April 1 - Mark your calendars

Prepare to laugh out loud, mark your calendars for April 1, because its coming… the Fool of the Year:

Saturday April 1, 12:00 Noon
Location to be Announced

Poll: Too much fuss over Emerson?

The Prince George Free Press asks the question:

Has there been too much fuss made of David Emerson’s defection to the Conservative Party?

With my vote No, there has not too much fuss been made, the standings were No in the lead at 64.3%. This is rather interesting, as Prince George-Peace River is the riding of long time Conservative MP Jay Hill. Handily winning his seat for the fifth time in a row with with 60% of the vote in the 2006 election, Hill wrote on January 26th that a Conservative government would indeed be different because:

[it] will not be plagued with… “residual arrogance” Jay Hill, Conservative MP

Half right, Hill is, as our new government is plagued with “brand new arrogance”. Hill’s voters never voted for that.

Of course, we already knew that Conservative support for what Harper and Emerson did, among the people who matter most to Conservatives in an election – conservative voters – is very weak.

Even in ridings where Conservative voters predominate (like Prince George-Peace River), 75% want to see Emerson run in a by-election. (Ipsos-Reid Poll, February)

Send a message to readers of the PG Free Press by answering their single question poll.

David Emerson: Media Watch

Media Highlights for Friday March 24 2006

Media Watch is updated through the day until the end of the day.

Vancouver Sun columnist / CanWest News syndicated journalist Barbara Yaffe hits it out of the park today. I’m very impressed with the response from editorialists and journalists over the past six weeks. They get it. The people on the street certainly get it, and their support is what keeps our growing group of democracy-loving activists going.

March 24 (Barbara Yaffe, CanWest News) By-election only solution

Harper’s smug response to Shapiro’s report?

“The attacks on David Emerson have, since his appointment, been nothing more than a partisan effort to demean his fine record of public service.”

Harper should do some fact-finding around Vancouver. I’ve not detected significant partisanship in the protests under way.

Seventy per cent of Emerson-related messages in my e-mailbag suggest people—of assorted political stripes—are furious because they believe democracy is under assault.

The other 30 per cent say the Emerson switch is no big deal and he should be left to do his job.

Few are disputing Emerson’s fine record of public service. Rather, those opposing his switch assert that he must not be allowed to thumb his nose at those who donated to him as a Liberal, who actively volunteered to get his party elected and who bothered voting for him as a Liberal.

If we yawn when Emerson or Belinda Stronach crosses the floor, that’s the beginning of the end of our voting system.

That is of course the real issue at hand here. And the solution…

Emerson and his sponsor, Harper, should begin a dialogue with the sizable number of politically diverse Vancouverites who feel democracy has taken a hit, or just admit they’ve made an egregious error and arrange a byelection.

But first, Harper needs to dismount his high horse.

A request for a town hall meeting has been made. Like many groups who have made legitimate requests of Emerson’s office, there has been no response, not even an acknowledgement of receipt or a caustic “thanks but no thanks” from the beleagured MP.

It gives me no pleasure to criticize my party or the party leader, but when there is truly no other option, no party member should shirk from their responsibility to speak out for what is right. In this saga, its only Harper and Emerson that don’t get it, or pretend not to. In either case, they’ll pay for that, sooner or later.

March 24 (Editorial, Brockville Recorder) Time for Harper to consider criticism of Emerson switch

No doubt the Liberals in particular seized on the issue to hammer the government, but it is preposterous for Harper to suggest the opposition to Emerson’s floor-crossing was entirely partisan.

In fact, many Conservative voters were among the fiercest critics of what happened.

Stephen Harper was elected prime minister in no small measure because he promised to clean up the sleaze and end the backroom deals that have characterized Ottawa for some time.

Yet one of his first acts was to orchestrate just such a sleazy deal.

If Harper is to be a success as prime minister, he must emerge from his bunker and listen to what Canadians are telling him, rather than simply dismissing all criticism as mere partisanship.

Conservative Gord Brown is the Leeds, Grenville Member of Parliament. Maybe its time for the Recorder to push Brown for an opinion too. Why wait – send him your opinion and a call to action by writing Brown at gordbrown@ripnet.com and Brown.G@parl.gc.ca.

March 24 (Heather Mallick, CBC News) Just when did ethics get like this?

Modern ethics have changed so much that we need a new word for them. I decided this after hearing that the ethics commissioner concluded no rules were broken when Stephen Harper talked MP David Emerson into turning Conservative – and graciously accepting a cabinet post – two weeks after Emerson was elected as a Liberal.

There’s an appropriate new word in English but I doubt the CBC would print it. So we shall turn to Indonesia and call modern ethics “TST.” This is short for Tahu Sama Tahu, and it means “you know it, I know it.” Indonesians use it to refer to a deal between two people, one usually a government official, to cheat the state.

I’ve another new term, a suggestion which perhaps Mallick might pick up on. Home-grown Canadiana, printable, but growing more distasteful day by day. emersoned, a synonym for wronged:

emerson imp. & p. p. emersoned: p. pr & vb. n. emersoning

To treat with injustice; to deprive of some right, or to withhold some act of justice from; to do undeserved harm to; to deal unjustly with; to injure.

I think the usage is likely to catch on. Of course many have always felt, evidently rightly so, that ‘politician’ is a synonym for ‘wrong’, too.

