The much anticipated Paille report has arrived! And, wouldn’t you know it, after sitting on Senator Michael Fortier’s desk since October 5th, it was published the exact same day as Brian Mulroney’s appearance before the Commons Ethics Committee. Talk about weird coincidences, eh?

So what did the report, designed to embarrass the Liberals find? Plenty of embarrassing stuff, all right:

-More than two polls commissioned per business day, a figure Paille calls “quite astounding”.

-A shocking 31.2 million spent on public opinion polls in one year alone!

-Certain polls strayed into the political realm. For example, some asked Canadians to rate how the PM and his Cabinet Ministers were performing.

Ouch. It befuddles me as to why Harper would want to bury this news story because…what’s that?…oh…

OTTAWA – An independent investigator hired by the Harper government to look into past Liberal polling practices has wound up shining an unfavourable light on the Tories’ penchant for polling.

Yes, it turns out that the above bullet points refer to Canada’s New Government, rather than the old one Paille was tasked to investigate. After finding it would not be worthwhile to pursue an inquiry into Liberal polling practices, Paille “took the liberty” of exceeding his mandate and stuck his nose into the practices of the current government.

Embarrassing indeed.