Talk:Sponsorship scandal/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

May 3?

The article says this:

The official opposition party, the Conservatives, has put forward a non-confidence motion in the government. Due to procedural rules, this vote will be held May 3.

Was there a vote on May 3? If so, what was the outcome? Funnyhat 00:02, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

There was no vote on May 3rd (what article said this? It might have been a typo). There was a vote on a motion of no-confidence today (may 10th), however it was a surprise move and its technical validity is not clear. In any case, there will be certainly be a formal vote on a confidence motion on May 18th, if the government survives until then. UnHoly 00:26, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

The True Powers of the Gomery Commission

Moved analysis/commentary to User talk:A.S._Brown. --Saforrest 14:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Removing The Current Event Tag

I'm removing the current event tag. There have been next to nil developments on this topic in the media or on this talk page. It is occasionally referenced, so a future implications section may have to be added somewhere down the line. Blue Leopard 01:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't the sponsorship program have its' own article?

Shouldn't the sponsorship program have its' own article? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 05:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be duplication. The "Sponsorship Program" was only notable because of the associated scandal. If the scandal had not happened, the program would just be another government funded initiative, which is not notable except as a footnote to some other story, say the Second Quebec Referendum in 1995, and its aftermath. I think the Sponsorship Scandal takes care of the whole matter in one nice package, and that is what everyone remembers anyway from the media coverage, which was extensive in Canada. I first heard about it myself as the Sp. Scandal. The word "program" is used in the legal proceedings and the Gomery commission to define the actual government involvement in the graft that led up to the scandal.

I say, leave it as it is. We all love scandals, don't we? (...as long as we are not personally involved!) :-) --Skol fir (talk) 01:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

citations?

there are surprisingly few citations for such a long article on a major Canadian political event. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lujhu (talk • contribs) 14:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I have added a "refimprove" template to the article and "unreferenced" template to the section of notable actors in the scandal. Additionally, the explanation of the scandal itself has only a single source, and it's the CBC. bwmcmaste (talk) 15:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's a good source that covers the event in some detail: Accounting and networks of corruption. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anmsmith (talk • contribs) 04:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Untitled Discussion

Previous edit read:

The scandal was also shown to be large enough that it could only have been authorized by the Prime Minister's Office.

The inquiry may show that, but it has not been shown yet. I've yet to even read a major paper make such a conjecture, and even if they did, it would still be just a conjecture, of which there are several at this point (and none shown). I've tried to rewrite to reflect this.

-- Matty j 05:43, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sigh. I changed "was a scandal based on" to "is based on" because a) the original was redundant ("the scandal was a scandal") and because the scandal is not over. If you're going to change the wording back could you justify it, please? Trontonian 12:44, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry... I didn't realize it was a reversion. I was merely rewriting as I felt inclined because I found the opening, specifically the first two paragraphs, rather useless in providing context to the problem. It read to me like you wouldn't know what was going on (e.g. what the sponsorship program was, what the money was intended for, etc.) unless you were already aware of it. I have two problems with the way its opens now (which is not to say my opening was any better): a) I don't like hyperlinks in the title of the page (the linking of scandal); and b) it fails to define what the event was and why it was significant before jumping into when it began, what the specifics were, etc. In a sense, the way it is now would be like starting the World War II article with "World War II began in 1939...". I meant no offense and I'll try to work on a better opening over the next week or so. Feel free to add any suggestions you may have. -- Matty j 17:42, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

For all those interested, here is a collection of English and French articles written on the federal government propaganda scandal in Quebec. If you ever wanted to understand how a system of Indirect Rule operates, here is your chance:

http://www.vigile.net/ds-affaires/commandites.html

That is the tip of the iceberg. Here is some of the rest of it:

Mathieugp 19:20, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The article doesn't say who Alfonso Gagliano is or why he was fired. Secretlondon 04:02, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why the name change? The sponsorship issue began long before 2004, and is likley to continue afterwards. Liberal Party is also more specific than Canadian. - SimonP 21:37, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed - this has much more to do with the entity under discussion than the year. I vote for a change back. Radagast 23:40, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Disagree. A few reasons:

The press/general public isn't calling this thing the "Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal"-- in fact, that phrase only turns up on a google search to be in use in mirrors of this page.
The name isn't particularly accurate as it implies the scandal centres on activities within the Liberal Party when in fact the scandal is about how the government in power acted, in this case the Liberals. Scandals based on internal party illegalities certainly do happen--it would be fair to call Bingogate a "BC New Democratic Party scandal," for instance, but not this one. The only indisputable connection to the LPC is that the civil servants the Auditor General criticised were potentially acting under the orders of government officials who were themselves members of the party. We label this the "Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal" and we might as well have "The Liberal-Conservative Party of Canada Pacific Scandal," the "Liberal Party of Canada Human Resources Development Canada boondoggle" and the "Progressive Conservative Party of Canada whatshisface the Defence Minister goes to a Tittie Bar Scandal"
There are NPOV issues here... the Public Accounts committee is effectively an ongoing quasi-judicial process and the fundamental difference between a "guilty" and "not guilty" verdict will be determining whether this whole affair was indeed directed by political organizers acting in the interest of the LPC or not. The Auditor General said there were cost overruns, not that this was indeed a racket in which the Liberals were funnelling public money back to themselves. The Public Account committee may, however, say something on the subject of the latter. Naming the article as we have right now seems to me to pre-judge that outcome.

