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Borderless blogs vs. Canada press ban
Wed Apr 13, 4:00 AM ET
The Internet has perhaps rendered publication bans futile.
By Rondi Adamson
TORONTO - A Canadian publication ban and an American blogger clashed last week. The court-ordered ban did not survive the impact. The blogger was overwhelmed with visitors.
And what had been Canada's own private scandal - so private Canadians had been prevented from hearing about it in full - fast traveled the borderless blogosphere.
Publication bans prevent anyone from publishing or broadcasting evidence given or motions made during the course of a trial. Publication bans are not common in Canada, but when imposed they are meant to ensure that a jury pool, or a sitting jury, is not tainted. (One can be forgiven for wondering what the point of jury selection is, if a judge can't feel confident those selected are unable to look solely at evidence presented.) In this instance, however, the ban was imposed on a public inquiry into possible government fraud and conspiracy, involving taxpayer dollars. The word "counterintuitive" comes to mind.
"Adscam" has been making headlines in Canada for nearly two years. It involves an attempt by the federal government - under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party - to "sell Canada" in Quebec, a province that has twice held (unsuccessful) referendums on the question of independence. Advertising agencies in Quebec were hired - at a cost of more than $200 million (US) - to promote federalism. But allegations surfaced that $81 million of those funds had been funneled back to Liberal Party loyalists. Paul Martin, shortly after becoming prime minister in late 2003, set up an inquiry headed by Justice John Gomery.
On March 29, Justice Gomery issued a publication ban on the testimony of three witnesses. This was done, he said, in order to assure the witnesses receive fair treatment when they face a criminal trial - relating to Adscam - later this year. In his ruling, Gomery stated that the ban included the Internet. With testimony under lock, everyone wondered about its relative explosiveness. A suggestion that the Liberal Party would be forced to call an election due to the hidden information made the rounds - causing Canadians to envision the absurd scenario that we would go to the polls based in part on something we weren't allowed to hear, or talk about.
Enter American blogger Ed Morrissey, or Captain Ed, to his readers. On April 2, in his Captain's Quarters blog, he posted some of the testimony. In the following days, Mr. Morrissey posted more, telling readers that some of the revelations came from a single source, some were corroborated by a second.
It didn't take long for a Canadian site, NealeNews, to link to the captain, though without printing any of the testimony. Still, officials at the Gomery Inquiry said they were considering citing the owner of NealeNews with contempt. American bloggers - including Michelle Malkin and Instapundit - picked up the story. Any Canadian with access to a computer could get the dirt. Morrissey wrote that his blog had been "swarmed with tens of thousands" of hits. He kindly warned Canadian visitors that they may "receive a summons" from their government.
Where a publication ban used to be fairly simple to understand, if not necessarily approve, new questions were being asked. Questions like: If I link to a site with a link to Captain's Quarters, will the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) show up at my house? Or, if I already had a link to Captain's Quarters before it carried the testimony, do I now have to remove it? Are the RCMP going to hire an army of new staff to hunt for untoward links?
A friend sent me an e-mail with the subject line, "The man on the ship," deferring jokingly (I assumed) to the publication ban, by referring to Captain Ed in code.
Canadian networks and newspapers found themselves tiptoeing through this new minefield, trying to report about the blog without mentioning blog names or web addresses. One television network removed a story that contained the blog's name from their website. The Globe and Mail mentioned Morrissey, but not his blog, by name. While some Canadian bloggers defied the ban, mainstream media appeared to lack similar moxie. Coming days after details of the rape, torture, and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi were revealed (she was arrested and murdered in Iran in 2003, for taking photographs of a demonstration), such gyrations seemed feeble.
One Canadian blogger who linked to Captain's Quarters, Angry in the Great White North, says he did so because he does not want his children growing up in a country "where public testimony can be known by government officials and by the media, but by no one else." And Gomery reacted as well, lifting most of the ban last Thursday. Some testimony is still muzzled ... but not for American bloggers or Canadians who can Google, if sources keep talking.
Gomery said he lifted the ban because "it is in the public interest that this evidence with few exceptions be made available to the public." But it is hard to believe the blogosphere didn't play a powerful role in bringing about his epiphany.
The Internet has perhaps rendered publication bans futile. Whether that is a good thing can be debated. Freedom should not be mistaken for license. But given the level of alleged corruption exposed by the secret testimony, first at Captain's Quarters, and now all over mainstream Canadian media, it is difficult to argue that Canadians shouldn't be grateful for this clash of the blog and the ban.
Lunch with Claude
I can find no few references to this story anywhere online, except the CBC, which buries it under Martin's boilerplate call for the election to be put off until after the Gomery inquiry has reported:
Some of that Gomery testimony became ammunition for the Opposition during Wednesday's question period in the House of Commons.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper started the attack.
He noted that Prime Minister Paul Martin testified that he hardly knew Claude Boulay, the president of Groupe Everest, one of the Quebec advertising firms implicated in the sponsorship scandal.
But in testimony before the same commission, Liberal fundraiser Alain Renaud said he observed the prime minister having lunch with Boulay during the Liberal convention.
"Did the prime minister have lunch with Claude Boulay on any occasion?" Harper asked.
