Yesterday watching Twitter election 2011 flow by was one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed in politics.
Idle yapping about Iggy’s wife citizenship suddenly breaks for the announcement that a confidential draft of the Auditor General’s report on the G8 has been leaked and is out there and, apparently, Sheila Fraser says the Government “misled” Parliament and did “illegal” stuff. Journalists freak. After lunch, Tory pointy-shouty man John Baird comes out and says he has a later draft and misled and illegal aren’t in there so it’s all OK…. and the Liberals are evil [… even though the Grits have nothing to do with anything… OK, he never said the Liberals were evil.] Then, astoundingly, the super secret report draft is handed over by Baird to the press… and the Toronto Sun publishes it including this:
2.20 – For example, we looked for selection documentation for the Huntsville G8 Centre (Community Recreation Complex $16.7 million) and expansion (Facility for Waterloo University $9.75 million), which were constructed for the Summit but, ultimately, not used as announcedc The Centre was intended to be a facility to coordinate overall logistics for the event and serve as an’ accreditation hub to vet thousands of people attending the event. We found that when the announcement for this project was made in February 2009, DFAIT had determined the centre would not be suitable because it was not expected to be completed in time. …
2.22 – In our view, the manner in which the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund was presented did not make clear to Parliament the full nature of the request. By including the request under the item “Funding for the Border Infrastructure Fund relating to investments in infrastructure to reduce border congestion” government did not clearly or transparently identify the nature of the request for funding, that is, G8 infrastructure project spending.
So, the riding of a member of Cabinet gets a multi-million dollar G8 facility known at the time to not be needed for the purpose of the G8, Parliament is told its a project which is part of the reduction of border congestion and the fact that Fraser comes out and tells people not to draw conclusions based on a draft makes all the journalists shake their heads at each other and tell themselves they rushed to judgment? Then it turns out the Tories twisted her words in another report and the news flow moves on…
That has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever seen in Canadian politics. Tories still 8.5% up on Grits and the debates start tonight. Oh, and I got offered to blog for the rest of the election for a major national news outlet just like back in 2005/06. But I was supposed to do it without pay. I trust you are proud of me turning it down.
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