Election Harper quick to highlight Liberal leader's problem understanding CTV interviewer

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Rob Linke
Telegraph-Journal

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Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's trouble understanding CTV anchor Steve Murphy's question after three excruciating attempts Thursday evening will go down as one of the memorable moments of the 2008 campaign.

The interview now has a life of its own on YouTube.com, where it got thousands of hits Friday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Dion were also speaking about the exchange for a second day.

Harper had called a news conference Thursday night to highlight the interview, a departure from his practice of speaking to reporters just once a day on the campaign.

Dion complained Friday that Harper's news conference was "to not miss an opportunity to come with a low blow against his main opponent."

Not so, Harper said Friday in Brantford, Ont.

"I think the interview speaks for itself," he said. "Canadians can watch it. The issue is Mr. Dion's response on the economy."

In a pre-taped interview in Halifax aired on the supper-hour news Thursday and repeated on Mike Duffy Live Prime Time on CTV Newsnet, Murphy had asked Dion the question, "if you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?"

Dion didn't understand the question the first time, nor a second, differently phrased attempt.

Dion grew exasperated, told Murphy he didn't understand the question, and asked to start the interview again. He also laughed in good humour a minute or so later.

Dion has explained he didn't understand the question.

Several New Brunswick Conservative candidates, asked for their views on the interview Friday, declined an interview or did not respond to messages.

But one Liberal candidate was quick to defend Dion.

His trouble with a convoluted question asked in his second language far from proves Dion is unqualified to be prime minister, argued Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc.

As a member of the party's national platform committee, LeBlanc may have spent more time with Dion in the past year or so than most Maritime Liberal MPs.

LeBlanc said Dion rarely has trouble in English.

"Ninety-five per cent of the time he has no problem," said LeBlanc. "Once in a while, I see him ask somebody to explain what they mean.

"But to pretend his ability to be prime minister or to deal with an economic crisis depends on one question in one interview on one day in Halifax is ludicrous.

"Canadian voters are more interested in his ideas and his compassion and his values."

LeBlanc conceded that Harper had not said anything about Dion's English skills or his hearing, but the MP for Beausejour wasn't letting Harper off the hook.

"I think it's because he knows that if he had the courage to say more directly what he was intimating, it would have been as appalling as Kim Campbell's attack on Jean Chrétien."

In 1993, the Progressive Conservative campaign aired television ads that mocked Chrétien's partial facial deformity due to Bell's palsy.

At a large Liberal rally Friday in Brampton, Ont., Chrétien accused Harper of launching the "meanest, dirtiest" personal attack on Dion.

Dion revealed to reporters earlier in the campaign that he has had more difficulty distinguishing sounds in his second language because of a hearing problem.

ATV's decision to air the portion of the pre-taped interview became a controversy in itself.

Murphy told his audience that CTV news had first told an "anxious" Liberal campaign the confusing exchange would not be aired.

"Upon reflection CTV News believes we owe it to you to show you everything that happened," Murphy said on air.

CTV Atlantic news director Jay Witherbee said that producers decided that the raw footage was newsworthy and "we ran it so the viewers could decide for themselves.

"It is exceptional that a political leader would request three restarts in an interview that it would be our normal practice to do live to camera."

Two journalism instructors were critical of CTV's decision.

"It wasn't fair for a couple of reasons," said Kelly Toughill, a veteran Toronto Star reporter and former television producer who teaches at the University of King's College in Halifax. "It's really not uncommon to do a re-take on a question."

By agreeing not to run the raw tape then doing so, "they broke their word."

Her second reason: "They deliberately implied there was an issue of comprehension there, but I think it was a really bad, really confusing question."

Stevie Cameron, best-selling author of the 1994 bestseller On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years, and the Irving Chair in Journalism at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, said Murphy's "question was poorly put and the fair thing would have been to ask it clearly and re-tape it."

Cameron also said that in his comments, Harper missed a chance to demonstrate what Canadians want to see in their politicians.

"If he had expressed the sympathy of one exhausted politician to another speaking in his second language, laughing it off saying 'we all do this,' I might even vote for him," she said.

- with files from Chris Morris.