As they entered their first cabinet meeting since the RCMP raid on the legislature, several members of the Campbell caucus said that it would be "business as usual"; and that they wouldn't be distracted by the scandal. That is hard to believe in view of the effort government puts into monitoring and responding to the news media.

On December 10th the Campbell cabinet approved 12 orders in council appointing new staff to the government's propaganda shop, the Public Affairs Bureau. One of the appointments has the title of "Media Monitoring Assistant" and five have the title of "Today's News On-Line Editor". All of these appointees, and many more who are already on staff, are involved in providing quick access to every word that the news media says or prints about the government or public policy. Since December 28th the Public Affairs Bureau would be consumed with coverage of the raid on the legislature and related investigations.

One of the most unfortunate statements on the way into the caucus meeting was attributed to Liberal whip Kevin Krueger who was quoted as saying with respect to David Basi, "Certainly he should not have been involving himself in federal membership drives if he was on our payroll." Most taxpayers probably think of it as their payroll; it definitely was not the Liberal caucus payroll. Krueger is an official in the Liberal caucus, not the government. Basi was an employee of the government, not the caucus. There should be a distinction between government and the legislature, hence the term front bench and back bench. Of course, when political assistants to cabinet ministers also play active roles as party organizers, those distinctions can be blurred. Perhaps that is why the Liberal whip thought of the former ministerial assistant as being on his payroll; that is one of the reasons why the elected Campbell Liberals will not succeed in distancing themselves from the appointed Campbell Liberals.