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I’m not sure if Jane Taber chooses her own headlines. Some in the comments section over at The Globe and Mail say she’s going over the top on this notebook item about changes in Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s office – More blood on the OLO floor. Jane talks about the departure of two more senior Ignatieff staffers.
"Mark Sakamoto and Alexis Levine, both lawyers who have been part of Michael Ignatieff's inner circle since his 2006 leadership bid, confirmed their decisions in separate e-mails to The Globe and Mail tonight. They were part of the "Toronto gang" around Mr. Ignatieff."
Now of course this comes just after the departure of Ignatieff Chief of Staff Ian Davey, and the possible departure of his Director of Communications Jill Fairbrother. I say possible, because I, like Jane, don’t know if Fairbrother is staying or going and last time I checked with OLO staff, neither did they.
So while Jane’s headline may seem over the top to some, I can tell you it is entirely accurate. Keeping track of Liberal staffers in the leader’s office over the past four years has been difficult. In fact I can’t tell you how many communications staffers alone I’ve dealt with. Some, by the time I had learned their names, had left already, voluntarily or otherwise.
Still with Jane, my press gallery colleague picks up on a theme of mine from earlier this week. Key Liberals aren’t always following their leader. Being opposition leader is a tough job; the media always picks on you and your caucus won’t listen. If you don’t believe me, just ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who faced very similar problems to Ignatieff until he won the 2006 election.
Stephen Maher of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen, two men who sit a few desks and rows over from me in the Hotroom (that’s the old press gallery office located in Parliament’s Centre Block), have another in their series of examinations of infrastructure spending. Here is a key section for me(emphasis is mine):
"Overall, it does not show a countrywide pattern of extreme pork-barrelling by the government, with all opposition ridings starved for money and all governing ridings raking in the dough.
But it confirms an earlier Herald analysis that found such a trend in Nova Scotia. Across the country, the pattern is much subtler, with Tory ridings tending to do better on aggregate."
I’ve covered the accusations as the Liberals have made them and the government responds, but with Quebec lagging behind the country in announcing infrastructure projects and the Liberal McGuinty government in Ontario and NDP Mayor David Miller in Toronto denying any politicisation in the process they were involved in (not to mention former Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish), it is tough to take the accusations seriously in Ontario. Although as Maher points out in his article and has explained to me at the office, Nova Scotia may be another story.
Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.
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