Meanwhile, in the category of everyone briskly digging holes for themselves, what a week it was.
The Liberals named a former Harper Conservative candidate to be their communications director. The new hire, journalist Craig Westcott, came in guns blazing, talking about what he saw as the task at hand — defeating the premier.
The Williams government launched its own attack, sending a cabinet minister stalking-horse (it doesn’t matter which one — when they’re just following orders to blurt stuff on Voice of the Cabinet Minister, they’re essentially interchangeable) to bluster on “Open Line” that Westcott had once questioned whether the premier was mentally ill.
The media, predictably, asked the premier’s office what the cabinet minister was referring to, and in about 11 seconds, the premier’s office released correspondence from February 2009, in which Westcott questioned the premier’s behaviour, and asked about the possibility of syphilis or mental instability.
Sorry if you weren’t amused
Backpedalling ferociously, Westcott now says it was all a joke, designed to poke the premier’s office and he’s sorry if he offended people.
It is a tired political gambit: when in doubt, say you were either misquoted, taken out of context or joking. He also says it wasn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done. I’ll agree with that.
The premier’s office, meanwhile, clearly didn’t take it seriously when they actually got the message, because they didn’t bother to respond to it.
They have, however, used it strategically — and not only now.
I’ve heard that one before
The premier or members of his staff have mentioned Westcott’s inquiry about the premier’s mental health in my presence on at least three different occasions. In fact, it has been used every time Westcott’s name has been mentioned.
Until Westcott became a more public figure, the email wasn’t exactly a news story. But it has been used to discredit Westcott, and probably the two small newspapers he’s been running, for a good long time.
Ammunition like that is a sheer gift — they’ve gotten more mileage out of it than an old tire. It has also, obviously, been a sticking point that no one on the eighth floor is likely to get over.
It’s stuck in their craw to the point that they’ve kept the correspondence ready and at hand for months now, just in case it might be needed.
Bile on file?
Now, maybe it is the sheer
outrageousness of Westcott’s line of questioning that made the premier’s office keep it ready for instant use.
Surely it can’t be because the premier’s office keeps track of what people might be saying about the premier. Surely it can’t be because the office actually keeps files on the journalists the office is involved with on a regular basis.
The premier’s office, meanwhile, clearly didn’t take it seriously when they actually got the message, because they didn’t bother to respond to it. They have, however, used it strategically — and not only now. -
Because the premier himself has stated that his office does not keep files on journalists.
(A little background here: a Telegram reporter asked for his file under access to information law, after a misaddressed email from the premier’s director of communications, Elizabeth Marshall, advised a fellow staffer to have the reporter’s “purple file” available before the premier met the reporter for an interview. The premier’s office replied to the request by saying the files didn’t exist, and the province’s information commissioner has bumbled along for month after month, apparently unable to complete an investigation into the case.)
Bite back at ya
It is, however, a cautionary tale for anyone who considers public life, especially as an opposition politician. Because it clearly says that, once you angle for politics, the
government believes that any potentially embarrassing information they have on you might be fair ball.
If you’ve been in touch with government departments in the past, that communication is apparently fair game for political slanging. Who can forget the way the way the Williams administration used Liberal Kelvin Parsons’ correspondence about a judicial appointment to try and publicly gut him? Or how, magically, the premier had bills for wine that Judy Foote had purchased while a cabinet minister right at hand to wave around in the House of Assembly when she asked about fiscal accountability?
It’s take-no-prisoners and it’s an interesting interpretation of the province’s privacy laws. Presumably, with this precedent firmly in hand, anyone who is in politics — Tory or Grit or NDP — should expect correspondence to the premier’s office to be a publicly available document, even if it was written before they entered politics.
The final analysis? Westcott’s writing and sending the letter in the first place was stupid, self-destructive and petty. You can legitimately ask whether sending it should make you question Westcott’s judgment.
But he’s not the only one.
Last week, the premier’s office —and the premier — found the opportunity to use the letter to attack Westcott simply irresistible.
And in the process, they actually made the exact same mistake that Westcott did.
Russell Wangersky is The Telegram’s editorial page editor. He can be reached by email at rwanger@thetelegram.com.
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