By Frank Moher
While you were enjoying the festive season, The Globe and Mail found itself disagreeing with one of its columnists about an item on its website. The Globe settled the matter with a keystroke. Both parties have since been studiously decorous about the matter, but it deserves a second look before disappearing down the memory hole.
On Dec. 24th, the Globe pulled from its website a blog post by Norman Spector, former Mulroney Chief of Staff and ambassador to Israel, now living in Victoria and making his way as a pundit. Spector had remarked on the unusual fact that, for the first time, Laureen Harper would join husband Stephen when he sat down for his annual Christmas chat with CTV. In fact, it would be “her first television interview with the Prime Minister since he took office in 2006.”
Why her sudden visibility? Spector speculated that it might have something to do with rumours circulating in Ottawa that the couple’s marriage is in trouble, and, more particularly, that those rumours had recently emerged in the Ottawa Citizen, albeit in veiled form. Wrote Andrew Cohen in the December 3rd Citizen: “In Ottawa, tongues have been wagging for two years about trouble in one political marriage. One of the partners is now said to have left the nest. It hasn’t made the newspapers, at least not yet.”
Specifically, the rumours have Mrs. Harper living in the Chateau Laurier while the Prime Minister remains at 24 Sussex. Showing more journalistic initiative than the rest of our press, Spector did some digging. “I checked out the rumour with two journalists in Ottawa. From both, I got the sense that it was likely true. And that it was not being reported because it was deemed to be a personal matter.”
Oh really?
In his forbidden post, which Spector immediately republished to his own website, he makes a reasonable case for why the matter, if true, would be more than personal. “If the PM’s marriage was in trouble, that was something that could affect his performance and lead to bizarre decisions. (Have you heard about the census being abolished?) And given the power of the office, the troubled marriage could impact all Canadians.” I’ll add another: if Harper and his wife were living apart, but he continued to issue Christmas cards like the recent one above, we would have to conclude that the Prime Minister is a big fat dissimulator.
Spector also politely allows as how zapping his post “is the paper’s right.” (I’ve had my own experience of being disappeared, in my case by the National Post; I wasn’t quite so polite.) But while the Globe may be within its rights — that is, they haven’t broken any laws — their boilerplate claim that they did it for reasons of “fairness, balance, and accuracy” is ludicrous. Does the Globe think publishing the rumour is unfair, imbalanced, and possibly inaccurate? Then let it do its job, particularly in matters of public interest: phone up the principals and ask them about it. Then do what Spector did, and phone up some informed sources and ask them about it. Then publish what you’re told. It’s called reporting.
What did the Globe do instead? Zap.
This sort of misplaced politesse is the reason that mainstream papers are increasingly obsolescent in an age of internet journalism and wikileaking, no matter how many iPad applications they produce. Readers are increasingly aware of how much the old-school media choose not to tell us, whether for political or financial reasons, or from some misguided notion that it’s for our own good. And increasingly we reply: We’ll be the judge of that. Tell us what you know, or even just what you’ve heard (where’s Frank magazine when you need it?), and we’ll decide whether it’s File 13 material or not. And if you won’t tell us, there are plenty of sources out there that will.
We don’t need mommies and daddies in our newsrooms. What we need are actual journalists — even if they must be drawn from the ranks of retired civil servants.
I’m sure big brother would approve. I have a feeling that Stephen Harper read the book “1984” and got pissed off at all those antagonistic characters who wanted that pesky freedom.
Laureen stopped posing with Harper in x-mas cards in 2007. Why? Because she left Harper, and took their two kids with her.
Here’s all their December Holyday cards pinned to one board.
http://www.pinterest.com/nadinel007/harper-family-seasonal-holiday-cards-aka-christmas/
#cdnpoli
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Repost from Denise Lanouette – Say your wife left your phat azz sometime in 2007, and she took the two kids with her. That would cause a doubling of security easily. No wonder Harper’s security costs are higher that the whole royal family: 49 millions a year if I am not mistaken. adding more than 9 millions to run his office, an increase of 1.4 million from 2010
February 16, 2011 – RCMP costs to keep Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his family safe and secure reached $47 million in just under two years – almost 70 times the price tag for protecting his entire cabinet and other VIPs.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/02/16/17301906.html
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The Queen and the Royal Family security cost = $48,662,527.63CAD
July 2010: The total cost to taxpayers of the cheaper monarchy was £38.2million, a fall of £3.3million from the previous year.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3042596/Queen-and-the-Royal-Family-cost-every-Briton-62p-last-year-down-7p-from-2008.html
Ray Novak: Steve Harper’s Closet Confidant
He used to live above Steve Harper’s garage. Now he’s the second most powerful man in Ottawa.
