1. Not: high-school politics. Michael Ignatieff is engaging directly with young people, the Liberals say. The Conservatives, however, say he is using children as partisan props.
“Ignatieff’s Liberals shouldn’t use our kids to promote their political agenda,” says a new Tory internal memo, dripping with outrage and incredulity. “It just demonstrates that Ignatieff isn’t in it for Canadians. He’s just in it for himself.”
This is one of the party’s more amusing internal memos. In it Conservatives are critical of the Liberal Leader for going to a Newfoundland high school – he has been on a weeklong cross-Canada tour – where a “giant banner” with the logo of the Grits’ upcoming policy conference in Montreal is displayed.
The Conservative Party memo, which was sent to their MPs, supporters and officials, says the banner was “organized and paid for” by the Liberals. “This was apparently against the local school board’s own stated policy on political campaigning in schools.”
And the school policy is attached. It says that political candidates “will not be permitted to campaign in school during school hours.”
There is also a link to a local newspaper article showing Mr. Ignatieff talking to the students with the banner in the background.
Says a senior Ignatieff official: “First, let’s deal with the facts: there are no Liberal signs or logos anywhere, so I don’t know what their problem is.
“Second, I know they don’t like the fact that Michael Ignatieff is engaging directly with young people. Stephen Harper needs a few days to select questions and prepare his boilerplate answers – which are not more interesting because they are on YouTube.”
2. Hot: fishing with Jim Prentice. How much is the federal Environment Minister worth to you? He let himself be auctioned off at the annual fundraising dinner for conservation group Trout Unlimited last night in Calgary.
And he was the most expensive date of all: For $8,900, two of the guests at the auction get to go fishing with him for a day.
Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith will be joined by eight others for a dinner that went for $3,500 and $2,500 was bid on a day of hunting for three with Alberta Finance Minister Ted Morton.
(File photo: Christinne Muschi/Reuters)
