Adler-Kinsella: why the Wylie scandal matters
Fifty billion in market value, gone. One of the biggest companies in the world in chaos. Governments announcing probes. And the Trudeau government looking quite nervous.
Charles Adler and me on the Christopher Wylie affair. I think this one could be very big. Here’s a snippet from next week’s column about it all:
Usually, when an individual has become radioactive, politicos adopt a standardized approach. The revolving-door Trump White House uses it quite a bit. First, claim the individual in question was “just a volunteer,” nothing more. If that doesn’t work, insist the aforementioned individual is unimportant, a “coffee boy,” in effect. And if none of that works – and it rarely does – join the pile-on, and say, with a straight face, that the President/Prime Minister/Potentate “never met with this person, and is cooperating with police.”
Pat Sorbara was the Grits’ 2011 deputy campaign boss – and, in 2014, a very senior campaign advisor to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. She is one of the few who has been willing to speak about Wylie on the record. Wylie was “way ahead of his time,” Sorbara marveled in the Globe. The two of them spitballed various microtargeting techniques.
“[Sorbara] was impressed by his ideas,” reported the Globe and Mail, “but said that after his initial presentation she had to reject his proposals owing to a lack of time and resources.” So the story changes, yet again: the Ignatieff Liberals didn’t reject Wylie because what he was suggesting was unethical and possibly illegal.
No, they didn’t use him because they couldn’t afford it.