Backblogging

POSSIBLY THIS study of Conservative election prospects was compiled by the same people who put together that "shocking" memo to the President with its "revelations" that Osama bin Laden was fixing to attack, somewhere in the United States (gosh: you mean like LAX airport? Or the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?). The Federal Bureau of the Incredibly Obvious, perhaps? Actually, the study was put together by Alan Hall Electoral Engineering. It "reveals" that if all the Alliance voters and all the Tory voters from the last election were combined, the Conservatives would win some more seats, and if you include the new seats west of Ontario on the latest electoral map, they'd win a few more. The study carries the appropriate caveat that some Tory votes might bleed to the Liberals. But there's no mention of Liberal voters bleeding to the Conservatives: apparently that's unthinkable. But you don't need a high-priced consultant to tell you that. Just use the UBC Election Stock Market's swing-o-matic trendicator.... MEANTIME THE Liberals' determined effort to "get to the bottom" of Adscam continues. The Prime Minister is jetting across the country at taxpayers' expense on what his guru, hirsute svengali David Herle, admits is a pre-election poll-booster -- notwithstanding the PM's own wide-eyed denials last week that it had anything to do with the election. But Herle says the PM will be guided by many things in deciding when to call the election:

One of the most important, he emphasized, would be when Martin feels voters are "comfortable that they know enough about the sponsorship program that they can vote in good conscience..."

Got that? The Prime Minister will call the election when he feels the voters have enough information. That's gracious of him. Not that they'll get it from the Commons Public Accounts committee (Paul Martin, prop.), whose Liberal members have bogged it down in procedural wrangling . But the Montreal Gazette is on to them, as is the National Post and Doug Fisher. That's not the only barracking that's going on. The Sun's Maria McClintock reports that Public Works "is refusing to release any documents linked to Adscam unless the RCMP gives the okay." And then there's this classic piece of misdirection from Reg Alcock, the president of Treasury Board. Appearing on CTV's Question Period over the weekend, Alcock said he'd "been told" a special audit being carried out by Ernst and Young (that would be the third major Liberal contributor to be hired to do audits into a scandal involving other major Liberal contributors) had found only $13-million had been "lost," though it had yet to complete its work. (Or is it $15-million, as the Star reports?) "This number of $100-million is beginning to shrink rather substantially," he chortled. I wasn't aware that any money had been "lost," so it's a bit shocking to hear that they can't find $13-million. The Auditor General's report didn't say that $100 million had been "lost," but that it had been handed out to Liberal-supporting advertising firms for next-to-nothing in the way of services, or about 40% of a $250-million program that was of dubious value to begin with. As they are taught in political school, Alcock is denying a charge that had not been made. But this just raises more questions. How was he "told" of the audit's findings, when they have not yet been completed? Why has no one else been privy to this half-finished report, notably the Public Accounts committee? What was the methodology, the criteria, and how did it differ from that of the Auditor General? And of course: Where's that $15-million? Hint: Alain Richard may know. Richard, the former VP at Groupaction, told the Public Accounts committee behind closed doors last week what everyone has long suspected: that the firms worked for "free" on Liberal election campaigns in return for a share of lucrative contracts after the Grits were returned to office. In other words, they would be paid out of public funds, rather than by the party. Of course, now that Jean Chretien, in one of his final acts, has put election campaigns almost wholly on the public tab, the Liberals will not have to engage in such chicanery in future: What was formerly illegal and wrong is now perfectly legal and right. It's possible that Richard, who fears death threats and wanted to have his dogs with him when he appeared before the committee, is a bit nuts. On the other hand, he apparently has "a thick file of documents to back up his claims," so we'll see. One suggestive piece of evidence has already emerged: news that Jean Brault, Groupaction's owner, was invited to sit in at a secret cabinet meeting in July of 1998. The chair of the meeting: Alfonso Gagliano, whom the Star's Les Whittington reports pitched the ministers present to cough up more money for government advertising in community newspapers. But we leave the last word to Herle. Appearing on the same program as Alcock, Herle commented that media pundits are analyzing the scandal almost entirely in terms of the government's strategy for handling it:

"I actually don't hear much comment about, frankly, the morality of it," he said. "For Paul Martin, this is not a strategy."

Of course, if it were a strategy, it would be part of the strategy to deny that it was a strategy, would it not?