Mangling the facts on 'social entrepreneurs'

I was intrigued when MLA Gordon Hogg stood up in the legislature to talk about "social entrepreneurs."

"Some of the world's leaders in social innovation live right here in British Columbia. The Lower Mainland was recently called by the Ottawa Citizen: 'The Silicon Valley of social innovation in Canada,'" Hogg said.

That would be a useful article to get a better handle on the government's push for social entrepreneurship, I thought.

Except the Ottawa Citizen never said any such thing.

The closest thing was a quote from Axiom News — a website paid by clients to share positive news. "Vancouver was praised as 'the social Silicon Valley' and other glowing accolades as the city played host to the first Canadian Social Innovation and Social Finance tour," said a report on the website.

Members' statements are written in advance; Hogg gets an extra $15,000 on top of the base $100,000 for the parliamentary secretary job; it seems reasonable to assume they would be accurate.