“Ray is effectively the Prime Minister’s closest confidant,” enthuses one government official. “Not only as a member of his staff, but as a personal and intimate member of the Prime Minister’s life.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/07/20/who-knows-what-harper-is-really-thinking-ray-novak/
For nearly four years while Harper was opposition leader, Novak, then with the title of executive assistant, lived in a small loft above the detached garage at Stornoway—the opposition leader’s official residence—eating meals with the family and growing close to Harper’s two young children.
This is the detail that has come to define an aide who, by some tellings, knows Harper better than all but the Prime Minister’s wife and mother. “Ray was with him more than anybody else for years and years and years,” says Brodie, who served as Harper’s chief of staff for three years. “They were literally hardly ever apart.”
In addition to living with the Harper family at Stornoway, he oversaw Harper’s tour operations, coordinated with his security detail and served as the Prime Minister’s envoy to the families of the Air India bombing. “Ray will get it done,” says a former member of the PMO. “And he will do so with total discretion.”
When Harper returned to federal politics in 2001 to pursue the Alliance leadership, he tabbed Novak as his assistant.
As principal secretary, Novak travels with the Prime Minister abroad…
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Running out of other attack strategies? My goodness, who *cares* what his wife’s persuasion is, whether they are separated, or if photos are recycled?! What a long article about insignificant points.
i highly doubt this is true….i dont pay attention to politics but if someone as high up as Laureen Harper was having an affair it’d be all over the news….also id like to see her..(the RCMP) officer..on how attractive she is….so in closing this is more than likely just all a big lie and rumour….and if it is it is extrememly cruel…Harper may be a bad PM but this has got to be torture.
I’m sorry but the PM makes decisions that effect my life. He wanted the job, he gets paid for it and his position will guarantee him and his family live in the lap of luxury their entire lives at our expense.
If his marriage is falling apart and it has no effect on him he is a heartless individual void of emotion, maybe a psychopath. If it is having an effect on him then I am concerned on his ability to govern effectively. Either way, I as a Canadian voter feel news regarding the matter of the PM’s marital situation to be of great significance. If this story has legs it will run.
Well, as much as i love the prospect of Harper losing credibility on his “family values” presentation, IF it was rumour, it is not news… news should be only about the cold-hard facts. that’s why it’s called a newspaper and not the Toronto Sun.
Before anyone writes anything about Harper’s marriage, they should ask themselves; What would Harper do? Would he use someone’s personal problems to give himself political advantage?
Then they should run a cross Canada poll asking Canadians, Would you still vote for Harper if you knew that his wife was having a lesbian affair and that she became a lesbian because he was an abusive husband?
I think because Harper wrote the rulebook on this one, everything goes.
Let’s forward his idea to December 2012 shall I?
Happy Holidays from the Harpers
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=311365485563483&set=p.311365485563483&type=1&theater
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1100881–stephen-harper-and-his-family-re-gift-their-christmas-card?bn=1#article
A message to Harper’s paid neocon trolls on online newspapers comment sections:
YO MORONS ♥ they are not wearing the same outfits from last year MORONS ♥ they are the SAME PICTURES from last year ♥ cut and paste ♥ I can’t believe how many neocons rushed over here to post nonsense about being frugal with their outfits ♥ it is called PHOTOSHOP and you would not believe how many pictures Harper publishes that are fake, if you are not upset about our PM publishing fake pictures then you don’t deserve to live in a democracy ♥ MORONS ♥♥♥♥♥♥
DO NOT TELL ME A MORONIC NEOCON HASN’T NOTICED BEN IS 2 FEET TALLER THIS YEAR THAN LAST YEAR G.D. MORONS
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1100881#article
♥
In its annual 2011 Christmas card, Canada’s first family seems, well, timeless.
Indeed, except for a pasted in new wife, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his children appear much like they did in last year’s holiday greeting card. Right down to the clothing and hair.
And 2010’s Christmas card looks identical to their Oct. 2010 Thanksgiving portraits.
Sure, the backdrop is different — a garland-laced fireplace this year, an outdoor scene with 24 Sussex Dr. behind them last year.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1100881–stephen-harper-and-his-family-re-gift-their-christmas-card?bn=1#article
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/stephen-harper-christmas-card-controversy-172707466.html
One thing no reporter has mentioned yet is Harper’s 2010 Christmas Card was in itself a cut and paste masterpiece first, ONE YEAR BEOFRE even the 2011 Christmas Card.
The 2010 Christmas Card was a cut and paste job from their Thanksgiving portraits, which is the last time Laureen was in a studio with Harper and the kids. Even then, in October 2010, she did not pose with Harper directly. ALL PHOTOSHOPPED, ALL THE TIME.
The Harper’s last Christmas Card 2010 photo was made by heavily Photoshopping their individual Thanksgiving Oct. 2010 portraits to make it appear they were photographed together for Christmas when no such thing occurred as they separated as a couple over three years ago. Please see below links of Photoshopped pictures.
