Unusual lengths: An exchange

My Saturday column (see below) elicited the following response from a Mr. Warren Kinsella. I had thought the matter was just between us, but as Mr. Kinsella has also seen fit to make his complaints public, he will perhaps forgive me for following suit.

On Feb 12, 2005, at 11:55 AM, Warren Kinsella wrote: No evidence, anywhere, has been tendered to demonstrate that I or David Dingwall “went to unusual lengths” to place Guite in charge of sponsorship. In fact, the program did not exist until more than a year after Dingwall and I were out of Public Works. The program commenced in mid-1997, as your newspaper has reported many times; Dingwall was shuffled out of PWGSC in January 1996. I went with him, then left government entirely in February 1996. Guite was placed in charge of sponsorship, as I understand, by Ran Quail and Diane Marleau, around the time that I was living in Vancouver. If you had bothered to pick up the phone to speak to me, or done the barest amount of research, you would have known that. Instead, your partisan rage about golf balls, I suspect, persuaded you to publish a lie. That was a big mistake. I am demanding that you correct the record in your next column, in the clearest possible terms. I'm not screwing around, either, Andrew. Norman Spector is not someone you should be treating as a source, as he and his libel counsel are about to shortly discover. I look forward to hearing from you. I've copied Jon Kay on this, in the event that he needs to get involved, which I suspect he will. Warren

Dear Warren:

I did not say that you had "placed" Mr. Guité "in charge of sponsorship." The "program" I was referring to, as is evident from the context, is federal advertising. And it was a program: As the Gomery inquiry has heard, following Mr. Dingwall's suggestion, federal advertising and communications were consolidated across all departments into one centrally administered, um, program. If you can think of a better word, please advise.

But let's pass on. Did you and Mr. Dingwall, as I state, go to "unusual lengths" to ensure that Mr. Guité was put in charge of this program? Let me quote from this story in The Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 16, 2004:

The bureaucrat at the centre of the sponsorship scandal was hand-picked by the Chretien government to revamp federal communication strategy, according to documents submitted yesterday to the Gomery commission. A 1995 memo from then-public works minister David Dingwall's chief of staff to the department's top bureaucrat urged that Chuck Guite be appointed to head a review that would centralize the buying and co-ordination of all advertising, polling and communications across government.... During questioning, commission counsel Neil Finkelstein asked Treasury Board Secretary Jim Judd whether political staff [that would be you, Warren] normally direct a deputy minister -- in this case Ran Quail -- on whom to appoint in bureaucratic jobs. Mr. Quail was responsible for the department's management, including who is hired and fired, to ensure the bureaucracy remains non-partisan and free from political influence. "How unusual is it for political staff of a minister to be directing assignments in the public service? That's a difficulty for the deputy minister, isn't it?" asked Mr. Finkelstein. "It's not a usual experience, I would suggest," replied Mr. Judd. "It is a difficulty for a deputy minister, isn't it?" Mr. Finkelstein repeated. "Yes," said Mr. Judd... Mr. Judd testified it is highly unusual for the minister's office to bypass the deputy minister and co-ordinate relations with PCO. He said Mr. Quail should have been talking directly to PCO, not Mr. Kinsella.

And then there's this, from the Toronto Star of the same day:

[I]n the wake of the sovereignty battle, Guite was singled out by onetime public works minister David Dingwall as the best person available to spearhead the development of a new, co-ordinated strategy to deliver federal advertising and promotional services. Guite, who then ran the government advertising branch that evolved into the sponsorship program, is "clearly best suited" to handle this project, Warren Kinsella, an aide to Dingwall, wrote in a letter to the deputy minister of public works in November, 1995. Kinsella wrote that the policy review, which was a priority of then-prime minister Jean Chretien, should investigate all advertising and "potential sponsorship initiatives that are available to effectively promote government programs," according to a memo tabled at the inquiry. The review led to the creation of one federal agency within public works - headed by Guite - which handled advertising, polling and the sponsorship program that produced the biggest scandal of the Chretien years.

