Mr. Pallister, I have operators standing by

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/09/2015 (3394 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I got a call a while back from Tory MLA Wayne Ewasko, the opposition’s education critic, who was pretty miffed that I hadn’t asked him to comment on an education story we ran.

I can’t recall what the story was about, but Ewasko pitched a really strong case that the party wants to be asked to comment on any kind of systemic education story I do, or anything in which the government is quoted.

Which makes sense, and that’s why I’d been doing it pretty often.

I did tell Ewasko that the Tories didn’t have a very good track record of getting back to me whenever I requested comment; as I recall, they probably respond about as often as my Leafs win a game.

And, as I’ve said umpteen times, I need a more substantial and substantive response than, “NDP evil — NDP really evil.”

So, late this summer I was doing two very long systemic features about education, one of which has now run.

I had contacted Ewasko during the course of writing the stories; he got back to me and asked what my deadline was, and I told him, he had more than a week. I gave him a week, didn’t hear, then told him one story had gone to the editor, another was getting turned in the next day, and he didn’t respond.

So, I contacted Brad Salyn, who’s the communications co-ordinator for Brian Pallister’s caucus, told him what had been happening (or, rather, not happening), and suggested maybe we should have a chat. Haven’t heard anything back yet.

And then last Thursday morning, I’m in Victoria on personal family business, look at my email, and I’ve received a notice that Ewasko would be doing a newser delivering a Conservative report card on the NDP’s education record that very morning.

Sigh.