Allegations of leaks in his department have put Finance Minister Ralph Goodale on the hot seat in the middle of an election campaign, and put the director of a seniors' organization in an uncomfortable spotlight.

The Liberals were caught off guard Wednesday night, when Bill Gleberzon, the Director of Government & Media Relations for Canada's Association for the Fifty Plus (CARP), told CTV News he got a phone call on the morning of Nov. 23, alerting him to an announcement later that day from the finance minister's office.

That call came several hours before Goodale announced that the federal government had decided not to change its stand on income trusts but would increase the tax credit on corporate dividends.

In the hours before the official announcement, there was heavier-than-usual trading in income trusts and dividend-paying stocks. That has fuelled speculation that some investors profited from an early warning.

"The day they made the announcement they phoned us and said something is going to be said," Gleberzon, told CTV News Wednesday night.

Gleberzon said the call came from a senior policy advisor in the finance minister's office, someone his group had been dealing with all along.

However, on Thursday morning, Gleberzon and CARP issued a news release denying any advance knowledge of Goodale's announcement.

"At no time was CARP given an indication by the Minister's office of when the announcement would be made or what it would say," the release said.

CTV's Kathy Tomlinson talked to Gleberzon after the release was issued. He confirmed what he had said in the previous interview, but now maintained he had misspoken.

At first, Gleberzon said no one from the finance minister's office had contacted him about the interview.

When told that the finance ministry's communications director, John Embury, had already admitted to calling Gleberzon Wednesday night, he explained:

"I did speak to him …. I shouldn't have said that I didn't, but I did," Gleberzon told Tomlinson.

"They phoned me and they asked -- they found out about the interview. He asked me what was going on, I told him, but it's when we were talking about the timing issue that I realized how important it was."

Gleberzon said Embury told him: "We don't want to coach you, we don't want to tell you what to say, we just want to know what to prepare for."

Embury was aware of the story earlier in the day, and sent an email to CTV Wednesday night, before the newscast aired, saying of Gleberzon: "He denies saying what he is supposed to have said to your reporter."

In a phone call later, Embury told CTV's Robert Fife that Gleberzon was old and confused.

"Well that's a nice ageist excuse," Gleberzon said when told of the comment Thursday. "I'm not that old, and I don't think I'm getting confused."

Embury told CTV he has since apologized to Gleberzon for that comment.

No one has evidence the Liberals or the department of finance leaked details of the announcement before the markets closed on Nov. 23. But some Bay Street players say some traders knew Goodale was going to make an announcement and invested heavily.

Goodale has denied any leaks from his ministry, and at a campaign stop in Toronto on Thursday, Prime Minister Paul Martin backed that up.

"The fact is that Mr. Goodale has said that there was not a leak from his department," Martin said. "The fact is he has also said that the Ontario authorities are in a position to do an investigation as they would do in any circumstance such as that, and obviously he and his department will cooperate fully with that."