Does
anyone know who Julie Carmichael is?
Probably not.
"His
testimony has raised serious questions as to why the Liberal dirty tricks
machine is collecting personal information on their political opponents using
taxpayer dollars," Julie Carmichael said in an email.
Link:
Huffington
Post
|
Julie
Carmichael is the Director of Communications for the Minister of Public
Safety. Nice title eh?
Her
comments were to do with Adam Carroll of #vikileaks fame.
Vic
Toews himself weighed in on the matter, raising a question of Privilege…
The
fact that House of Commons resources appear to have been used in an attempt
to anonymously degrade my reputation and obstruct me from carrying out my
duties as a member of Parliament is, I contend, a contempt of the House. I
take no issue with an open attack on the floor of this House, in which the
source of the attack may be seen by all. I take strong issue with the idea
that House resources would be used to secretly attack a member of the House.
Vic
Toews: Hansard
February 27, 2012
|
It
seems that everyone from Dean Del Mastro to John Baird and then some had an opinion
on how evil it was for a mere staffer to access and distribute embarrassing information. They loudly proclaimed it an abuse of
taxpayer money and so on…
But
what happens when it involves the Prime Minister’s Office?
Early
last week, June 17th to be exact, the Barrie Advance and the Barrie
Examiner both ran very similar stories.
Both of these papers had received information from a “source” designed
to degrade the reputation of a Member of Parliament, that being Justin Trudeau.
The
“source” as you probably already know was the PMO.
Kudos
to both Papers for choosing the high road and deciding to not run these stories
as they were given to you, but for having the chutzpah to stand up to the PMO
and tell the world, well Barrie anyhow, how the unelected staffers of the PMO
were trying to turn you into part of their propaganda public relations
machine.
The
Advance chose to include some
portions of the email they received.
The
material included invoices, a promotional poster and an accommodation receipt
for the Toronto Four Seasons. Meekes wrote, “To be fair, there is an in-house
yoga studio at the Four Seasons!”
From
the Barrie
Advance
|
Meekes
is Erica Meekes, a Communications Officer within the PMO. When the Advance
contacted her at the PMO she said that they “routinely” reach out to the media
like this. I’m not sure if the sarcasm
is part of the routine, but obviously there was some time and effort involved
in uncovering this damning information from a period in time when Justin
Trudeau was just a private citizen. And
we paid for it. And it’s a routine
thing.
Nice.
We
also get to pay for Andrew MacDougall and his tweets on Justin Trudeau. Andrew is a Director of Communications within
the PMO.
The
PMO has around 90 of these folks running around, some of them are the infamous “boys
in short pants” that the Harper Party backbenchers deride.
The
bottom line is we are paying the salaries of these people. They are supposed to be advisors to Harper,
not his hatchet crew. Prior to Stephen
Harper, most of us had never even heard of the PMO. The most we ever got was “a spokesperson for
the PM” saying something when the PM wasn’t available.
If
the Harper Party wants to complain about the other parties and their staffers,
they need to start in their own yard first.
Partisan politics is the realm of the parties, not the staffers or the
PMO. Using government employees for partisan
efforts is an abuse of the public’s purse and of the public’s trust and should
not be condoned by any of the parties.
But
true to form. The Harper Party loves to
jump all over the other guys in the House, cite all sorts of rules and
privileges and what not. But none of
that stuff ever applies to them, does it?
Keep
this in mind Stephen, I will not forget and I will remind everyone who does.
Laters,
BC
As always Mr. Cat. Purrfectly timed and an excellent summary.
ReplyDeleteNick....