"Any allegation that I misled the commission is a lie," Martin shot back.
But he avoided answering the question directly.
Instead, he accused the Tories of having a secret agenda for health care, referring to a report released Wednesday by the Fraser Institute that urges the federal government to get out of health care and allow more private involvement.
Harper asked the question again three more times. Each time the prime minister responded by talking about health care.
"If this were not so serious I would say the prime minister is in danger of making himself a national joke," Harper told the House.
Later, it was Diane Ablonczy's turn. The Alberta Conservative MP asked Martin if he had ever had lunch with Boulay.
Martin sidestepped the question again.
"Why does this prime minister have pathological aversion to telling the truth?" Ablonczy shouted.
This is the third day in a row that Harper has used Question Period to poke holes in Martin's story.
UPDATE: No wait, here it is on the Globe's site:
The issue of sponsorship spending being diverted to Liberal-friendly firms dominated Question Period in Ottawa again Wednesday, in spite of Mr. Martin's repeated efforts to switch the debate to health care.
In just one such exchange, Mr. Harper asked whether Mr. Martin had had lunch with a specific person related to sponsorship spending and Mr. Martin responded by accusing the Tory Leader of mistreating health care.
A specific person? Did the Globe reporter not catch the name? Couldn't find his notepad? Sort of a pertinent detail, wouldn't you say?
UPPERDATE: Sorry, here's another -- CTV, which has lots of clips from QP:
Election fever was evident in question period when Prime Minister Paul Martin turned a question about lunch into a stirring defence of medicare.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper asked if Martin ever had lunch with Montreal ad executive Claude Boulay, a figure in the sponsorship scandal.
"I will fight the Conservatives tooth and nail and we will protect the Canada Health Act," Martin answered...
UPPESTDATE: From Romeo St. Martin: "Ahem ... PoliticsWatch has been all over this for the past 2 days." Indeed he/it has, with all the damning details that the major media leave out:
On Monday at the Gomery inquiry, Alain Renaud, a lobbyist with the ad firm Groupaction, said he sat at a table adjacent to Martin and Claude Boulay, the head of Groupe Everest, at a Liberal party convention.
Renaud testified that Martin, Boulay and Diane Deslaurier, Boulay's wife and a Liberal party fundraiser, were discussing Attractions Canada, a government program that received more than $11 million in sponsorships that were handled by Everest....
At the Gomery inquiry when questioned about by counsel Neil Finkelstein about Boulay, Martin said the following.
"I do not know Mr. Boulay very well, nor do I know Ms. Deslauriers very well. But the fact of the matter is that they are active in the party, the Liberal Party. They do have a place in the country about an hour, an hour and a half from mine and I would be -- it would not surprise me at all if at various political or social occasions that I would have run into them. I can't remember those occasions but I would be very surprised if that didn't occur."
"But the contacts would be such that they would be at a level that you don't recall?" asked Finkelstein.
"That is right," said Martin.
"You are sure of that?"
"Yes," the PM said.
In the House, Harper repeatedly asked Martin if he had a lunch meeting with Boulay, but Martin never provided a Yes or No answer and only said he did not interfere in the handing out of contracts.
Instead the PM used his response time to attack Harper for a report on medicare written by former Ontario premier Mike Harris and former Reform leader Preston Manning...
Martin's refusal to answer the question even drew the ire of NDP MP Ed Broadbent, a veteran parliamentarian, who said Martin was making a "mockery" out of the House for refusing to answer Harper's questions.
After question period, Broadbent called the prime minister's performance "absurd."
"For a man who's talking about moral authority it undermines his own moral authority," he said. "When you're heading a government you have to have respect for the institutions and part of that respect is to show that when you get a serious question, you give some kind of serious answer."
Harper also made a rare appearance in the foyer after question period after a large number of reporters wanted to know if Harris and Manning's position paper was Conservative party policy.
"This is the most transparent attempt possible to evade a very serious question about whether the prime minister perjured himself at the Gomery commission," said Harper.
Massive. But the press gallery want to know about Harper's views of two ex-politicians' views on health care.
UPPESTDATER:
The prime minister was asked: Do you recall any meeting or get-together of any significance beyond a casual, 'How do you do?'
"No, no," Martin replied.
CP catches up.
I can find no few references to this story anywhere online, except the CBC, which buries it under Martin's boilerplate call for the election to be put off until after the Gomery inquiry has reported:
This scandle could set the scene for a Canadian version of "Crime and Punishment". Martin really needs to be put out of his misery somehow, the guy must be guzzling alkaseltzer by the gallon!
Said1 said:
Kathianne said:I could be wrong, it happened once before, but it's almost like Martin let bits and pieces 'leak' to bore the people into a non-scandal, two years wasn't it? I bet his ulcer is into overtime!
Said1 said:Chretien is implicated in this too, I assume he kept a lid on a lot of it while he was still around. Martin wasn't under heavy fire over this until he was running for PM. They're not fooling anyone, they're guilty as shi*, (school filters, anyone?)
Kathianne said:Well maybe this and things like what you posted on Kyoto credits will awaken the Canadians? (One can always hope!) Umm, don't go slapping Martin, I missed you too much in just a couple days, jail would be much worse!
