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Deep
Throat, in my case, sported a moth-nibbled sweater and an equally
frayed reputation. But initially, I was oblivious to his lapses,
sartorial or otherwise. My first contact with him came by phone.
For most of the conversation, I couldn’t figure out why this
virtual stranger had called me out of the blue. Then he swung the
conversation around to a recent edition of the CBC’s Disclosure—a
chronicle of how Paul Martin’s private company, Canada Steamship
Lines, had reflagged much of its fleet to such offshore tax havens
as the tiny Pacific island of Vanuatu.
I hadn’t seen the show, but admitted its thesis sounded intriguing.
Still, if Harvey Cashore, Mark Kelley and the Disclosure team had
already taken on the subject with such riveting results, why was
this guy calling me? “There’s more to it,” he
said. “Somebody should take a closer look at how the company
operates.”
More than once over the months that followed, I would curse him—and
myself for following his cue. But after a quick scan of the clips
on CSL, as well as reading some exchanges on the subject in Question
Period, I was hooked, and pitched the idea to David Berlin, the
founding editor of a new magazine called The Walrus. Almost nothing
had been written about the shipping empire over which Martin had
once presided—a private fiefdom that provided him not only
with the personal fortune that allowed him to pursue a political
career, but also, in the eyes of many, his chief credentials to
lead the country.
The opposition parties had attempted scattershot attacks on some
of CSL’s practices, like reflagging, and its apparent tax
breaks. But either their questions in the House of Commons failed
to elicit substantive answers or their factual ammo -- which by
its very nature was incredibly complex--failed to win traction in
the media. Simply by refusing to talk about CSL, Martin and the
Liberal party had managed to make his corporate past virtually vanish
from public debate. At the least, I felt it was important to examine
his record as a captain of industry to gain some understanding of
his agenda as prime minister, which, at the time, remained remarkably
sketchy. I set out merely to connect some of the disparate dots
in the story. Anything else I unearthed along the way would be a
bonus.
But I approached the task with more than the usual disadvantages.
Despite years of writing about politics, both at home and abroad,
I had never covered Ottawa, where insider access and long-nurtured
networks have traditionally held the key to informational access.
My contacts in the warring Chrétien and Martin camps were
almost non-existent. And my interest in the shipping industry and
the federal tax code wouldn’t have registered a blip on any
career aptitude test.
Worse, I had never considered myself an investigative journalist—just
a doggedly stubborn reporter with a distrust for conventional wisdom,
whether dispensed by Hollywood, the White House or the prominent
lobbyists such as the Ottawa-based Earnscliffe Group. I’d
earned my stripes with research and interviews, not computer searches
of arcane databases. But as I quickly learned, I couldn’t
rely on interviews on this subject. At a time Martin was about to
take over the top job in Canadian politics, interviewees were astoundingly
skittish . In 30-odd years in journalism, I’d never encountered
so many “no comments” or had so few of my calls returned,
even from old friends and political acquaintances. A few stated
the obvious: they didn’t dare incur the wrath of Martin’s
team, already well known for harbouring grudges.
By chance, when the Canadian Association of Journalists held its
annual convention in Toronto last year, I’d signed up for
two sessions which gave me some tools--and courage--to go after
information in ways I never would have before. One session on investigative
reporting by Disclosure’s Cecil Rossner alerted me to how
much information can come from official databases, including government
and property records. Another on computer-assisted reporting by
Allan Schlein helped guide me on a beginner’s tour of online
databases. By the end of my research, I’d discovered arcane
maritime registries to reconstruct the histories of individual ships,
logged onto international versions of the shipping news--a fascinating
world largely uncovered by the mainstream press--and was piecing
together reports by the International Federation of Transport Workers,
Australia’s rambunctious Maritime Union and even the tourism
office of Barbados.
What I couldn’t find online myself, Josh Knelman, the director
of research at The Walrus, and his crack team of interns, often
had the savvy, both on the Internet and in public libraries, to
locate. Given that the magazine had left me barely six weeks to
piece together the sprawling story, I couldn’t have met the
deadline without their help.
I also had history on my side. Years earlier, I had done stories
for Maclean’s both on Paul Martin’s father, and on Martin’s
inheritance of three Vancouver movie houses, which had raised questions
of conflict of interest in Parliament when he first became finance
minister. From that brief acquaintance with the disclosure form
Martin had filed with federal ethics counselor Howard Wilson, I
knew that his financial affairs were far more complex than they
seemed--and that some of the information was only available to those
who showed up to read the documents in person. I also was aware
of his family’s business history, and the longtime web of
alliances they had created.
Experts proved invaluable too in a story that involved such specialized
areas of tax and maritime knowledge. A friend of a friend who specialized
in offshore taxation helped parse Martin’s fiscal legislation,
translating the obscure legalese into a form that I, and readers,
could understand. Another source in Barbados, also begging for anonymity,
explained its confidential tax and corporate rules, as well as giving
me a sense of the local social landscape. And fellow journalists
like the Ottawa Citizen’s Glen MacGregor, who broke a raft
of stories on CSL while I was researching the piece, were incredibly
magnanimous in sharing contact numbers and tips, saying he welcomed
more hands at work on the subject. At a time when journalists are
too often known for throwing elbows their colleagues’ way,
I found just the opposite: a spirit of incredible collegiality and
generosity.
Every so often, when I felt confounded by the complexity of the
piece, Deep Throat would uncannily check in with a new tidbit or
theory--only some of which checked out. But by the time I finally
phoned CSL for reaction and history, I was well enough armed with
facts and background knowledge that its corporate counsel and spokesman,
Pierre Prefontaine, couldn’t slough off some half-answer or
quasi-truth.
Fortunately, I had called Martin’s office for a response--and
left a long enough message to produce a long-distance charge on
my phone bill. Months later, after the story appeared, when Scott
Reid, his then spokesman, told the National Post that I’d
never contacted him, I had the telephone records to prove him wrong.
Reid also argued that he couldn’t comment on a story in a
magazine with the unlikely name of The Walrus, of which he claimed
he’d never heard. Luckily, months earlier, I’d signed
up to be part of a teleconference with Canadian journalists that
Martin’s team had arranged for him after a UN appointment.
On that conference call, I was chosen to ask the last question and
introduced, for all to hear, as representing The Walrus.
Because the story appeared in the debut issue of a new magazine,
it got more attention that it might have otherwise, including mentions
in a number of newspapers from the National Post to the Toronto
Star. The New Democratic Party promptly capitalized on it in the
run-up to the Liberal leadership convention last fall, launching
a website quiz that asked respondents to vote on what sort of government
they thought Martin might run according to the assorted flags of
convenience flown by CSL’s fleet.
But for me, the fact that so many people read a piece of uncommon
length--11,600 words--on a subject that was not entirely untouched
in a far-from frivolous new magazine proved that the conventional
wisdom may be wrong. Far from merely wanting to be entertained,
Canadian readers seem to have an appetite for stories that probe
beneath the surface of daily reportage to help shed light on the
backrooms of both business and politics. |
