Ralph Goodale may be looking for another job: this blank looking web site (as of 3:31pm ET 2005–12-08) is either evidence of this, or, some domain squatter beat ol’ Ralph to the punch and stole the domain out from under his feet:
Either way – definitely not cool. Lets see if anyone is squatting on the domain:
%whois ralphgoodale.ca
Admin-Name: Chris Thauberger
Admin-Postal: Allstartech
Aha. Allstartech is a company that does some work for a mutual fund company I happen to know – if we jump to conclusions it might appear that Goodale is embroiled in a domain-squatting issue, perhaps backed by the mutual fund industry. I don’t buy that though – the domain appears to have been registered for some time; the CIRA name dispute resolution policy would have resolved the issue to Goodale’s benefit by now.
Instead, maybe the blank page, in the middle of an election while Goodale is embroiled in controversy, is a new tactic designed by cagey Liberal strategists?
Either way, candidates: reserve domain names well in advance of an election; keep control of the names; secure the .CA and ideally .COM, .ORG domains as well.
And don’t let your campaign web site go down in the middle of a campaign!
Catching up on a few things:
Trust Scandal A Brewing
Whether someone in Finance Minister Goodale’s office leaked information to persons in the investment community is an issue which is only slowly building steam but deserves to be on the front boiler.
You’ll recall back in the fall Goodale sent shock waves through the Canadian investment community with direct and indirect threats to change the tax treatment of income trusts – a class of investment which has become wildly popular with large and small investors alike. The decision was immensely unpopular, so much so that Canaccord Capital (Trust Reform Hurts Canadians) and others launched a campaign to put pressure on the government.
Then, as an unavoidable election neared, a flip flop could be smelled in the wind from far away…
The finance minister said he wants to provide “the greatest degree of certainty that’s possible” for income trust investors before an expected election campaign begins next week. “I’m very anxious to ensure the greatest amount of certainty and I am obviously considering what the implications of a non-confidence motion might be,” Mr. Goodale said, referring to opposition plans to defeat the Liberals.
Toronto-Dominion bank chief economist Don Drummond predicted in September that there was a 50-per-cent probability of the Liberals cutting the effective rate of tax on dividends if they acted on income trusts before an election.
He’s now raised that probability to 80 per cent, but still can’t rule out the possibility that the government may also apply some sort of tax on trust distributions.
Globe and Mail
Then on November 23rd, after the market close, Goodale makes an announcement favourable to both trusts and high yield stocks. Yet, before the close, many income trusts and high-yield stocks on the TSX, made impressive gains and or traded in unusual volume… made more unusual because US-only equity counterparts in similar sectors did not match the gains on Canadian markets.
“That has nothing to do whatsoever with any behaviour or conduct on the part of my office. We are always very careful and very discreet, and there was no leak and there was no kind of advanced information whatsoever,” Goodale said Friday. Goodale further said he didn’t think an investigation is warranted “because there’s nothing to investigate.” Minister of Finance, Ralph Goodale (November 27th Ottawa Citizen)
Really.
- Online posts suggest leak in income trust case That evidence is in public bulletin board postings on a popular investor’s internet site called “Stockhouse”. The first posting—at 11:14 that morning—came from someone who wrote: “Skuttlebutt is that he (Goodale) will soon announce a reduction on dividend taxation to ‘even the playing field’.”
- Did Goodale’s income trust announcement leak early? Market Regulation Services, which monitors trading activity on the Toronto Stock Exchange, said it noticed unusual trading activity on Wednesday and is looking into it.
- CARP says it got notice of Goodale announcement But a representative of Canada’s most influential seniors’ lobby group says he got a phone call on the morning of Nov. 23, several hours before the markets closed, and before Goodale made his announcement. “The day they made the announcement they phoned us and said something is going to be said,” the associate executive director of Canada’s Association for the Fifty Plus, William Gleberzon, told CTV News. Gleberzon said the call came from a senior policy advisor in the finance minister’s office. When asked what exactly he was told, Gleberzon indicated the specifics were vague, but the underlying message was clear. “They said something was going to be announced later in the day. And we assumed that if they told us that… it would probably be something we’d be happy with.”
Goodale screwed up the trust file back in the fall; now he’s screwing up when there is quite clearly evidence continuing to build that there was a leak. There’s one Liberal that should not return to parliament as, complicit or not, he’s clearly as dumb as a fence post.
Prediction: If the Martinites manage to pull off a win, Liberal David Emerson, Vancouver Kingsway, becomes Canada’s next finance minister.
Television Advertisements
Liberal TV advertisements vs Conservative TV advertisements
- Conservative – these were “ok”; but Harper seems stiff and the “interviewer” isn’t much better either. Questions posed from the “public” seem better. Harper ads: C+ – B. Use of the Intel-like tone at the start and back end of each commercial makes me think they produced these themselves or with a b-rate firm. My favorite ad doesn’t include Harper: Débloquer votre voix, mostly for the title. The ad conclusion is sharp too “Authorized and paid with clean money by the official agent of the Conservative Party”. Neat.
- Liberals – visually appealing and most of the ‘characters’ (some appear to be ordinary folks) employed make you want to watch. Of those featuring people, not newspaper clippings, my favorite is version two as it leaves the perception that its Canadians speaking, not liberal party operatives. Newspaper clipping ad is effective for what it is. Version three I like the least; it appears to be designed to leave the impression that its ok to be a Liberal, and to some degree its probably effective but I think I’d pass on this altogether. Also the last fellow to speak at the conclusion of the “There’s thirty million reasons to vote Liberal” belts out “Whats yours!” in a way thats a bit off-putting. Suggestion: put a sweet voice, not two guys dressed in black, at the finale.
NDP horning in on Conservative ground?
NDP
Conservative