March 23 (Letters, The Georgia Straight) David Emerson: the Tory gigolo we won’t forget

The Harper Gang called Belinda Stronach a Liberal whore when she crossed the floor. Now we all should call David Emerson a Tory gigolo. If Mr. Emerson really wants to serve the country, he should step down and become a deputy minister in the International Trade Ministry. But of course he won’t, because there is no prestige there. Tim Ngai, Abbotsford

I just wanted to thank you for keeping the Dave Emerson case in public thought by reporting on it still six weeks after his defection. Those seeking justice in his affront to democracy rely on media attention, since the government won’t respond to our messages directly. You enable our collective voice—thank you. Tess Kitchen, Vancouver-Kingsway

March 21 (Letters, Toronto Star) Ethics about acting in good faith

Parliamentary Ethics Commissioner Bernard Shapiro concludes, “technically there has been no violation to the rules of conduct” and both Stephen Harper and David Emerson huddle spinelessly behind this fig leaf of an excuse. I say to Harper and Emerson, ethics is about keeping your word and acting in good faith; it is about judgment based on inner values. Mere compliance with the rules is the ethical choice of cowards. Your behaviour perpetuates a sordid pattern in Canadian government. Paul Collier

Emerson, bringing people together!

You’ve gotta hand it to David Emerson (and Stephen Harper) – they sure have managed to bring people of differing political stripes together.

March 23 (Matthew Burrows, The Georgia Straight) Emerson Walk Planned

Conservative diehard Mike Watkins wants to thank much-maligned Vancouver Kingsway Conservative MP David Emerson for “bringing the people together”. Watkins spoke to the Straight from the Locus restaurant, where he was planning strategy with Shannon Steele, along with Liberal Kevin Chalmers—a former senior volunteer in Emerson’s 2004 and 2006 campaigns and now chair of the Campaign to De-Elect David Emerson.

“Here I am in a restaurant with Kevin,” Watkins said. “Two weeks ago we’d have been at each other’s throats. Now I kind of like the guy. David Emerson is bringing the people together.”

Watkins invited those angry over Emerson’s defection to the Conservatives to walk for democracy next Sunday (April 2). The two-kilometre walk begins at 1 p.m. at Kingcrest Park at Knight Street on 26th Avenue.

Thursday evening the Real Democracy group held another planning session as we fine tune the Walk for Democracy. Now at T-8 days and counting, the Walk n Rally is going to be exciting… we can feel it.

Member information is... private.

Apparently my party’s strategy for rebuilding David Emerson’s reputation rests solely on attacking critics of Harper’s decision to subvert democracy through the brazen overnight political reformulation of David Emerson.

I am guilty as charged. I am a critic. How could I not be?

The real question is why aren’t more Conservatives – many of whom I know to be passionate democrats – openly criticizing what Harper and Emerson began conspiring to do (through middleman John Reynolds) less than 24 hours after the last ballot was counted.

The latest tactic – could this be Sandra Buckler’s handiwork (I do not know, just asking a question…) – is to play loose with the facts and spread some minor personal information to journalists. Tsk tsk tsk, if one is going to attack, at least get the attack accurate.

Via a talking points memo, someone connected to the party tried to undermine my credibility – as if anyone needs credibility in order to legitimately criticize the Harper-Emerson affair – by providing to a number of journalists inaccurate, but personal, party membership information.

There’s a couple of problems with that approach, not the least of which is that a number of journalists found the attack lame and childish and ignored it altogether.

More importantly, disclosing personal information collected on any Conservative Party member, or any elector period, is a) against party regulations, and b) against Canadian law.

For the uninitiated, the Conservative Party maintains a huge data warehouse on party members and… voters in general, in a system called CIMS. The system was originally developed, as I understand it, for the Ontario provincial Progressive Conservative Party. When I was National Chair, Technology, for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, I had received a briefing on the system. At the time I noted how comprehensive, and expensive, it was. We federal “PC’s” couldn’t afford it then, but another federal party could.

Through some sort of purchase or lease program, the Canadian Alliance bought into the software, and thanks to the merger of the CA and PC, CIMS is used to this day to manage membership and voter information for the Conservative Party.

CIMS is secure. Highly secure. In order to access CIMS data, one must sign all sorts of forms swearing to give up one’s first born, or big toe if childless, if one uses information for purposes not intended. Audit trails in CIMS make it possible to identify anyone who accessed a record. Access to the system is over a secure virtual private network, and that subsystem will also have its own logs and audit trail.

Since its so secure, you can imagine why I might be startled to find out that journalists have access to some of my membership data – data which can only come from CIMS. It might be very interesting to review the audit trail and see who in the party has accessed my records since, say, February 6th. Where could such an inquiry lead to, I wonder?

It wouldn’t sit well with the public if the party or the Prime Minister’s office were to be found disclosing personal party member information to anyone, much less the press. Not only would such an act violate the CIMS user agreement (PDF):

INFORMATION CONTAINED IN CIMS IS CONFIDENTIAL. UNAUTHORIZED USE OR DISCLOSURE OF IT MAY BE PROHIBITED BY FEDERAL LAW INCLUDING THE CANADA ELECTIONS ACT. CIMS USER ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT ACCESS TO CIMS IS GRANTED ON THE BASIS THAT THE USER WILL NOT PROVIDE ACCESS TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONS TO ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED IN CIMS, AND WILL NOT DISCLOSE THEIR USERNAME AND PASSWORD TO ANYONE ELSE.

… but such disclosure would most certainly violate the Canada Information Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and very probably violate similar provincial legislation. Perhaps even more importantly, a breach of confidentialty with respect to membership data is a serious issue for other members to consider, and if such a breach were to be confirmed, and made public, could undermine membership recruitment and donation efforts, as well as voter support in future elections.

Clearly someone leaked my membership data. I wonder who? No doubt there’s an enterprising journalist out there interested in following that one up. Thanks.