Emphasis added. Your enthusiastic recommendation of Mr. Guité is all the more unusual in light of the following exchange, reported in the Toronto Star on Sept. 24:

The high-level political backing enjoyed by Chuck Guite, a former public servant at the centre of the sponsorship scandal, should have set off alarm bells among senior government officials back in the early 1990s, the Gomery inquiry was told yesterday. David Marshall, the current deputy minister of public works, was being cross-examined at the sponsorship hearings about how Guite was promoted regularly until he became an executive director in charge of Ottawa's multi-million-dollar communications budget. Richard Auger, representing Guite at the inquiry, asked Marshall about a letter in the mid-1990s from the office of then-public works minister David Dingwall to his deputy minister suggesting Guite should be promoted and put in charge of reorganizing all the government's advertising and public relations efforts. Noting that Guite's file was full of excellent performance reports, there would have been no reason to object to the promotion, Auger suggested to Marshall. But Marshall said it wasn't that simple. "When you get a minister's office directing you to appoint somebody, there's more than just competency for the job that you would think about," the current public works deputy minister said. Marshall said senior officials should have wondered if Guite was too close to his political masters for a mid-level public servant and too prone to cut corners to satisfy political aims. "I'm suggesting that a flag would have been raised, but that's just my own opinion." Marshall added that an audit of public works advertising activities under Guite in 1996 had raised questions about lack of compliance with government contracting regulations. "There was evidence on file that Mr. Guite was capable of breaking the rules," the deputy minister said.

Your emphasis on the sponsorship program not having begun until mid-1997, by which time you were out of government, seems to me misplaced, in two respects. One, so far as we define "sponsorship program" in terms of sponsorships, the federal government began sponsoring events in Quebec and elsewhere long before that date. (See, for example, The Ottawa Citizen, Sept. 28, 2004: "Mr. Himelfarb admitted that many of the events surrounding the sponsorship program were "unusual," including Mr. Chretien's signature authorizing the funds. Mr. Chretien signed three Treasury Board submissions to use the unity fund for sponsorships after 1996 and signed three others for similar events before 1996.") And two, so far as we define "sponsorship program" as a program, ie a continuing operation with established rules, practices and procedures, there was no such program, at least until 2000. In support, let me quote the following exchange, between Judge Gomery, with whom I believe you are familiar, and Paul Martin, the current Prime Minister of Canada:

THE RT. HON. PAUL MARTIN: Well, I don’t think that – I think that program is too strong a word, to be aware of a program, Commissioner. I think that there was a desire on the part of the government to increase its visibility in a multitude of ways. I think we all understood that that had become a factor, that there a program in the words – the definition of program that I would use, I don’t think I was aware of that in any event. THE COMMISSIONER: Well, we know now, with the benefit of what we have learned here, that there was no program. THE RT. HON. PAUL MARTIN: There was no program. THE COMMISSIONER: It has been called the Sponsorship Program, but until the year 2000, there was, in fact, no program in the sense of a --- THE RT. HON. PAUL MARTIN: Yes. THE COMMISSIONER: --- government program with rules and criteria and some form of organisation.

Perhaps you would like to take up your disagreement with these two gentlemen. So the notion that there is some bright line to be drawn between 1997 and previous years seems, if you will permit me, specious. In any case, if the whole controversy over sponsorships is as overblown as I gather you take it to be, if indeed you share the former Prime Minister's view that it was a well-intended and thoroughly non-partisan endeavour, I am at a loss to understand why you are so concerned to distance yourself from it. I fear you are responding in too much haste. The inquiry is still in its early stages. It has drawn no conclusions, nor have I: the column in question makes no accusations, but merely summarizes evidence heard under oath in a public inquiry (what we are "asked to believe."). In advance of the inquiry's report, I have no reason to hold you in anything but the highest personal regard. You, on the other hand, have recklessly and without evidence charged me with publishing a lie, ie a deliberate falsehood, an accusation which you can now see is untrue and I'm sure will want to retract. Very best wishes, Andrew Coyne