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Tag Archives: cadman

“Authoritarian” is such a loaded term: Liveblogging the Cadman injunction hearing

9:30:45 AM
Hi everyone! I’m back! Not only am I back, but just a few short hours after tumbling out of a Westjet plane, I’m sitting outside an otherwise entirely unextraordinary courtroom, waiting for the first open hearing in the Cadman trial to get underway. This morning, lawyers for the Prime Minister will attempt to persuade the judge to toss out that affidavit filed by the Liberal Party last month — you remember, the one with all those ugly words like “authoritarian” — arguing that the aforementioned PM is acting like a great big bully by trying to gag the party from using the Cadman tape as a defence in the upcoming libel suit, which looks like it might end up in front of a judge right in the middle of the election campaign.

Only tangentially tape-related: Remember all that confusion over when the meeting took place?

A quick recap, in case you’ve forgotten: Dona Cadman told Zytaruk that she found out about the offer on May 17th, 2005, but Doug Finley and Tom Flanagan – the two men who claimed to have met with Cadman to discuss his possible return to caucus were adamant that the meeting actually took place two days later, on May 19th. The publishers eventually took the extraordinary step of removing the date completely from the final text of the book.

The Tale of the Tape: Are the Tories alleging what I think they’re alleging?

(I’ve finally managed to relocate my binder from this morning’s press conference, so expect a burst of mini-posts as I go through the three hundred or so pages filed as part of the Conservatives’ request for an injunction against using the tape.)

Tale of the tape: Zytaruk speaks!

… to his employer, Surrey Now. The editing is a little slapdash – understandable, since they obviously wanted to get this up as soon as possible – but it does answer the question of whether it was the original recording that was sent to the forensic experts (no) and whether he stands by his claim that the entire conversation is on that tape (yes).