2012 Atlantic Journalism Awards Finalists
Attachments
| Slug/Label | |
|---|---|
| Date Aired or Published | 2012 |
| Media outlet where first aired or published: | CBC Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Name of Program: | Labrador Morning |
| If co-produced, list partner: | |
| Location: | Happy Valley - Goose Bay |
| List awards, grants: | |
| Running time (TV/Radio): | 13:15 |
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Short explanation of the story and how it developed: The red flags on Peter Penashue's election campaign started during the 2011 federal election. Covering the race, Peter Cowan noticed in Labrador that there were a lot of signs, TV ads and travel and made a note to check on Penashue’s election filings later on. He didn't realize just how much had gone on. The first story happened late in 2011, when through Elections Canada's website Cowan found the now-federal Conservative cabinet minister had spent close to the legal limit on his campaign and taken out a loan from an aboriginal company. When that aboriginal company faced its own spending controversy, a fired CEO and public protests, Cowan decided to take a closer look at documents involved in Penashue's campaign to find out more about that loan, since the cabinet minister wasn't talking. Despite having questions about the campaign spending, it was impossible for Cowan to dig deeply into it without access to the invoices and receipts that would have been filed with Elections Canada – in Ottawa, 2,000 km away. What Cowan’s cbc.ca colleague Laura Payton found when she saw the file was that Cowan's instincts were right: the story was about much more than just the loan. Sitting in a conference room in downtown Ottawa, supervised by three Elections Canada officials, Payton sorted through stacks of bank statements and phone bills, and piles of receipts for signs, gas and office supplies. Some receipts were nothing more than a note scrawled by Penashue’s official agent, Reg Bowers, on an otherwise blank sheet of paper. Letters in the file laid out mistakes made by Bowers, and specified who had negotiated a deal for hugely discounted airfare: Penashue’s brother-in-law, the fired CEO of the aboriginal company that made the controversial loan to Penashue. Cowan broke the story in October, 2012, immediately hearing rumours of an illegal corporate donation to the campaign. Heading back to that conference room, intent on taking a closer look at the bank statements, Payton found something that hinted at another story: a deposit slip with a single entry for the company rumoured to have made the donation. In a year in which Canadians took a much closer look at the 2011 election, this story zeroed in on a single cabinet minister, triggering weeks of questions in the House of Commons. The story made such an impact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was forced to address it in question period, and the Rick Mercer report parodied it. The media furor even forced the cabinet minister to promise to go to his constituents with answers, although he ended up backtracking and simply releasing a statement to his website. Both reporters continue to chase the story. Most recently, Elections Canada wouldn’t release the file because auditors are still working with it. When it was available, the correspondence that told much of the story had been removed. These two stories aired 2 months apart covering two different aspects of Penashue's election spending. |
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Resources of the newsroom (money and time) available to complete the story: This was all done with regular budget. Because the file had to be viewed in person, a CBC.ca writer in Ottawa was enlisted to retrieve the files that were central to the story. The rest of the research and reporting work was all done by Peter Cowan |
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