The Sixth Estate

The National Post has published another op-ed by Keith Beardsley. Last time, they correctly called him out as a veteran Conservative strategist. This time, they didn’t bother. What makes the omission particularly unforgivable on this occasion is that Beardsley is using the op-ed to argue that Canadians shouldn’t (and don’t) care about the fact that his party has been charged with money laundering under the Elections Act. Don’t the editors think it would be relevant for Canadians to know that Beardsley was a senior insider in the party at the very time the offences he says don’t matter were occurring? This is tantamount to asking a Mafia capo whether organized crime is a serious problem in Montreal.

Let’s run through Beardsley’s history again, just for the record. He joined the Progressive Conservative Party during the Trudeau era. Except for a brief break during the late Mulroney period, he’s been there almost ever since. He joined the Leader’s Office in 1998 and then worked with Jean Charest, Joe Clark, Peter McKay, and most recently Stephen Harper. Keith went with Harper during the move from the Opposition Leader’s Office to the Prime Minister’s Office. That would put him in Harper’s office not just for many years, but at the exact time that the In and Out scheme was occurring. The Post is doing a serious disservice to its readers by putting this man forward as a wise voice on the matter.

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I’m going to break my usual one-post-a-day rhythm because something mind-numbingly stupid just crossed my screen and I feel I need to respond to it. In the National Post, a newspaper already known for hosting columnists a few bricks short of a load, Conservative Party hack Keith Beardsley is actually claiming that the Libya crisis discredits those of us who believe Canada doesn’t need the F-35 jet fighter.

Before dissecting this pretzel logic, let me congratulate the Post for finally doing their job and giving a gloss that calls it like it is: Beardsley has decades of experience in the Conservative Party, most recently as an adviser to Stephen Harper. Now he’s a lobbyist for True North, incidentally. Thank you, National Post. Now, to the story.

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