Backpedalling

Paul Wells reports the Liberals are already running away from Reg Alcock's ill-advised sortie ("it's only $13-million") over the weekend. The opposition smells a major blunder, the news organizations are salivating, and Alcock -- well, he now says he doesn't know how much money was funnelled into Liberal hands. "Is $13 (million) the right number on this? I don't know. The [Public Accounts] committee doesn't know. My point to them is they've got to stop playing politics, focus on the numbers, focus on the facts." Wells closes in for the kill: "Does that include the facts you don't know ��and the number you appear to have made up?" UPDATE: Here's the CTV story. It's ugly. Vic Toews puts the knife in, and twists:

Toews, who sits on the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said Alcock's claim illustrates the government's ongoing inability to get a handle on the program. "Mr. Alcock's attempt to downplay this scandal shows that this is a Liberal government that simply can't get its story straight," Toews said. "The Auditor General wasn't able to determine value-for-money for this $100 million because there was no paper trail." "Now, magically, as the prime minister prepares for an election, his cabinet begins appearing on TV to tell Canadians that an outside agency has found the paper trail, and there's nothing to worry about."

And Reg, Reg just twists, as in "slowly, in the wind":

Later in the day, Alcock clarified that he had no new numbers; he was simply interpreting figures already released. He admitted the numbers were not in fact based on an independent follow-up audit, as he initially believed. Instead, they came from documents compiled by the Public Works Department, which has been under fire for its management of the program. He said the $13 million figure was "an illustration, not a definitive fact.''

The numbers came from Public Works! Did Groupaction get a cut for passing them on to him? UPPERDATE: No, it appears the middleman was... Dennis Mills! Who got them from a purple spotted elephant at the bottom of his garden... UPPESTDATE: As for Public Works, they're trying to clean up their act, in their own befuddled, bureaucratic way. An internal memo says the department recognizes "we must become more accountable and provide greater benefits to the government." Well, to the public, actually, but it's a start. "Our accountability structure needs to be strengthened. Our audit and ethics function needs to be strengthened," it goes on. "We need to be more rigorous in our management practices. We also need much better information, and information management, and a special focus on our financial management." Second that. Especially the bit about the ethics function. But department officials are looking on the bright side.

Yvette Aloisi, the department's assistant deputy minister for corporate services, human resources and communications, bluntly sums up the looming hurdles: "They're huge." But Aloisi is optimistic about the future of Public Works... "I thought it was a boring department, but it isn't," she said in an interview. "The things that this department does are quite amazing."

Yes, yes they are.