How to get "carried away" with a button maker.

Dumbest scandal of the writ period.

Picture of false-flag buttons planted at the right-wing CSFN conference this week in Ottawa. Buttons include “Free Alberta” with a picture of handcuffs, “Lock Justin [Trudeau] Up”, “Stop The Steal”, and “Wexit Now!” | Copyright © Read The Line, licensed under fair dealing.

Do you like false-flag attacks? Do you like how they erode your confidence in basic truth and facts? Do you like being misled and manipulated?

No? Me either. So it’s a good thing that this attempt…was stupid.

Every year, the Canada Strong and Free Network, formerly known as the Manning Centre in honour of its founder, Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, hosts a right-wing networking conference, referred to in the Hill Times as “Coachella for conservatives”.

While the name has changed, it is still commonly referred to as the “Manning Conference”, and for the 2025 iteration scheduled from April 9^th to 12^th, the Liberal Party War Room plotted something truly dumb.

On Friday, April 11^th, CBC Senior Reporter Kate McKenna overheard a dipshit Liberal staffer run his mouth. At the pub D’Arcy McGee’s on the eastern tip of Sparks Street, McKenna saw multiple staffers in the Liberal War Room having drinks.

McKenna joined them, the staffers all knew she was a CBC reporter whose office is literally two blocks away, and yet this staffer admitted out loud that they had infiltrated the Manning Conference and planted controversial buttons around the event space to give the impression that they were placed by actual event attendees.

Further, the staffer confirmed this was not his freelance initiative, but something which originated from the Liberal War Room. As such, buttons placed in the false flag included:

• Danielle Smith For [Conservative Party of Canada] Leader 2026

• Free Alberta (Picture of Handcuffs)

• Stop The Steal (Reference to Trump Jan 6 Insurrection)

• Make Canada Great Again

• Lock Justin [Trudeau] Up

• A Vote For [Mark] Carney Is A Vote For Wexit

• Wexit Now!

• Jenni Byrne Kory Teneycke (Reference to infighting between Federal and Ontario Tories)

Hilariously, when Kate McKenna asked the staffer to confirm what he just told her, he did…and then she said the CBC would absolutely be reporting on it, at which point he tried to withdraw everything he said.

Sorry buddy. A bit late to retract.

There’s really a lot of stupidity to unpack here. For one, if I had a nickle every fucking time a dumbass political staffer yelled about something they should keep secret at D’Arcy McGee’s, I would be wealthy enough to retire.

The last time I was in Ottawa with family, I literally took my non-political sister to D’Arcy’s with me, and told her to be quiet and listen to the shit that staffers say out loud without any consideration of the numerous Hill journalists who park themselves there for the easy scoops. She was genuinely astounded.

In the initial response yesterday, the Liberal Party statement said that campaigners “regrettably got carried away…poking fun”. I just find this particularly interesting, because Liberal Party officials have always made clear to me, sometimes even aggressively, that they have a high standard for professionalism and decorum!

Finally, this morning Mark Carney personally acknowledged…Buttongate? Buttonghazi? Jury might still be out on the name.

At this campaign stop, he stated to the press that he was “unaware” but apologized “unreservedly”. Carney claimed that the staffers involved in the incident have been “reassigned within the campaign.”

This doesn’t track. The buttons were not the staffer’s own initiative, they were a Liberal War Room plan. The scapegoating and the claims of the wider campaign being “unaware” rub a little thin when the scapegoat confessed that they had partners!

And what does “reassigned within the campaign” even mean? A party’s “war room” essentially consists of their central campaign for the writ period, versus the individual riding campaigns of specific candidates.

Unless Mr. Carney is actually replacing his entire war room, which would be an extremely disruptive act only days before the French and English debates, this means nothing. The same people who run the central campaign continue to run it.

Nobody is even falling on their sword, or being truly scapegoated, because nobody has actually been named, let alone fired! The Mad Hatter may have told the guests at his tea party to change places, but all the guests at the party are still the same.

I want to conclude with one more thought, a particularly important one. Considering this entire conspiracy unravelled into a scandal immediately without fooling any of the intended audience…the people involved should be fired.

Not merely fired for a violation of ethics. Fired for incompetence. Because if you had a secret plan to carry out, would you hire a henchman dumb enough to blab about the entire plan while drunk to a self-identified journalist?

I probably wouldn’t hire somebody that stupid to carry out an evil plan!

But I also have basic ethics, so I don’t imagine I’d find myself in the Liberal Party’s situation.

Skill issue, I guess.