Angry in the Great White North

Anyone who has been following this election remembers how Liberal MP Garth Turner and his campaign staff contrived to have a CPAC crew film Garth Turner visit a particular constituent's home.  At that visit, Garth Turner was asked about the Green Shift, and he responded that it would put money into the constituent's pocket.

The constituent was pleased and the visit ended.

As it turned out, that constituent was the son of Esther Shaye, Garth Turner's campaign manager.  When confronted by the CBC, Garth Turner's team said that CPAC was a willing part of the fabricated visit.  CPAC's integrity was badly damaged by the allegation.  In response, CPAC was compelled to go on the attack.  It was riveting television, but CPAC was rocked by the incident.

CPAC had been Garthed.

Now let's consider the current situation.  CTV's morning program, Canada AM, hosted a townhall meeting in Halton.  In order to ensure quality questions, CTV asked each campaign to bring a guest who would be allowed to present a question.  All CTV asked was that the campaigns not bring campaign staff to play the role of a constituent, and to frame questions that each candidate could answer and so help the segment be as informative as possible.

Note that there would be no indication to the viewer concerning this arrangement.  It would be presented to the viewers as random questions from random audience members.

What happened was that the first question went to Liberal guest, and he asked Garth Turner to comment on the allegation that the Conservative Party did not value constituents since it had appointed Lisa Raitt.  Given the opportunity to go on the attack while being broadcast across Halton thanks to CTV, Garth obliged.

That person was none other than Dan Baril, a board member on the Halton Liberal Riding Association and Garth Turner's pollster.  It would appear than Garth Turner ignored the rules CTV had laid out:

During the Q&A, we’re offering each of the candidates an opportunity to have one of their supporters to ask a question.  We would like to have you identify an individual that would be posing the question. That person ideally does not work on the campaign.

I've added the emphasis.

Lis Travers, Vice President (Canada AM), wrote to me this afternoon to make it clear that CTV had no knowledge of Dan Baril's role in the Garth Turner campaign.

In response to your question regarding our Battleground Breakfast in the Halton riding, CTV in no way planned any kind of set up of  Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt. Each candidate was given one question. CTV did not recognize the name of Dan Baril, nor his role in the Garth Turner campaign.  It was entirely by chance that Mr. Baril’s question was the first.  Each candidate received equal time to answer their question and state their positions during the broadcast.

So it seems to be the position of CTV that they did everything they could to make certain things were run fairly, and they were not told about Dan Baril's position inside of Garth Turner's campaign.  The implication is that if there are any concerns about unfairness or the appearance of bias, don't blame CTV.   CTV stops short of casting blame elsewhere, but the implication is that if CTV fell short in any way, it was because information about Dan Baril wasn't made known to CTV.

CTV has a credibility problem, thanks to Garth Turner.  A lawyer friend confirmed that Travers' email seems to have been crafted by a lawyer.  Why a lawyer?  Because CTV is in damage control mode.

CTV in the process of being Garthed.