Anyway, I'll leave the name as-is, and I'll see if any other opinion crops up. My recommended name would be plain "Sponsorship Scandal," which could be disambigged to "Sponsorship Scandal (Canada)" either now or in the future. The Tom 13:47, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I follow your point; my main argument was that the year was irrelevant. At least Sponsorship Scandal is a redirect. Radagast 02:25, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly support renaming this article. It may well be that several of the players in the scandal were not active Liberals. Moreover, we don't call previous scandals by the name of the party. HistoryBA 15:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think Canadian sponsorship scandal would cover it best, all things considered. I'll move it tomorrow if there are no objections; I'll put notice up at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board for visibility. Radagast 01:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be just "sponsorship scandal". I wrote up a much longer explanation over at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal, but in a nutshell Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) says we should use the most common name for a thing as the title for its article and it's what the other scandal articles seem to be doing. I personally never hear anything but "the sponsorship scandal" being used to refer to this scandal in the news. Bryan 06:29, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I really dislike the idea of this article not having any additional identifier in its title to make clear exactly what's being talked about. "Sponsorship scandal", on its own, is an extremely generic identifier. The question, for me, is less about whether any other scandal has been called such, and more about whether one could be. With Watergate or the Lewinsky scandal, for example, the likelihood of another political scandal happening that could possibly bear the same name is limited at best; with "sponsorship scandal", I can guarantee that the likelihood is virtually 100 per cent. This "most common name for a thing" is a guideline, which has to be weighed against other considerations such as Wikipedia's international audience. We have plenty of articles which break the "most common name" convention in order to improve clarity. I'm sure, for instance, that nobody would dream of suggesting that we should sacrifice the clarity of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission just because that body is much more commonly referred to as CRTC. Bearcat 07:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Name change vote

Given the amount of diverging opinion at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal, it looks like this should be put to a vote. Let's give it a week - till 0:00 UTC, 22 Nov 2004.

Voting is now closed. 'Sponsorship scandal' won by more than a 2:1 margin.

Canadian sponsorship scandal

Radagast 14:00, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
Mathieugp 19:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Bearcat 07:22, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sponsorship scandal

Samaritan 19:17, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
SimonP 20:06, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC) (unless some evidence can be presented that another country has had a "sponsorship scandal")
HistoryBA 20:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC) If a further clarification is needed, it could be "Sponsorship Scandal (Canada)"
Bryan 21:05, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC) IMO this conforms most closely to Wikipedia policy.
Earl Andrew 22:37, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
— Pdefer | !! 03:22, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)
AndyL 03:04, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) a) keep it simple b) this is the most common usage

Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal (status quo)

Caution for Canadians

Please exercise caution about mentioning or linking to the pre-trial disclosures. Seems you could go to jail for it. Pretty silly from the US perspective, where pre-trial disclosures are routine before high profile trials and people still expect the jury to be neutral, but if that's Canadian law, that's the way it is. I and the other developers will need to comply with any lawful court orders seeking information sufficient to trace you, so please don't act illegally. Jamesday 04:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not illegal; its nice to comply with the order... only the person who initially leaked the information could be in trouble; and that's assuming they knew the information was going to make it to a blog. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 05:16, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Edmonton Sun story mentions the commission possibly charging the Canadian news site which linked to the blog with contempt of court. Up to each person to make their own decision, of course. Meanwhile, as a non-Canadian person in the US, I've linked to an article about the disclosure. Jamesday 05:36, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese say that a quarter of Wikipedia is illegal. We don't put up warnings telling Chinese citizens to not look up Falun Gong on Wikipedia. Therefore, we shouldn't put up warnings telling Canadians to censor what they say. Publication bans are futile unless the inquiry is truly in camera. 82.96.75.4 03:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Now that is truly an interesting point. Which nation's laws, if any, should Wikipedia abide by in cases of media blackouts of some sort? Should Wiki abide by all, none, or wherever the server is hosted (assuming that is only in one location). What is the Wiki protocol on this?

Well I applaud you in your caution, and heeding Canadian law, but Wikipedia is not a "Canadian news site"... alas its mostly lifted now anyway. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Image

I strongly object to the image which shows sponsorship connections, but never explains the precise nature of those connections, leaving the reader to believe that the chart tracks the flow of money, when in fact it does nothing of the sort. Does anyone object to my deleting it? HistoryBA 23:10, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have removed it. It also has copyright concerns. Fair use for screenshots is only valid if the article is about the show the shot was taken from. - SimonP 23:24, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Opps. My bad. Still a quality cap! - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 05:56, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)