CHRC transcript - ignorance or stupidity?
May 10, 2008 9:57 am UncategorizedIndulge me as I walk through this from the point of view of a communications person. The CHRT announced a decision that it would no longer transcribe and release tribunal testimony, beginning with the March 25 Lemire hearing. All right, fine, a little research revealed that this had been in contemplation for some months but only wanted some good reason to take effect. (The needle on the Sinister meter is only flickering a little.) The hearings were to be available in audio format. However, when I called to obtain a CD (with the purpose of organizing an online transcription bee) I learned that it could only be obtained by an Access to Information request.
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
At that point, I desisted and sat back to await events, because John Pacheco was doing a great job slicing the testimony to ribbons and it was clear that exceptionally stupid people were in charge at the commission.
From the perspective of a communications professional, this is a carnival of ineptitude. First of all, does anyone who has ever worked in a bureaucracy believe there would not be an official written transcript for internal use? And there would not be half a dozen ways for the outside world to discover that? And that not releasing it - like all the others - would make you look petty and fearful and bitter and hateful and obstructive and small?
In the transcript, the fellow who has presided over the travesty said, “Have you had the opportunity to use the audio system; Mr. Fromm, that we have in place now, because it’s quite user friendly? I’m relying on it quite extensively.” Why? Why would he ‘rely on it’? He already had written transcripts for all previous hearings. Which brings us to the sudden banning of written transcripts just in time for the one that promised to continue to bring CHRC wrongdoing to the surface. I do not think it is a coincidence, I think it is a calculated measure to drive up defendants’ costs at a critical time.
Then, apparently, someone at the Commission leaked the official transcript - which should not but does exist - to a presumably ‘friendly’ journalist. To vindicate the commission. In 60’s advertising jargon, “Fuzzy thinking.” To reporters, the call for ‘balance’ means walking all the evidence in hand around to every possible adversary, in search of a good, balancing quote. That part is working great so far, for the reporter and Ezra and the cause of free speech. I wonder how it’s working at the Commission?
Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch
Enkidu :
Date: May 10, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Just a little more Warmanesque ‘maximum disruption’.
Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch :
Date: May 10, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
(This Comments section provides a convenient forum to extend those thoughts that may not justify wider notice by forwarding to Blogging Tories.)
In April, when Jennifer Lynch, Chief Commissioner of the CHRC informed Maclean’s in a letter that her people had used no “improper investigative techniques”, it gave me to speculate. Maybe she simply doesn’t know what techniques they used. She might know and not understand them. She might understand what she has been told about them, but what she has been told is incomplete, misleading or false. She may know exactly what they did, understand and think it was fine. Anyway, that’s what she wrote Maclean’s. Any of those lines of speculation leaves her looking foolish or incompetent, but they all mean her staff work is deficient, at best. This is confirmed by the farcical release of the transcript. A few weeks ago, I predicted that the Commission would begin to leak. As outside pressure mounts, internal fault lines open and noxious vapours seep out. Imagine my surprise and delight when the first ‘leak’ I am aware of comes so obviously from Sir Humphrey Appleby. I find it hard to believe that any communications person in town would have done this. A senior manager did this. An executive. It is just so appallingly bush league, as demonstrated by the fact that the reporter immediately handed it to Ezra. As of 3:40 Saturday afternoon, no big scoop on Google News about the greatness of the CHRC. Of course, if and when it does arrive, the legitimate questions to ask are, ‘why your news organization?’ and, ‘who gave it to you?’