OTTAWA — Even as Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day prepared to venture into the lion’s den with a plan to pacify his critics, he ignited a new storm of indignation over treatment of the party’s founder.
Day is scheduled to meet with his fractious caucus early Wednesday with a strategic plan that sources say will focus heavily on how to improve external communications.
Yet he was dealing with yet another public relations fiasco Tuesday after former Reform party leader Preston Manning was moved out of his office in Parliament’s Center Block.
Manning’s place in the Commons seating plan had also been shifted — from the front bench to the second and back to the front again.
A source said mounted newspaper clippings of Manning’s finer moments were removed from the Alliance communication office, leaving only images of Day.
Manning, who announced recently he’ll retire later this year, said in a statement that he switched offices and seats with Grant Hill as a favor to the MP, who was recently appointed deputy leader.
But others said they believed Manning was simply trying to be gentlemanly in the face of poor treatment.
“It’s petty politics by a petty politician,” said Manning’s former director of communications, Jim Armour.
