Garth Turner has posted on my blog.  Well, someone claiming to be Garth Turner.  But if we assume it is him, then he is claiming that Dan Baril is not connected to his campaign, just a constituent interested in politics.  That is important because CTV had asked that candidates attending a Halton riding town hall event hosted on Canada AM to bring people to ask questions of the candidates, but that these persons not be connected to the campaign work.

Supporters of the candidates, yes.  Connected to campaign work, no.

So I'm forced to drill down in more detail.

Hey, there's a lot of research here, but the bottom line is this.  If you are an MP and you label someone a constituent, at least make certain that the person is your constituent.  Otherwise your credibility really starts to suffer.

Let's review the current situation.  CTV's morning program, Canada AM, hosted a townhall meeting in Halton.  In order to ensure quality questions, CTV asked each campaign to bring a guest who would be allowed to present a question.  Regular readers of this blog know that I have published that Garth Turner brought Dan Baril as his guest, despite the fact that CTV had asked that the guest be someone unconnected to the campaign.

Dan Baril has deep ties to Garth Turner's campaign, or so I've said.

Not so, says the person purporting to be Garth Turner:

Yesterday I posted the email here from CTVs Canada AM producer asking my team to put up a questioner for the segment broadcast on Thursday. I asked my friend Dan Baril to pose it, since he's a smart guy and presents well. He said he would like to put a query to the Conservative candidate, which was fine with me, as I expected to field a barrage from the other campaigns.

Dan served on the Halton federal Liberal board for a while, before resigning in March of 2008. He is not on my campaign team, and has taken no role in this election. He is not my pollster and has never done any polling for me. But he is a constituent and a political junkie.

At the event, CTV was given Dan's name and his question topic, as requested. When he arrived, Dan indicated his question was for the Conservative candidate, Lisa Raitt. The producer informed my campaign manager and I that Dan must ask his question of someone else, since the other campaigns had revealed their three questions would be going to their own candidates. It became clear then that the Conservative, NDP and Green teams would be making lobs to their representatives. CTV personnel said that unless Dan Baril asked me his question, there would be none for me to answer.

Moments before the segment went live, the host indicated to all the candidates he wanted to give Dan the first question. There was no comment or objection.

So, he did.

Mr. Janke never contacted me, my campaign or Mr. Baril in the preparation of the three articles he has now published on this television program. He published erroneous information about Mr. Baril, and he has failed to allow any facts to get in the way of his premise that I somehow manipulated a national television network. He's far beyond treating me with impartiality, but I'd think an apology to Dan Baril would be the decent next move.

Let's consider some of these points.

He is not my pollster and has never done any polling for me.

OK, that's just absurd right off the bat.  Here is the listing of Halton Liberal riding association executives for 2007-2008:

Dan Baril: associate member/research/polling

Jeez.  But let's say "/polling" is 8-character typo.  Is there another reason to believe that Garth Turner is misspeaking when he says Dan Baril has "never done any polling for me"?

From Dan Baril's blog, a long and detailed entry about the polling Dan Baril did for Garth Turner in 2006:

As a result of being in field before and during the incident, we were perfectly poised and positioned to assess exactly how people felt about Garth Turner before the incident and especially as it was happening. We got to hear it, see it, and especially feel it real time, both in the physical and virtual worlds. Better yet, in a few weeks or a few months we can and will repeat the exercise and gather what all researchers strive to collect; a very precise and  measurable understanding of the change that occurs over time. I dare say, this morning Stephen Harper and Doug Finley don’t have the kind and quality of knowledge and information we have today. In fact, what I believe Stephen Harper has, based on our research, is not a true appreciation for what is about to happen in the next few weeks, months, and years.

Based on this assessment and with the usual all-important caveat of all things being equal, the future for Garth Turner is very bright and the future for Stephen Harper is very dim. Stephen Harper’s dim future is a certainty. Garth Turner’s bright future depends on what he does next.

And there concludes the public portion of my analysis. The rest of my report, including my specific recommendations to Garth, has been personally and confidentially delivered to the man himself.

Specific recommendations based on field questionnaires and interviews delivered to Garth Turner himself.

Is this just a matter of Dan Baril thinking he's Garth Turner's pollster buddy?  Not at all, Garth Turner said that himself:

This will be poignantly portrayed tomorrow when my pollster buddy, Dan Baril, releases a groundbreaking new survey that he shared with me a few hours early, tonight.

Maybe they've had a falling out since 2007.  Maybe they're no longer pollster buddies.  Maybe Garth Turner has a new pollster buddy doing this 2008 election polls:

In contrast, I am doing a poll of about two hundred families a day. And I will trust these findings, 19 times out of twenty, with a margin of error of zero. My poll says I will win this riding one month from Sunday.

Maybe Garth Turner is doing his own polling, along with all the other campaign duties.  Maybe he's hired a different pollster.  Funny that no name for this pollster who has allegedly replaced Dan Baril and Core Strategies in the role of pollster buddy.  Indeed the only name that comes up when you combine "Garth Turner" and "polling" is Dan Baril's.

Let's consider another factual statement:

But he is a constituent and a political junkie.

Well, whose constituent?  Garth Turner's?  I don't think so.  The address for Dan Baril's firm, Core Strategies, is 1178 Lindenrock Drive, Oakville.  Here is a satellite view of those offices:

Click on the image to make it larger.  Yes, it's a residential neighborhood.  So that would suggest strongly that Dan Baril works out of his home.

No shame in that.  It's good for the environment.  And I'm pretty sure it is Dan Baril's house.  Why?  Do a reverse lookup from this address and you don't get Core Strategies, but "D Bairl".  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is a typo and that "D Baril" is the resident.

