OTTAWA – Public servants spent a full month...

OTTAWA – Public servants spent a full month, at the “urgent” request of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, preparing two splashy announcements heralding the destruction of the long-gun registry data—only to have the events cancelled at the last moment without explanation. macleans.ca

Prorogorama. Government bills that have been scrapped by prorogation and 20 sitting days eliminated.

canada post - junk biznuz & spam

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
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PLEASE OPEN IMMEDIATELY

Consumers' Choice Program

Dear Occupant,

I am writing with important news about
Canada Post mail delivery to your address.

Your address is part of Canada Post's Consumers' Choice database [*] as a result of having a "no flyer" notice [*] on your mailbox. This means you are currently not receiving unaddressed mail delivered by Canada Post that your neighbors are receiving.[*] This includes mail that can save you money [*] and keep you connected with your local community.[*]

• coupons and savings offers from local businesses
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We would like to make it easy [*] for you to receive this important [*] mail that includes information and offers that could benefit [*] you and your family.

• Simply [*] mail the enclosed postage paid card; and
• IMPORTANT: remove the notice from your mailbox.

We will resume delivery of your unaddressed mail within a few weeks.

Please note that the card, letter and envelope used for this mailing are all printed on sustainable papers and can all be recycled - as is the case with most unaddressed mail. [*]

blahblah,
Compliance and Chief Privacy Officer

UPDATE: {2013: file #22-37.} unsolicited mail, Shaw

poutine

Phone number behind misleading call traced to Conservative office disconnected: Kitchener-Conestoga MP to investigate: http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/642172--phone-number-behind-misleading-call-disconnected

 "The party claims the marketing firm RMG, which was charged with placing the calls, accidentally contacted her about voting in Kitchener Centre. An investigation by The Record revealed the link between the party and the phone call Siopiolosz received. It also revealed she was not alone.

"Elections Canada received over 100 reports of such misleading phone calls in the run-up to the May 2nd election. When called Monday, the phone number went to a voicemail from the “Conservative Party” that promised to get back to inquiries within three days. As of Tuesday morning, the number was no longer in service."

Firm that made Cotler calls also worked for Speaker Andrew Scheer, other Tory candidates. http://shar.es/WXmGm | Federal Tories say alleged election crank call was just an honest mistake.  http://bit.ly/syMiv5

that's rich 

front porch strategies - foreign radicals!

Very interesting.

Link.

Promotional video. "The team at Front Porch Strategies provides a great product, and work hard to make sure my campaign is targetting the right voters." - John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House

alberta election: MLAs

MADD as hell

The writ hasn't been dropped yet, but PC party advertising has began (campaign style events). Another point is the budget: is the Redford government in breach of the legislature with budget 2012 ads? Premier Alison Redford had a nice time and was so well-spoken in Washington DC and New York City (Eastern Energy Conference) that she was asked to be Mitt Romney's running mate.

The unelected leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party in Okotoks picked an issue, and of all the issues from which to pick, it's 0.05 blood alcohol. The campaign is on drink coasters.

What's more intriguing are 21 MLAs who get paid $1000/mo. for being on a committee ("Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, Standing Orders and Printing") when there are no meetings. In fact, there has been no meeting since November 2008, so that's quite a few potatoes.

There also is the recent $500,000 MLA retirement transition allowance and or severance payouts, in addition to pension. That's half a million bucks for an MLA? So ---- 23 retiring MLAs ---- $10.5 million. Economist Herbert Grubel said every legislature in the country provides a transition allowance, but the dollars doled out here make Alberta stand out like a sore thumb. Thank you, Ken Kowalski. Of course, a lot of MLA's are retiring.

Next, the graph. Who knew!? 

Adding this up, it appears to be a big, expensive, self-serving, bullying, and bullying Alberta PC... oil & gas junta ... natural resource gestapo junta that went national. (Graph: Liberal 2012 Election Platform.) See also: Political funding spurs 52 probes.

In the previous election, March 3 2008, carbon capture and storage (CCS) was the cat's meow. Stelmach, Jul 2008: $2 billion in funding, the green image. Now it's not.

More: Wikileaks shines light on $16 billion electricity scandal.
Ah, memories: EUB spies on landowners.

pierre poutine - misdirecting voters

Well. that's just great. First a Conservative staffer is fired, or resigns, the same stormtrooper at Guelph (Michael Sona) and helper to Rob or was it James Moore of fake iPod tax advertisements and also to Marty Burke, in the capacity of communications specialist.

