Scanned pages of the original memo leaked to the Toronto Star are starting to circulate online. There’s been a lot of speculation that the memo was a fake, but I’m not convinced that it was. You can read it in its full text to judge for yourself. The look of it does fit with TDH Strategies’ description of how the memo was leaked from earlier today:
I can confirm (do not ask how) that the strategy memo written by Doug Finley was indeed real, and distributed internally to several ministerial offices in Ottawa – meaning that many Tory staff members had access to it.
One of these staffers took it to read over lunch in a shopping mall food court last week, and left it behind after he was done. From what I have been able to determine, this was done by accident, because if there was indeed an intention to leak it, there are far more effective ways to ensure that it gets into the hands of those that can turn it into a national headline.
Nothing here proves that this wasn’t an intentional leak, but having been the last one out the door at a lot of meetings, I can definitely say that the above description seems probable. I have been shocked by what people have left behind (staff bonus recommendations, confidential meeting minutes, etc.) and I can see some junior staffer being careless enough to leave the memo behind.