The postal code for this address reveals that this particular area of Oakville is represented by Liberal MP Bonnie Brown of the riding of Oakville, not Liberal MP Garth Turner of the riding of Halton.

Oh, but enough of this sleuthing stuff.  I just called Elections Canada and checked the rolls for Dan Baril.  Oakville riding, not Halton.  There.  Done.  Still, I like the sleuthing bits.  They're fun.

Let's consider a third factual statement:

He is not on my campaign team, and has taken no role in this election.

Here is a current screenshot from Dan Baril's website for Core Strategies, his polling firm:

There is the banner for Garth Turner's website on the second row.

Here's the bottom line.  CTV wanted supporters of the candidates but not campaign workers to present questions at the Halton townhall.

Garth Turner provided Dan Baril.

• Dan Baril has worked for Garth Turner as a pollster, and lists Garth Turner, MP, as a client, on his current website client page.
• Dan Baril is not even a voter in Halton and can't vote for Garth Turner.

So if CTV had been appraised of all of Dan Baril's associations with Garth Turner and the Liberal Riding Associaton in Halton, both recent and current, and had CTV been told that Dan Baril is not even a constituent in Halton, would CTV had asked the Garth Turner to offer up another guest to read the question?

You know, an average voter from Halton for a Halton town hall?

Did CTV want a person from Halton?  Someone identifying himself as Garth Turner put this comment on my blog, claiming this was a communication from CTV to Esther Shaye, Garth Turner's campaign manager:

Hello Esther

Just a confirmation email for Garth’s appearance on Canada AM on Thursday.

During the Q&A, we’re offering each of the candidates an opportunity to have one of your supporters to ask a question. We would like to have you identify an individual that would be posing the question.

That person ideally does not work on the campaign but does support Garth and the Liberal Party and in attendance – we’re trying to make the question as non-partisan as possible. We would like you to identify that person and the question or issue that he or she wishes to ask.

Thanks in advance.

Jeffery Tam
Senior Producer
Canada AM

Someone who supports Garth Turner posing a non-partisan question.  How can a person who doesn't vote in Halton really be considered a supporter of Garth Turner's in the context of a Halton town hall meeting?

The question itself was very confrontational, inviting Garth Turner to attack Lisa Raitt:

Audience Member [Dan Baril]: Hi, my question is for Garth. It is something that I would like you to comment on. Something that one of Lisa Raitt's contenders said in The Toronto Star. He said, “If our candidate is arbitrarily appointed by the people by the Prime Minister's Office it plays into Turner's hands and confirms everything he has been saying about the lack of democratic process within our party.” Could you comment on this?

Would CTV have reconsidered the suitability of the question (remember, they were going for non-partisan) once they realized who it was that would be delivering it?  A former pollster of Garth Turner's, likely the current pollster, a recent member of the Halton Liberal riding association, and a resident of a different riding entirely?

I mean, really, Dan Baril could not even say his choice of Conservative candidate to vote for was personally undermined by the appointment of Lisa Raitt since he can't vote for her in the first place!

Indeed, the conversation that would have ensued had CTV known all of the facts would quite likely as not have prompted CTV to say that Dan Baril on the whole was not the sort of average voter they wanted offering up questions in the town hall.

Why?  Because an average voter who is actually from Halton with no close ties to Garth Turner would not have prompted all this controversy.  The people at CTV aren't stupid.  These posts of mine are exactly the sort of thing they don't want resulting from one of their broadcasts. 

We'll never know what CTV would have done because CTV did not realize who Dan Baril was, and Garth Turner never offered the information, as Lis Travers, VP at CTV, has said to me:

In response to your question regarding our Battleground Breakfast in the Halton riding, CTV in no way planned any kind of set up of  Conservative candidate Lisa Raitt. Each candidate was given one question. CTV did not recognize the name of Dan Baril, nor his role in the Garth Turner campaign.  It was entirely by chance that Mr. Baril’s question was the first.  Each candidate received equal time to answer their question and state their positions during the broadcast.

Finally, one last note:

Mr. Janke never contacted me, my campaign or Mr. Baril in the preparation of the three articles...

There's a reason for that.  I prefer to use sources of accurate information for research.

A revealing comment:  Since I've given time to a comment from someone purporting to be Garth Turner, I'll some time to someone who purports to be one of Garth Turner's former employees:

From Beth Gregg:

I was a member of Garth's strategy team when he was an Independent MP and had the pleasure of meeting Dan Baril. Mr. Turner has commented on your blog that Dan had never done any polling for him. That is not what I recall from my own conversations with Dan Baril.

Dan was part of our Indie team and it was his task to do some sort of polling, so that Garth had an idea of how electable he would be as an Independent candidate. The last meeting of the Indie team was on the Sunday right after Mr. Turner joined the Liberal caucus. It was at this meeting that Garth told us why he decided to join the Liberal party. After the meeting I asked Dan Baril directly "What happened with that poll that you did? Why didn't Garth even try to work with the ideas that the Indie team came up with?" Dan's response to me was that the polling results showed that Garth could not get re-elected as either an Independent or a Green candidate in Halton.

Needless to say, I left that meeting very disheartened because at the end of the day, it seemed that the only thing of real importance was not how to make our system work better but how to ensure that Mr. Turner kept his job as an MP.

Just to make it clear.  I can't vouch for the veracity of this comment, no more than I can prove that Garth Turner was the person who wrote the comment that kicked off this post.  Treat both comments with equal weight.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 06:14 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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