Hm. On January 19, 2010, James Moore ( Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam) of Chuck Cadman fame, nono, Rob Moore (Fundy Royal) was appointed to cabinet as the Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), who replaced Diane Ablonczy [that trouble with gay pride festival funding in hogtown], who moved to Minister of State (Seniors), and he (Rob) was released from cabinet after the May 2nd general election in 2011.

ipodtax.ca
Registrant name: James Moore MP

Michael Sona
Member's Assistant
House of Commons
Moore, Rob

Harper denies Tory link to Pierre Poutin, and blames uh, Vladimir Putin. And RackNine is suing the NDP.

Matt Meier, president and CEO of Racknine Inc. in Edmonton.

North Dakota -
Elections Canada won't probe 'annoying' political calls, ex-MP told (former MP Joe Volpe's lawyer)
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Elections+Canada+probe+annoying+political+calls+told/6229034/story.html

RCMP on the robocalls case feb28
http://impolitical.blogspot.com/2012/02/rcmp-on-robocalls-case.html

A growing file on the robocalls feb29
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/29/papers-pundits-a-growing-file-on-the-robocalls/

American dirty tricks expert calls robocalls 'shock to system' of Canadian democracy
By Michelle Zilio, Postmedia News February 29, 2012 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/American+dirty+tricks+expert+calls+robocalls+shock+system+Canadian/6230827/story.html

Elections Canada flooded by over 31,000 reports about election robocalls
The Canadian Press 03/2/2012 9:55 AM | Comments: 248 (including replies) | Last Modified: 03/2/2012 2:59 PM
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/elections-canada-reviewing-more-than-31000-complaints-about-robocalls-141180953.html

Irwin Cotler, citizen directed to vote in a local Kitchener park and the honest mistake, Tue Dec 20 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1104778--federal-tories-say-alleged-election-crank-call-was-just-an-honest-mistake

Firm that made Cotler calls also worked for Speaker Andrew Scheer, other Tory candidates - Campaign Research Inc., December 14, 2011. 10:52 am
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/12/14/firm-cited-in-cotler-calls-decision-did-major-work-for-tory-candidates/

Robo-calls: Tory MPs used top U.S. Republican firm during May election, Mar 03 2012
Fourteen Conservative MPs signed on with a well-connected Republican company during last year’s election campaign, contrary to the party’s claims, the Star has learned.
On its website, Front Porch Strategies, a “voter contact and constituency outreach” firm based in Columbus, Ohio, boasts: “In May’s federal elections, Front Porch Strategies won all 14 of their races.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1140344--conservative-mps-used-top-republican-firm-during-may-election

Michael Sona: I Had 'No Involvement' In Fraudulent Calls, Updated: 02/28/2012 10:55 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/28/michael-sona-tory-election-calls_n_1308404.html

Ex-Conservative has warning- Mon Feb 27 2012
A few months ago I was a card carrying Conservative, serving as a director on both the Guelph and Kitchener-Center Conservative electoral district association boards. (Victor Pocaterra, Kitchener)
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1137705--ex-conservative-has-warning

i shit you not

'Sandy Crux at "Crux of the Matter" tells us this is all to drown out the accomplishments of the Conservatives. I shit you not! The Conservatives will balance the budget by 2014/2015, she says. So what's a little bit of election fraud along the way?'

more: http://leftistjab.blogspot.com/

one cent rmg = # of close ridings - $15,000.01

Reprinted from Orléans Star: Richard Cléroux.

Conservative candidates in Quebec paid for scam election calls elsewhere in Canada. Out of money they got from Toronto. Finally, Quebeckers can say they played some part in the scheme that misled Liberal voters by the thousands to non-existent polling stations on May 2. For a while we wondered if the scammers had forgotten about us. Everything was happening in the rest of Canada. Nothing in Quebec. And then suddenly there was Pierre Poutine. He was one of us. It wasn’t much, just a cellphone number and an address on “Separatist Street” in Joliettte. But at least it was Quebec. Ah, Poutine you saved the day and gave us our pride back. What’s a Conservative scam without at least some Quebeckers? 

It was the brilliant Le Devoir journalist Hélène Buzzetti who broke the story. Using the telephone – what else for this kind of story? – she established that money that helped pay for the Conservatives’ automated robocalls went through Quebec. She called up Quebec conservative candidates one after another. She had them singing like canaries in a mine after a while.

