Conservatives try to explain student ejections from rallies

By now, we've all heard about the stories of students (and veterans' advocates) barred from attending Conservative rallies with Stephen Harper in recent days in Halifax, London and Guelph.

Today, the Conservative leader said it's a matter for his staff and he can't comment on it. He added that his party is attracting more people to its rallies than all his rival parties combined. (The Conservative Party has offered no evidence for this statement.)

So the media turned to Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas for more answers. Off-tape, Soudas says he's tried to contact the local campaigns in London and Guelph where students were evicted, but he hasn't yet heard back.

Here's a partial transcript of what he had to say on tape in a lengthy scrum in Drummondville, Que., for the record:

Reporter: Why are they being kicked out of Conservative rallies?

Dimitri Soudas: As I stated earlier we're having great turnouts at our crowds (sic) so far. Every single campaign stop, we've had tremendous turnout so far.

Reporter: Doesn't answer the question. Focus on the question please. Why are these people being kicked out of the rallies?

Dimitri Soudas: For example the issue of the young lady. I can't speak to all the specifics. But the young student in London yesterday on behalf of the campaign we apologized for the inconvenience. At the same time, next time we're in London the prime minister would love to meet with the young student, take a picture with her and hopefully she can post it on her Facebook site as well. Having said that, the bottom line here is the conservative campaign is having tremendous turnout across the country. If the other parties are having a hard time turning out people that's their issue.

Reporter: Are you doing a blanket apology to all those kicked out?

Dimitri Soudas: Campaigns always have these kinds of things....

Reporter: Do you have staff who are combing through people's Facebook sites to look for suspicious connections? Are you going into people's Facebook sites?

Dimitri Soudas: Bottom line here is that for every campaign event like I said earlier, we have a tremendous turnout and we always have to make sure that we're planning to have rooms big enough to ensure all the people turning up are able to attend and participate in the rally.

Reporter: But what is your screening mechanism?

Dimitri Soudas: Local campaigns make sure everybody in the region and everybody who are from the surrounding ridings attend our events.

Reporter: The question was what is your screening mechanism? You answer some other question that wasn't asked. How exactly is it that your staff are combing through people's Facebook pages looking for signs of disloyalty?

Dimitri Soudas: I'm not aware of such combing. I'm not aware of such things.

Reporter: But it happened. This woman in London says that she was told as she was removed from the rally the person removing her told her they had seen her Facebook site and seen a picture of Michael Ignatieff there.

Dimitri Soudas: Yes and as I stated, for this young student, I said we apologized.

Reporter: What are you apologizing for?

Dimitri Soudas: For the inconvenience it caused her.

Reporter: So you acknowledge your campaign did this?

Dimitri Soudas: No -- it obviously caused this young student an inconvenience. We have apologized for that.

Reporter: What about the other cases?

Dimitri Soudas: It's obviously evident that our campaign is attracting tremendous response and quite frankly the biggest crowds than any other election campaign.....