology to First Nations people who suffered as a result of residential schools.

Mike Duffy can explain:

One aspect to this story is how the story got around.  Well, it must be said that this was not a secret meeting recorded with a microphone in the mattress.

That's just silly.

It was a radio interview on CFRA, and the recording was published on the CFRA website.  But as Mike Duffy said, he was informed of the interview and of Poilievre's statements by Liberal Party researchers.

Indeed, it looks like the Liberals were blasting emails everywhere.

The Canadian Press makes prominent mention of the Liberals moving the story:

"Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years," says Poilievre, in a clip circulated by the Liberal opposition.

Kady O'Malley of Maclean's, on the other hand, makes no mention of someone tipping her off.  Maybe no one did, but then her post precedes the Canadian Press story by just over an hour, and would have come out at about the same time as Mike Duffy Live was being taped.

I'm not sure why Mike Duffy and the Canadian Press would name their source, and Maclean's would not (if indeed the Maclean's piece was prompted by a Liberal Party email).  In a sense, it doesn't matter because the entire interview is available on the CFRA website.  Maybe some people worry about being seen as letting the Liberals dictate the news. 

I don't think that's the case.  A reporter gets an email from a political party.  It's still up to the reporter to determine if the story is newsworthy.  Attributing the tip to the party doesn't change that.

Not mentioning where the tip came from, though, does make one wonder.  You get into the whole "If you have nothing to hide, why are you hiding something?" dynamic if later it becomes obvious where the tip did originate from.

How are people reacting to Poilievre's comments?  Some are excoriating him.  No surprise there.  Others point out that he brings up valid concerns, but that his timing was poor.

That second view is the one I find interesting, and I'd like to address it in a moment.

No one, by the way, seems to blaming the Liberals for making hay with this.  Are the Liberals guilty of taking the low road?  Are the Liberals ignoring whatever hurt might might be caused by Poilievre's comments by spreading word of the interview around, trading off the hurt in order to score some political points?

Of course they're guilty.  No question.  But then, honestly,  I can't imagine the Conservatives would have chosen to ignore ill-chosen words uttered by a Liberal under the same circumstances.

Politics is a tough game, and sometimes people caught in the middle get roughed up.  It sucks, but there it is.

So two lessons for Pierre and for anyone else who works in the public eye.

First, all the political parties have access to email.  The Liberals are just as capable as the Conservatives or anyone else of boosting a story, and doing it in the blink of an eye, before the subject of the story has a chance to prepare for it.  The story will spread and it won't always be obvious who is reporting on that email and who is not.  Assume that the Liberals can get every media outlet to write up the story.  It's not a conspiracy.  It's just how a newsworthy story can spread at Internet speeds.  Learn from this.

Second, in considering the question of whether this is just a case of poor timing, it is clear to me that the Conservatives have to get more engineers as MPs, or at the very least as top staffers for MPs.  The party is too top-heavy with lawyers and political science types.   These sorts of people seem to think it is possible to say the right thing at the wrong time.

No engineer thinks like that.  In a real-time system, the correctness of the output is dependent on both its value and its timeliness.

In other words, if I hit the brakes, and the onboard computer in the car starts to stop the car ten seconds later, the situation is not of the brakes working, but working too late.  To an engineer, the brakes did not work.  Period.

The timeliness is part of the message, and can't be separated from it.

So did Pierre Poilievre say anything that was not true?  He made valid points about the value of apologies and whether money will solve the problems suffered by First Nations people in the long term.

So did Pierre Poilievre say this at the wrong time?  Oh yeah.  This was not the day to be second-guessing the apology or embarrassing First Nations people by bringing up the problems in their communities.

Pierre Poilievre said the right thing at the wrong time.

Which really means he said the wrong thing.  Period.

Add this to the card every Conservative MP carries:

There is no such thing as saying the right thing at the wrong time.  If you do, you said the wrong thing.  Period.

Say it out loud.  Repeat as many times as necessary.

The nice thing about this approach is that if you do find yourself saying the wrong thing, the apology is straightforward and sincere. 

No qualifications about the timing or the venue.  Nothing that comes off as evasive, or that looks like an attempt to water down the apology.

I said the wrong thing.  Dammit.  I'm sorry.

Addendum: Not everyone reporting on this story is pushing it to the top, as no doubt the Liberals had hoped they would.  Consider this story from the Globe and Mail about the residential school apology:

The government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home. ...

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had yet to utter a single word of Canada's apology to former Indian residential schools students when the cheering began. Native drumming and shouts turned into loud, simultaneous clapping. Raw emotion bursting for an apology decades overdue. There were many smiles.

Studies show that 95% of readers focus on the opening paragraphs at the exclusion of the rest of an article.  Indeed, the studies show that the more intensely the opening paragraphs are reviewed, the less likely that the reader will go on past those paragraphs.

In the opening paragraphs of this story, the Globe and Mail casts the day as a triumphant one for the Conservatives.

Are Pierre Poilievre's comments mentioned?  Yes, at around paragraph 17:

The Prime Minister's message of healing was undercut yesterday by one of his own MPs, who spoke sarcastically of the size of the residential schools settlement on talk radio.

"Along with this apology comes another four billion dollars in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools," said Tory MP Pierre Poilievre, adding dramatic emphasis to the $4-billion, during an appearance on CFRA Radio just before the apology. "Some of us are starting to ask, are we really getting value for all of this money and is money really going to solve the problem?"

Last night, Mr. Poilievre issued a statement about his comments.

"I stated that aboriginals deserve protection under Canada's human-rights laws and that the record dollars that the government is spending on aboriginals should reach the people in need," the e-mailed statement said.

Take note that the reporters also edited the comments so that the original comment, and the statement released later, are given about equal space and weight.

I'd be surprised if 1 in 50 readers made it that far.

Then there are about six more paragraphs, where the tone reverts back to healing and satisfaction, and no more mention is made of Poilievre's comments.

That story could easily have been written in a very different way, one that could have inflated the effect of Poilievre's comments.  As it was, the comments are essentially neutralized.

And yes, the piece was written by Gloria Galloway, who for some reason seems to be awarded a starring role when it comes to anti-Conservative media conspiracy theories.

I don't get it.

Update: Pierre Poilievre has apologized:

The Conservative MP who said native people need to learn the value of hard work more than they need residential schools compensation has apologized.

Pierre Poilievre rose in the House of Commons on Thursday to say his comments were hurtful and wrong.

"Yesterday on a day when the House and all Canadians were celebrating a new beginning, I made remarks that were hurtful and wrong," he said.

“I accept responsibility for them and I apologize.”

No qualifications.  No attempt to justify what he said, and just apologize for the timing.  None of that good-point-bad-timing nonsense.  Just an apology for saying the wrong thing.  Good for him.

Maybe there is an engineer lurking in the PMO after all.