Bertin Denis, defeated Conservative candidate in Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques, (that’s a trip in itself) admitted his campaign organization had paid $ 15 000.01 to the Toronto-based Responsive Marketing Group (RMG.) Bertin Denis laid it out plainly. He was no more than a "mail box" for paying phone call bills to other parts of Canada. The party had sent him $55,000 but he had to write out a cheque to RMG for $15,000.01. Money in, money out. (Sounds familiar?) He couldn’t remember what the cheque to RMG was for.

A day later, after the right sort of guidance from Stephen Harper speaking in the House of Commons, Denis remembered. The cheque was for RMG services in his riding during the campaign. It had all came back to him. Call it senior’s moment. His official agent Ghislain Pelletier, had been most helpful. He told the reporter :  "The company sent us the invoice and I paid it, on the recommendation of the party."

Same sort of business went on in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. The riding organization paid $15,000.01 to RMG.  (We don’t know about that extra last penny. It probably means something. Maybe Stephen Harper knows.) The Conservative candidate there was former journalist Carol Nero, who told the reporter he didn’t really know what the cheque to RMG was about.

Did he get his money’s worth? "I can’t really say if I got my money’s worth or not." (The life of a journalist is often like that.) 

There were others involved in the in and out money. They included: Sen. Larry Smith, the former Alouettes president, in Lac St. Louis-Dollard; Michel-Eric Castonguay, in Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord; Pierre Paul-Hus in Louis-Hébert, except in his case it was a little different. His official agent, Martin Lemire explained that the Conservative Party had sent documentation because "it was more profitable than hiring volunteers."

In total, according to Elections Canada, 97 Conservative candidates across Canada, including 18 in Quebec, sent cheques to RMG or to other firms making telephone calls for the party. There is one other thing to note. RMG's billings do not appear in the national organization’s election records. It’s probably better that way.

The Conservative Party pleaded guilty last November to charges of electoral fraud precisely because it gave campaign funds to its candidates in 2006, and took back some of the money in exchange for a receipt the ridings could claim as legitimate expenses from Elections Canada. The Conservative Party paid $52,000 in fines, but at least nobody went to jail.

The important thing for us Quebeckers to remember is that we were not forgotten by the federal Conservative party in the telephone scheme. Now if we could just find that Pierre Poutine fellow, or even his “Separatist Street.” Anybody out there from Joliette?

http://www.orleansstar.ca/Blog-Article/b/21598/Quebeckers-share-in-election-scam

open letter to shaw

Refused, No. 21

{file #12-21.} August 5, 2011
Dear Shaw - For several months, I have been receiving promotional Shaw material in my mail box, addressed to Occupant. At the last receipt of a letter, I again *Refused* it and I hope you received it back, for the 11th time. Today, I received yet another. Is there a way I can stop this relentless influx of unwanted mail? I am not a customer. I don't plan to be a customer. Even if I change my mind, I do know how to contact companies with which I might want to deal for these services. These letters would make me not choose you.
Thanks,
Occupant

jasper: wat-cha-ching! glacier melt

It was controversial. No matter. The private observation deck in a public national park was approved by the federal government. It's being built. The Icefields TangleMeltWay Ridge Viewpoint Centre Parkway will be staffed by Brewster's, not Parks Canada.

Artist rendering of a proposed Glacier Discovery Walk at
Tangle Ridge Viewpoint on the Icefields Parkway.
Photograph by: Handout photo, Brewster Travel

The facility will be knocked into the cliff with explosives, and a 42 year lease, disappointing lichen and bighorn sheep. Brewster Travel Canada  is now owned by VIAD of Arizona ("The Business Behind Leading Businesses"). Admission to this GDW skywalker is expected to be $15-$30 per person.

Peter Kent joked about the high-volume form letter complaints (180,000 signatures + 1000s of letters & postcards)(dictionary.com "petition"), as if people have time to write these ministers of industry borg personal fucking letters, every week.

More info here.

ebate-day (Sheila Fraser, the "proper quote," cops, airports and more prudent spending) français 2Day (retiring)

“The comments attributed to me in the [Conservative] report are completely unrelated to G8/G20 spending,” Fraser writes in her letter. 

Tories used praise for Liberals to defend summit costs: Fraser
Day apologizes, says 'proper quote' will be added to Tory dissent report
Last Updated: Apr 12, 2011 2:55 PM ET

Canada's auditor general has rebuked the Conservatives for recycling an unrelated quote by her about a previous Liberal government's security spending in a parliamentary report on the costs of the G8/G20 summits in Ontario last summer, CBC News has learned.