Neocon “Tory” Doctored photo number 1
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=185060898193943&set=a.148631491836884.23227.100000701030243
NL Doctored photo number 2
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=185060514860648&set=a.148631491836884.23227.100000701030243
repost from Paul Beckwith – Remember to look at the shadows to pick up the photoshopping. In this years photo the shadow on the daughter indicates the lighting (sun or indoor) is from the right; however the shadowing from the house is from overhead, while shadowing on the foreground leaves indicates illumination from the front. What a fraudster…
I’m sorry……but those cards are just plain weird. They look like photofits from a police ID folder. The arm that was around the wife last year is around the daughter this year. The kids hair is precisely the same – not my usual experience with teenagers. They look like they were put together with a kit of photo body parts. Please don’t tell me that Harper doesn’t have time to have his picture taken….please.
p.s. Almost every single picture of Harper together with his media-wife Laureen have disappeared from the PM’s websites. When did that happen? Fall 2010?
Repost from Not the Alliance – 12:18 PM on December 16, 2011
How would the sheep feel if a polling firm started calling people to ask if they were concerned about the rumours that Harper beats his wife?
How would the sheep feel about a polling firm asking about the “rumours” that Mackay uses Gov’t paid resources to entertain high priced hookers? Or Tony Gazebos Clements gave millions in non-tendered contracts to personal friends in Huntsville? Or again, the rumours that Laureen has to “go on vacation” so many times a year until her bruises heal?
Free speech?
Many folks have been in the media & courts, as well as the odd funeral, for some really distorted ways that they have acted while going through a break up. That fact alone makes this relevant information about a leader of our nation.
Maybe some folks missed this part of the article of which I agree.
“If the PM’s marriage was in trouble, that was something that could affect his performance and lead to bizarre decisions. (Have you heard about the census being abolished?) And given the power of the office, the troubled marriage could impact all Canadians.”
As well as the conclusion of which I also agree.
“We don’t need mommies and daddies in our newsrooms. What we need are actual journalists — even if they must be drawn from the ranks of retired civil servants.”
News is about information of which we can each decide it’s relevance. News is not about CENSORSHIP of the information just because we don’t like the message.
OK. I have no problem with Laureen Teskey and Stephen Harper living apart. Couples have their own reasons to separate. I have no problem with her taking up with a new mate of either gender. It is their lives and that ought to be kept private. The part I don’t know yet, is whether the taxpayer has footed the bill for Teskey’s stay at the hotel. If it’s her own money, which it could be, that’s fine with me.
Normally, I would agree the personal lives of public figures are none of our business. This all changes, however, when those figures tout their family values, and try to legislate those values, only to be found ignoring them in private.
I thought from the outset that the Harper marriage was more of a dictatorship than any kind of decent relationship. She looked frightened of him in nearly every picture taken of them. And look at all the hard lines he’s taken against women’s issues — cutbacks to all the things women hold most dear–gun control, health, welfare and education–not to mention the rights over our own bodies. The tax breaks? Only for the already rich–and most of the rich are males, with their female relatives living off them. Look at the BC Gordon Campbell marriage, too. When the couple walked up the Leg stairs holding hands, she walked up the opposite side of the stairs from him, practically climbing the walls! And he had affairs—too many witnesses to hide that fact, but the media never mentioned it once! So, too, there has to be some skulduggery people have seen in Harper’s case, too. He’s a truly evil man, in my opinion. Alcohol can contribute to dulling any conscience a person might have. Alcohol has been the main ingredient in the Conservative and Liberal Parties, ever since our first PM. The modern Cons have degenerated into a Reform-Alliance, way out of sentience, way out of balance with nature. It takes an awful lot of booze to be as cruel, arrogant and anti-Canadian as Harper has been. He’s heading towards the same fate as Kleein — loss of heart, soul and brain, with early dementia.
I was forced to play NDP and LIB spots at half volume , use negative intonation and state false polls. news=sales and sales is afraid of the Corps who purchase adds and want corporate welfare .
It gets so bad in this Riding that many biz must be pro harper or loose out and some employees fired.
I once worked with a firm and the employer told me to have my Wife shut up about voting lib or he would loose biz . Not free to associate ! ,Will it be Get rid of child poverty or get rid of the Childish deficit !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4kauBNZEog
Give the gift of (a life), make Child poverty an issue !, Watch , pass around , get mad and vote
Thanks for the ‘link’ to the book by Wm Kaplan “the Trial-Murlooney, Stevie Cameron and the Public Trust”
The references to Karl Schreiber and the corruption at the highest levels of politics are “musts” for any serious student of Canadian politics. Our politicians have lost touch with their primary responsibility and key job function: public service. How many true Public Servants, and not ideologues of the left or right or self-serving corruptibles, have we got now on the Hill? And with the neanderthals now in control, ruling with utter lack of civility from their bully-pulpit, it’s getting worse by the day to uphold the Maple Leaf. Lament for a nation….
