Talk:Sponsorship scandal

Previous edit read:

The scandal was also shown to be large enough that it could only have been authorized by the Prime Minister's Office.

The inquiry may show that, but it has not been shown yet. I've yet to even read a major paper make such a conjecture, and even if they did, it would still be just a conjecture, of which there are several at this point (and none shown). I've tried to rewrite to reflect this.

-- Matty j 05:43, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sigh. I changed "was a scandal based on" to "is based on" because a) the original was redundant ("the scandal was a scandal") and because the scandal is not over. If you're going to change the wording back could you justify it, please? Trontonian 12:44, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry... I didn't realize it was a reversion. I was merely rewriting as I felt inclined because I found the opening, specifically the first two paragraphs, rather useless in providing context to the problem. It read to me like you wouldn't know what was going on (e.g. what the sponsorship program was, what the money was intended for, etc.) unless you were already aware of it. I have two problems with the way its opens now (which is not to say my opening was any better): a) I don't like hyperlinks in the title of the page (the linking of scandal); and b) it fails to define what the event was and why it was significant before jumping into when it began, what the specifics were, etc. In a sense, the way it is now would be like starting the World War II article with "World War II began in 1939...". I meant no offense and I'll try to work on a better opening over the next week or so. Feel free to add any suggestions you may have. -- Matty j 17:42, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

For all those interested, here is a collection of English and French articles written on the federal government propaganda scandal in Quebec. If you ever wanted to understand how a system of Indirect Rule operates, here is your chance:

http://www.vigile.net/ds-affaires/commandites.html

That is the tip of the iceberg. Here is some of the rest of it:

Mathieugp 19:20, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The article doesn't say who Alfonso Gagliano is or why he was fired. Secretlondon 04:02, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why the name change? The sponsorship issue began long before 2004, and is likley to continue afterwards. Liberal Party is also more specific than Canadian. - SimonP 21:37, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed - this has much more to do with the entity under discussion than the year. I vote for a change back. Radagast 23:40, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Disagree. A few reasons:

The press/general public isn't calling this thing the "Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal"-- in fact, that phrase only turns up on a google search to be in use in mirrors of this page.
The name isn't particularly accurate as it implies the scandal centres on activities within the Liberal Party when in fact the scandal is about how the government in power acted, in this case the Liberals. Scandals based on internal party illegalities certainly do happen--it would be fair to call Bingogate a "BC New Democratic Party scandal," for instance, but not this one. The only indisputable connection to the LPC is that the civil servants the Auditor General criticised were potentially acting under the orders of government officials who were themselves members of the party. We label this the "Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal" and we might as well have "The Liberal-Conservative Party of Canada Pacific Scandal," the "Liberal Party of Canada Human Resources Development Canada boondoggle" and the "Progressive Conservative Party of Canada whatshisface the Defence Minister goes to a Tittie Bar Scandal"
There are NPOV issues here... the Public Accounts committee is effectively an ongoing quasi-judicial process and the fundamental difference between a "guilty" and "not guilty" verdict will be determining whether this whole affair was indeed directed by political organizers acting in the interest of the LPC or not. The Auditor General said there were cost overruns, not that this was indeed a racket in which the Liberals were funnelling public money back to themselves. The Public Account committee may, however, say something on the subject of the latter. Naming the article as we have right now seems to me to pre-judge that outcome.

Anyway, I'll leave the name as-is, and I'll see if any other opinion crops up. My recommended name would be plain "Sponsorship Scandal," which could be disambigged to "Sponsorship Scandal (Canada)" either now or in the future. The Tom 13:47, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I follow your point; my main argument was that the year was irrelevant. At least Sponsorship Scandal is a redirect. Radagast 02:25, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly support renaming this article. It may well be that several of the players in the scandal were not active Liberals. Moreover, we don't call previous scandals by the name of the party. HistoryBA 15:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think Canadian sponsorship scandal would cover it best, all things considered. I'll move it tomorrow if there are no objections; I'll put notice up at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board for visibility. Radagast 01:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be just "sponsorship scandal". I wrote up a much longer explanation over at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal, but in a nutshell Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) says we should use the most common name for a thing as the title for its article and it's what the other scandal articles seem to be doing. I personally never hear anything but "the sponsorship scandal" being used to refer to this scandal in the news. Bryan 06:29, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Name change vote

Given the amount of diverging opinion at Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal, it looks like this should be put to a vote. Let's give it a week - till 0:00 UTC, 22 Nov 2004.

The options are:

Canadian sponsorship scandal

Radagast 14:00, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Sponsorship scandal

Samaritan 19:17, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Liberal Party of Canada sponsorship scandal (status quo)