Most Canadians (and some Canadia-philes) know about the massive fraud investigation going on in Canada, involving the ruling federal political party, the Liberal Part of Canada. The fraud was so massive that the head of the investigation tried to stop publication of the evidence, but liberty-minded bloggers in the USA destroyed that attempt at cover-up.
Andrew Coyne recently listed the spin doctoring attempted by the Liberal Party to deny their involvement of funneling millions of dollars from the Government of Canada, through "advertising contracts" and into the Libery Party's coffers.
This list below can be useful to understand spin from other sectors of the world, such as technology, when we are faced with agencies attempting to adjust the truth.
(It helps to know that Canada had/has two Liberal prime ministers in the last year. The two can't stand each other: the first -- Jean Chretien -- stayed in power too long but not long enough to suit himself; the second -- Paul Martin -- resented the first at having to wait so long to get into power, and pushed him out.)
Here we go, with My Coyne's comments in italics (edited by me for the international audience):
We knew nothing:The original, and still the best: though hardly anyone seems to believe them.
It was all the work of a cabal of senior bureaucrats:The PM's [prime minister Paul Martin] first, ill-fated gambit. Later refined at the Public Accounts committee to "Chuck Guité [senior bureaucrat in charge of advertising contracts] did all this single-handedly." That was after about three days of hearings.
There had to have been political direction:By those other guys, of course [referring to the staff of the _other_ prime minister].
Maybe there wasn't political direction:After Jean Pelletier's testimony [a member of the _other_ prime minister's staff].
It's not that much money:Reg Alcock [head of the Canadian Treasury], acting on a tip from Dennis Mills [speaking about $100 million].
The Auditor-General is a crazed headline-seeking megalomaniac on a witch-hunt:[She first revealed the fraud.] At attempt at a whisper campaign, until it turned out she tested off the charts in the focus groups.
This is driven by anti-Italian prejudice:Pretty much restricted to Alfonso Gagliano [who had a project built with Canadian money back in his home town in Italy], but hey, whatever works. [He was rewarded by the earlier prime minister with the ambassadorship to Denmark.]
We may be crooks, but the Tories are s-c-a-r-y:["Tories" is the conservative opposition party, likely to win the next election.] The implicit message of the Liberal election campaign.
It's time to move on/people are bored:Offered at various intervals since then in hopes it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We're the victims, here:Lasted all of about 24 hours in the face of universal hoots of derision [as well as newer evidence proving money was funnelled to the party].
This will only help the separatists:[Some $250 million was supposed to have been spent on ads to counter separatists in Quebec; all of the scandal happened among ad agencies and Liberal operatives in Quebec only.] They're still pushing this one.... or as [opposition leader] Stephen Harper says, Quebecers should have another choice besides separatism or corruption.
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