The Conservatives' report, presented as a dissenting opinion to the Commons the morning Parliament was dissolved last month, quotes Sheila Fraser giving high marks to the Harper government for prudent spending on the summits.

 

mister canada gov - $26m economic caption plan

Clearly, ... Friends

Holy mcLuntz-and-disruption-manuals Jobotomy bobblehead meme! Now, after the $26m 3 month radio and TV campaign for the party, a record-breaking $1.2b G20 summit, and even a dispute with the Pentagon about the double cost of 200 F-35 jets (or their not often talked about Mulroney Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace 1986 expensive maintenance contract)(and... no engines...?) and $300m prorogue, 2008, which all of course are someone else's fault like a wife batter's alibi, there's a new caption in TV town.

Friends. Listen. It's probably better, let me be clear, for the time being, and abandon the fact of the matter. Luntz's current company, The Word Doctors ("It's not what you say, it's what they hear"), specializes in message creation and image management for commercial and political clients.

on Fokus Pokus groups

Lemme guess: Harper is finger-pointy synonymous with "government of canada" (see:  "re-branded" "harper" "canada" "government"), which is reverse synonymous with Adanac (see: satanism or reverse speech or libtards or Taliban jackoffs, Ali Kaida, green terrorisms), which is synonymous, no antonymous, with TheTeaPotParty™ (see: perpetual campaigning), which is

reverse speech/ hceeps esrever

synonymous, maybe, with contempt (just made-up)(see: parliament), which is synonymous with canlit, no, hockey lit or water bottles for kiddies, which is synonomous with [insert US president] Administration and harmonization... (etcetera).(ca 2003: "National myth? Hockey?? -  write a goddamn hockey book!"} New logo for Canada? Forward-moving font, momentum, "on-the-move" parallelogram, Go-team,-go!™

And from the University of Pennsylvania, no less.

the caption plan - cost: $26m

Read on to find out how Environment Minister Ambrose is using Frank Luntz's tactics almost to the letter these days ("Bush's Chief Climate "Spinmaster" Tells Harper How It's Done"). New Conservative Party of Canada logo? Canada logo? Hard to no, it's mixed up. Strong Staples government, and oops, PM know longer taking questions on local campaigns. It's the Klein Public affairs bureau, all over again.

A manual of "key messages" produced exclusively for Alberta Progressive Conservative MLAs by the Public Affairs Bureau verges on propaganda, is a partisan misuse of taxpayers' money and provides the governing party with an unfair advantage, a panel of political scientists says.

"This manual is a straight-up abuse of taxpayers' money because it is money that is being used to communicate what the Tory party is doing, not what the government is doing," said Jonathan Rose, a Queen's University professor.

Leader™ with PeoplePaper™

Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear. It seems they can't tell the difference, just don't get it, mister fixed election dates. Kind of like national debt (up) and a GST reduction, lollipops for the kids, like Ralph Klein's election bucks when the deregulation fiasco didn't reduce consumers' energy bills and things got hot. Presto! The Prosperity Bonus! public pacifier. It's getting kind of funny: "the world will go wrong if I-me-me don't get majority. We need STABILITY!™ Luntz frequently tests word and phrase choices using focus groups and interviews.

party promo, former canadian government

Martin gained an important ally in GOP pollster Frank Luntz, whose polling revealed that "death tax" sparked voter resentment in a way that "inheritance tax" and "estate tax" couldn't match. Brampton whistle stop (March 27 2011 - the 4th federal election in less than 7 years!), where another booger drops out of the body politic. Giulio Maturi, who was a top official in the campaign of disgraced former Montreal mayoral candidate Benoit Labonté in 2009, was listed as late as Wednesday afternoon as the campaign manager for a Montreal Conservative candidate. [Agop Evereklian, Pierrefonds-Dollard riding]  The other: Sebastien Togneri, former aide to Christian Paradis, was helping with Ryan Hastman's campaign.[Edmonton-Strathcona] There is no consequence for Contempt of Parliament.

prorogue olympics 2010

This Strong™ Stable™ Leader™ gets a new fucking™ sign™ The Olympic jacket.™ Jesus Christ. True North Sports and Entertainment.

"... they cannot, apparently, cope with Parliament's deliberations while dealing with the country's economic troubles and the challenge of hosting the Winter Olympic games. This was the argument put forward by the spokesman for Stephen Harper." from The Economist, walking and chewing gum at the same time.