If this doesn’t shake up campaign, nothing will

Most of us have been thinking the TV debates tonight and Wednesday would be the potential game changer or tipping point in the current federal election campaign.

But it looks like that potential game changer came a day early with the leak of a draft report of the Auditor General on how the Harper government plowed $50 million into dubious G8 infrastructure in Muskoka.

Actually there were two leaks of AG material on G8 spending, and the second one tells a lot about how the Harper government puts out a fire.

The first leak, as most of us know, was leaked to the Canadian Press. It is a draft report, dated in January, that concludes Parliament may have been misled and federal law may have been broken before last June’s summit – not exactly what a government wants to read about itself during an election campaign.

So the Tories got busy doing what they do so well during controversy – changing the channel – with a counter leak of their own. They distributed to media a second draft report from the AG that was dated in February.

This draft is also critical of G8 spending but uses softer language. It does not say Parliament may have been misled, for example.

We will see over the next week whether the tactic is enough to diffuse the controversy. However, it was enough for the Tories to turn the tables and challenge the validity of the draft obtained by CP.

Tonight’s debate will be a battle of narratives. The government will try to blur the impact of the AG’s findings with the softer version. The opposition will push an ongoing narrative of government misspending, as well an overall lack of integrity.

In 18 days of campaigning, the Tories have been plagued with allegations of everything from using RCMP officers as bouncers at their rallies to hiding the real costs of F-35 jet fighters. But they still maintain a healthy lead in the polls.

Will this latest controversy be the tipping point the opposition has been waiting for? We likely won’t know until this weekend. But tonight’s debate likely will be incredible political drama just the same.

Mistake by the lake should tell us something

Think back to the summer of 2005 when Stephen Harper was still the leader of the Opposition.

Remember a particularly hideous photo that was taken at the Calgary Stampede in which Harper was wearing a leather vest that was too tight and a goofy looking hat?

He was between communications directors at the time. And the photo clearly demonstrated there was no one in his entourage with either the cachet or experience to say "Stephen, lose the look."

In the months following, Harper showed much more communications savvy in front of the cameras and became prime minister as a result.

The predicament Harper is now in over the costs of the G8 and G20 summits, in particular the supposed need for an artificial lake in the Toronto media centre, should also be telling us something about his government's communications ability, or lack of it.

When first reported, the cost was $1 million to put an artificial lake about four blocks north of the real thing. Subsequently, this was revised to $57,000 out of the total media centre budget of $1.9 million.

Even at $57,000, voters across the country may think the fake lake is a mistake. But it's interesting that the government's huge communications machine let several news cycles lapse while the price was being reported at seven figures.

This could point to several things going on behind the scenes. In the past 12 months leading up to the summits, the government has been keeping details of costs quiet. Is it possible their own communications people were not fully briefed?

Even the government's ministers seemed to be blindsided when the story broke. Did the summit expenditures get a full review at cabinet, or just inside the Prime Minister's Office?

In addition to the fake lake, the Tories have not been able to defend a whole raft of summit expenditures that smell like pre-election largesse in rural Ontario. G8 leaders are unlikely to venture outside a guarded compound.

Perhaps if the Tories had released details of summit spending gradually over several months they wouldn't now be facing a public backlash.

It has been mentioned in this blog before but it's worth repeating. For a government obsessed with controlling its messaging, it doesn't seem to communicate about is own affairs very well,

particularly when things don't go as planned.