OTTAWA—Facing charges of political sabotage by the powerful head of Sun Media Corporation, the Conservative Party has denied wrongdoing but cut ties with a key political strategist.
The move was made to distance the Stephen Harper campaign from what Sun Media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau claimed was a dirty trick — the leak of an incriminating photo and damaging information that said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had aided U.S. military planners in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The photo, forwarded to Sun Media vice-president Kory Teneycke — another former Harper aide — wasn’t of Ignatieff.
The strategist, Patrick Muttart, did not comment Wednesday. But sources close to him said he is “furious” at having been cavalierly tossed aside by the Harper campaign.
Rattled Conservative insiders, who spoke only on background, said Muttart, a former deputy chief of staff to Stephen Harper and senior political operative, was treated badly by both the party and the Sun. Some blamed national campaign chair Guy Giorno.
Giorno has clashed with Muttart, and is believed to be the force behind Harper’s decision to let Muttart go now.
A Conservative party source said that while some thought getting rid of Muttart was a good thing, there are people inside the campaign who “are pissed about how he was treated.
“Now, at exactly the time in your campaign when you do not need any dissension and you need everybody to be of one mind, you’ve got disharmony and unhappiness in your team. That is the problem, more than the loss of the skill set,” said the source.
Jason Lietaer, a Conservative campaign spokesman, denied Muttart had behaved improperly in forwarding the information and dubious photo to Sun Media, and flatly denied the Conservative campaign had any intention to undermine Sun Network’s credibility.
Still, he said Muttart, key architect behind the party’s election victories in 2006 and 2008, would have “no further role” in the Conservative campaign.
Muttart had worked on contract with the 2011 campaign, mostly from his Chicago home base where he has worked for an American public affairs firm since 2009, returning occasionally to Ottawa as needed.
Ignatieff told the Star the Conservatives’ attempt to snow Sun Media with a photo suggesting he was dressed up like a soldier was “bizarro.”
“Trying to pass this off and then writing stories that I planned the Iraq war … we pass into realms of behaviour that actually leave Canadians furious. I could give a damn what they think and say about me anymore … but God almighty we got to think about what this means to the future of Canadian politics,” he said.
Sun Media president and CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s Sun papers that identified Muttart as the source of a photo intended to hurt the Liberal leader, but which Peladeau suggested was a deliberate plan to damage his fledgling conservative broadcast network.
“It is my belief that this planted information was intended to first and foremost seriously damage Michael Ignatieff’s campaign but in the process to damage the integrity and credibility of Sun Media and, more pointedly, that of our new television operation, Sun News,” Peladeau wrote.
A source close to Muttart said the photo was found online by a U.S.-based political party researcher and couldn’t be verified. Muttart gave it to Teneycke with that disclaimer and said Sun would have to do further legwork.
Late Wednesday, the story took another bizarre twist when Muttart’s American employer, Mercury Public Affairs/IGR Group, released a statement defending him and identifying Muttart as one of the key people behind the Sun News network’s design and marketing efforts.
It called Peladeau’s assertions “bizarre” and “disappointing.”
“At no point did Muttart tell Sun Media that he had positively identified Ignatieff in the photo in question. And at no time did Muttart mislead, or intend to mislead Sun Media, in his provision of information to them.”
It went on: “For the record, Mercury was hired by Quebecor to assist Sun News with its pre-licence branding and positioning. Muttart worked with a creative agency to develop the network’s original logo . . . And he was the original source for the network’s ‘hard news’ and ‘straight talk’ framing language.”
It added: “All things considered, it is ironic indeed that Sun Media has chosen to attack Patrick Muttart.”