This is an excellent, insightful commentary on the anachronistic pseudo-values of our media these days.
Haven’t the “eyes and ears” of the public ever learned their lesson in NOT reporting key stories that would influence voter-behaviour and expose hyprocrites? Kennedy, a courageous politician and a visionary by any standard, was nevertheless a dangerously careless womanizer who bedded various spies and, as a result, he was compromised by the beyond words self-serving secret intelligence fiend Hoover!
Gary Hart’s “monkey business” photo of young model Donna Rice sitting on his lap in the boat destroyed his presidential chances. And of course he blamed…..The Media! Because Miami Herald had great investigative reporters who flew on the plane with Ms Rice and followed her till the photo appeared. Before that, Gary was denying he had an affair with Rice, appered with his wife all over the U.S media and was in a fighting mood with the press over their ‘unsubstantiated’ writings….
Harper is a hypocrite of the highest order. Further, his marriage must have driven him to….god knows what and the damage to this country is already showing! He’s a controlling, very tense individual to whom power is everything–at any cost.
It’s time the media told us the Truth. Or we will all have to start reading alternate media to get the truth a la Wikileaks.
Ottawa since 2006 has been a secretive, deceptive, egomaniacal and unpredictable place. Canada’s reputation in the world has sunk to its lowest. WE are not perceived as serious world leaders and our opinion is irrelevant. We lost for the first time in 60 (!) years, the coveted UN Security Council seat–thanks to Harper’s maniacally one-sided foreign policy.
May God help up all. And blessings to Laureen Harper if she’s chosen to escape from Godzilla!
P.S. Now we know why Stephen Mubarak hates women and cuts funding and destroys family planning initiatives where Canada had shone in the past….sad, but tragic when you think what’s in store for poor Canadians, eh?
The Harper marriage is none of my business, though I do note Mr. Spector was equally decorous when it came to Mulroney and the Airbus Affair. What, no mea culpas about Mulroney’s confirmed lying about the $300, 000 bribe? In cash, no less?
According to your line of thinking Norm Spector should be allowed to write this stuff. I would certainly agree as long as his two informed Ottawa sources are also revealed so we can get the scuttle butt from ALL sides.
And don´t give us the necessity of protecting confidential anonymous sources, pablum reasoning. This is not national security. If you are going to make personal lives fair game…make your unnamed sources public. It is in the publics interest, to use your phrase.
Everyone in Ottawa has known about this for years. There are more juicy details, but the reason we Ottawa folk have not repeated it in the press is that we have some respect and common decency. This is the diff between us and the Brits, the Americans. And we’d like to keep it that way!!!!!
Sandeep Chauhan writes:
But Spector says nothing about Mrs. Mulroney taking residence in a high end Ottawa hotel and the RCMP coming to fetch her. Rumour had it she left because of Mr. Mulroney’s drinking problems.
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I wrote about Mr. and Mrs. Mulroney in the afterword to William Kaplan’s book on the Airbus affair—a book that was ignored by most in the mainstream media when it first came out.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=puyFObUJ2uAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=willliam+kaplan+a+secret+trial&hl=en&ei=nT8pTebTJZS0sAOQ39GRBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
“Have you heard about the census being abolished?”
Not the census, the counting part, just the nosy nanny state long form part. You want the government into every nook and cranny of your life? May I recommend North Korea?
But Spector says nothing about Mrs. Mulroney taking residence in a high end Ottawa hotel and the RCMP coming to fetch her. Rumour had it she left because of Mr. Mulroney’s drinking problems.
When i read crap like this about a marriage,even if it was true it shows the kind of people would produce this B.S.they are usually politically motivated or just rotten individuals .
What the hell does this have in the news that would really have anything to do with running the country.?Next we will hear that Scott Bryson’s marriage is in trouble then watch the Liberal press come to his defence
That is why the Globe is a respected journal, and Spector and this site are simply glorified supermarket tabloids in electronic form.
Any honest person who has been married for more than seven years, will tell you that at any given time you may conclude a couple is having a few problems. So what???
Spector is offering nothing but idle speculation and once again is just making stuff up rather than reporting on real issues so he can ‘earn’ his paycheque.
I hear the Tattler is hiring if you need a job that badly!
“Where’s Frank Magazine when you need it?”
Nova Scotia, it turns out. While the Ottawa Frank folded a couple years back, the original Halifax Frank Magazine is still going strong and in fact has written several pieces about the Harper marriage troubles. I was amazed it took so long to see any mention of the story somewhere else.