This Hour Has 22 Minutes publicity for the show and contributed to the general air of farce surrounding Day's election campaign. Day did, however, have a very appropriate response to the petition: ""Que será, será"." It was later revealed by Alastair Campbell, former aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, that Prime Minister Jean Cretien and the Liberal Party had come up with the idea- not Mercer or the show's writers. 2003–04 – Shaun Majumder, in character as "Raj Binder", was sent to report on the 2003 outdoors Edmonton Oilers and Montreal Canadiens old timers game, preceding the night's actual NHL regular season game, which
John Scarlett "risible". Scarlett gave evidence at the Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death. It became clear that Scarlett had worked closely with Alastair Campbell, then the Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy, on the controversial September Dossier, with Campbell making drafting suggestions which the inquiry found may have "subconsciously influenced" Scarlett and the JIC. This influence may have had deleterious effects on the quality of the assessments presented in the dossier. For instance, the Intelligence and Security Committee made several criticisms in their report "Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction: Intelligence and Assessments": Scarlett became the head of SIS