Angry in the Great White North

Robert Fife made a stunning allegation in a report on CTV News.  He said that someone in the Liberal Party bypassed the journalistic community and went straight to publisher Jamie Irving (a member of the Irving family of New Brunswick).  Furthermore, Irving and editor Shawna Richer then altered a story submitted by two professional journalists to include an allegation that Prime Minister Stephen Harper pocketed a communion host when he attended the funeral of former governor general Romeo Leblanc.

The story has been discredited, and Irving and Richer have both been relieved of their positions at The Telegraph-Journal.

In the apology issued by The Telegraph-Journal, the blame was assigned to "the editing process", but the apology did not detail where the story of the wafer came from, or why professional journalists were not assigned to follow-up the story.

Robert Fife's allegation fills in that gap quite nicely, but right now, it is only an allegation.

Kady O'Malley of Maclean's put the question to the OLO.

From the ITQ inbox:

Inside caucus today Doug Finley did not mince his words. He threw down the gauntlet and bluntly told Caucus that Conservatives would be asking the following question to each and every Liberal; to each and every member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery:

"Can Michael Ignatieff assure Canadians that no Liberal staffer, executive or advisor contacted Jamie Irving or Shawna Richer regarding the Prime Minister's acceptance of communion at Romeo LeBlanc's funeral?"

Coincidentally - well, not really coincidentally; not being a complete idiot, ITQ can, in fact, spot a party talking point  just as well as anyone else - she had already submitted a very similar, if slightly less loaded question on that very subject to the OLO press office. She'll let you know what the response is.

She received a response:

This is nonsense. We didn't record the videotape - CPAC did. And as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Canadians need only look at the video on You Tube to see what happened.

No one is accusing the Liberals of recording the video, which is ambiguous at best.  The question is whether or not someone in the Liberal Party, with or without the authorization of the Liberal Party leadership (though we'd like to know that too), went to Jamie Irving with this interpretation of the video.  The question is whether or not there was a discussion of the political goals behind printing this story, and whether or not Jamie Irving agreed to publish the story to further those political goals.  The question is whether or not Jamie Irving was approached because (1) he is an Irving, and (2) there was a deliberate effort to avoid dealing with professional journalists.

Answer the question.