Angry in the Great White North

Liberal MP Garth Turner dismisses the concerns I raised when I realized that the question posed at the CTV's Canada AM townhall was (1) designed to initiate an attack on Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt and (2) delivered by Dan Baril, pollster to Garth Turner.  Here's the exchange as it played out.  There is no mention that the person asking the question is a member of the Liberal riding association board, something that should have been disclosed to the viewing audience:

To me, this looked like a setup, using CTV to deliver a partisan attack.  Garth Turner responded on his blog:

Meanwhile, in a steamy basement somewhere to the west, Conservative blogger Steve Janke was working on an expose of the Canada AM show that went to air this morning, featuring a segment on the battle of Halton. He had discovered a question asked of me had been posed by a Liberal supporter – a question whose answer, he said, “delivered a sucker punch to Lisa Raitt right there on the stage.” So, had I arranged it?

(Actually Canada AM’s producer had asked each candidate’s campaign to provide one questioner, whose topic and identity were gathered in advance. My Conservative opponent agreed, and participated. Some expose.)

Well, I already figured out these questions were pre-arranged.  But I also figured CTV was not about to hand over their morning program to professional partisan campaigners.

Did the other campaigns bring senior campaign workers?

I contacted the Lisa Raitt campaign.  They brought a university student, who had never met Lisa Raitt and had nothing to do with their campaign, to ask a question regarding student loans.  I thanked them and wished them luck on the campaign.

I contacted Rob Wagner of the NDP.  Here is what he told me by email:

Hi Steve,

We were asked not to bring a Campaign worker.

But we were allowed to bring a supporter.

I went completely off the map and allowed someone with a very serious question to get the exposure that her question deserved.

Thanks

I thanked Rob for his time and wished him luck on his campaign.

I contacted Amy Collard of the Green Party.  Here is what she told me by email:

Here is a quote from the email my campaign manager received regarding the questions posed during our appearance on Canada AM:

“During the Q&A, we’re offering each of the candidates an opportunity to have one of their supporters to ask a question.  We would like to have you identify an individual that would be posing the question. That person ideally does not work on the campaign.”

As you can see, the rules were fairly loose.  The person who asked my question was not working on my campaign; I met her the morning of the broadcast and asked her to read my question.  She agreed.  I do not know how the other candidates chose their questioner.  I hope this clarifies the process.

I thanked Amy for her time and wished her luck on her campaign.  The response was longer than the extract I've put here, and the rest appears after the main body of this post.

So the person brought by the candidate to ask a question was not supposed to work on the campaign.

But Dan Baril is listed as the board member responsible for research and polling for Garth Turner’s Riding Association for 2007-2008:

There he is with Garth Turner and Esther Shaye, who is now Garth’s campaign manager.  Being in charge of research and polling, I think it's fair to say that Dan Baril is doing critical work for the Garth Turner campaign.

So it looks like we have a situation in which CTV invited the campaigns to bring along a person to ask a question, and in good faith, asked that the campaigns not bring a person directly associated with the campaign.

It would appear that Garth Turner either (1) didn't get the same instructions as the other candidates or (2) decided to ignore that condition.

The other campaigns brought in people not directly associated with the campaign to ask questions designed to elicit information from the candidates.  Garth Turner brought in one of his most senior people to tee up an attack on Lisa Raitt.

So what have we learned about how Garth Turner deals with the media during an election?  Is he honest and transparent?  Just ask CPAC, CBC News and CTV.

Questions:  Here are some questions for CTV:

1. Shouldn’t the viewing audience have been informed that the attack question set up for Garth Turner came from Garth Turner’s pollster?
2. Did CTV know questioner Dan Baril was Garth Turner’s pollster, and let him ask a question anyway, in spite of the conditions set out for all candidates?
3. Or did Garth Turner put one over on CTV and the cross-Canada television audience?

Electoral Reform:  In Amy Collard's email to me, she mentioned that she was unable to complete her answer to the question she was asked.  I offered to print her complete answer here:

You may have noticed that I was not given the opportunity to finish my response to my question about Electoral Reform; the moderator allowed Mr Wagner to interrupt.  And so, I was not allowed to make the point that with the current system, the Bloc Quebecois may be able to attract 10% of the national vote, in a very localized manner, and actually receive up to 15% of the seats.  At the same time the Green Party may also attract 10% of the national vote, and walk away with no seats, because our support is wide-spread across Canada.  So, this is a perfect example of a broken democracy, in which some votes count more than others, and many votes don't count at all.

The Green Party is committed to Electoral Reform!  I hope I can count on your support on Election Day!

Good luck, Amy!  And thanks for playing by the rules.