This is an update to the news Conservative Garry Lunn has been the beneficiary of suspicious third party advertising.

Galloping Beaver digs a little deeper into the story first reported in the Tyee, drawing lines between the third-party advertisers and Calgary based oil and gas giant EnCana Corp. This puts lie to the claim by Stephen Harper that his changes to the Elections Act have limited corporate influence in our electoral process - changes to the Elections Act have merely forced corporate influence further underground.

I'll add that newly minted west-coaster Gwyn Morgan, the former CEO of EnCana, was also a financial backer of Stephen Harper and at least one other cabinet minister. As one of his first acts following the 2006 election, Harper attempted to get Morgan nominated as chair of the federal government's public appointments board. Opposition parties nixed that.

It is my earnest submission that signing the Kyoto Protocol would go down in history as one of the most damaging international agreements ever signed by a Canadian Prime Minister. Gwyn Morgan, former CEO EnCana Corp

Yet Gwyn Morgan's influence on the national stage has remained constant. Currently Morgan writes a regular column for the business pages of the Globe and Mail. His former company, EnCana, of which he was the driving force and founding CEO, is lobbying for opening B.C. coastal waters to increased oil tanker traffic (Oil, Water, Salmon Do Not Mix). The company plans to build a bi-directional "gateway" (a term David Emerson uses frequently) pipeline to the coast from Alberta.

Morgan was also one of the principal forces behind the Alberta oil and gas community's fight against Kyoto, a passion he shared with then Opposition Leader Stephen Harper. (Harper: Past, Present, Future Inaction on Climate Change)

Having lost the battle for the environment at the federal level, coastal oil and gas development, pipeline terminals, and tanker traffic needs to become a front of mind issue-and in a hurry-such that it becomes one of the major ballot questions in the upcoming provincial election.

British Columbians don't want to see more oil and gas development at the expense of real progress in building alternative sources of energy for our province. We certainly do not want to see oil and gas exploration on our coastal waters, nor tankers plying our dangerous but incredibly beautiful and productive coasts. Gordon Campbell has tried to innoculate himself against criticism from environmentalists by adopting a carbon tax (a policy, if not an implementation, which I support) yet with his other hand behind his back he is enabling everything which British Columbians have repeatedly spoken against.

Record low voter turnout, blindness to the important issues - we get the government we deserve

As I've written about previously, Canada's economic picture hasn't been the rosy wonderland of strength Harper and Flaherty painted throughout the election. During the campaign Harper accused opposition leaders of using rhetoric to talk down the economy. This self-serving charge was nonsense on many levels, but primarily so because fundamental economic weakness was present long before the election was called.

Mr. Harper's degree in economics has often been touted as reason enough to entrust him with the leadership of our country during poor economic times. Its been my experience that few economists rise above the pack to see significant changes in business conditions or fundamental problems in the economic firmament. Everything I've seen from Mr. Harper tells me he's a middle of the road economist--nothing special there. Yet voters were willing to hand Harper the keys again without even having asked the pregnant question: Why are we entrusting the leadership of our country to an economist who presided over the ongoing economic decline?

My own belief is if we were going to have some sort of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now. Stephen Harper, September 15 2008

With the election now over, perhaps those suffering from partisanship-induced temporary blindness will recover from their affliction sufficiently so that we can take a more appropriately critical look at Canada's leadership.

First, lets put this whole "Canada won't see a recession" nonsense to rest. Even this week The Conference Board of Canada, a self-serving group of business people, have made the incredulous claim that Canada will skirt recession. Incroyable. Folks, the election's over - you can start talking plainly again.

It takes an agile and open mind to see and size up the nature and scope of economic weakness before hard reports and statistics, which always lag by weeks or months, later confirm our innate sense of conditions. The hard data coming out over the next few weeks will forever dash the "no recession" claims of Harper and the Conference Board. We are virtually there now, as you can see from today's sampling:

• U.S. travel by car to Canada continues to fall off a cliff, down %19.8 percent in August compared with the same period the year prior (impact: hundreds of millions of direct spending by U.S. travellers in Canada)
• A massive drop in sales by Canadian manufacturers in August, fell broadly across 18 of 21 different industry sectors, registering a %3.7 percent decline from July. Inventories are on the rise, sales are down, a troubling trend. (impact: a drop of more than 2 billion in sales)
• The U.S. recession is starting to assert itself more forcefully in reports coming out. Today's Philly Fed Manufacturing Index for October plummeted to a stunning -37.5, a drop roughly three times expectations. This barometer of the regional economy followed yesterday's NY Fed Empire State survey which fell to its lowest level ever at -24.6 (impact: impossible to fully quantify but represents a major downward shift in business confidence within the very large manufacturing sector, justifying the concern the recession will not be soft and shallow but hard, deep, and long).

The bottom line: Canadian businesses are already being significantly affected by the erosion of consumer and business confidence in the U.S., and by the parallel track affecting confidence and results here in Canada. The picture being painted now is off data accumulated in the periods before the election was called. Its only going to get worse from here, no matter where the stock market ends up going in the short term.

Stephen Harper will almost certainly preside over the worst recession to hit Canada in my adult life. Leading up to the recession he lived in la-la land, boasting to anyone who would listen (mostly outside Canada's borders) that Canada was an emerging energy superpower. Our dollar surged above parity with the U.S. dollar during this period, further imperilling manufacturing activity in Canada. While the Loonie has over the past few weeks since fallen off sharply (from parity to now near 1.2 CAD to 1 USD), it'll be cold comfort to Canadian manufacturers as their customers down south are no longer in a buying mood, no matter what the price.

What will Harper slash? At the same time economic conditions have been weakening, Harper was also steadily undermining Canada's finances, leaving no spare funds for contingencies. Harper's decision to savage the federal piggy bank was ideologically driven, not born of prudence, and we'll all pay the price because we get the government we deserve.

Dion will resign, perhaps as early as Thursday. CBC News reports the Toronto Star will publish a story making this claim. That twisted route is so far a dead end, as nothing appears on-line at The Star as yet.

Update: Clearly the rumours were... just that. Mr. Dion will hold a press conference on Monday October 20 at 2pm ET at the National Press Theatre.

In the meantime:

• Knives come out swiftly for Dion (Oct 16, Globe and Mail) Senator David Smith said "Obviously, he will be making some decisions. But everybody should just be very respectful and appreciative of what he did. I don't think anybody should rush into anything"
• Noted Liberal strategist and Jean Chrétien loyalist Warren Kinsella announced on Monday that he was returning to fight with the Liberals once more, which really means: leadership race. Who will the Chrétien-annointed leadership candidate be?
• Des libéraux rêvent à Frank McKenna (Oct 16, Cyberpresse.ca) - Frank McKenna a dream for Liberals - According to information made available to the paper senior Liberal organizers and caucus members have already formed a group working on convincing the former Premier of New Brunswick to return to public life in Ottawa.
• Dion soigne ses plaies (Oct 16, Le Devoir) «Il faut qu'il réfléchisse» - Dion licking his wounds, "He must reflect".

I admire Dion for taking a strong yet unpopular stand on an important issue - climate change. While his decision may become a textbook illustration that stubbornness has no place in a campaign, in reflection we may wish we'd chosen a man who had the courage to stand by his convictions rather than chose expediency.

Two days ago I detailed 3rd party advertising done on behalf of Wendy Yuan, Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Kingsway.

Today there's a similar story in The Tyee covering a number of groups - all sharing the same address - who registered as 3rd parties in support of Conservative Garry Lunn who had been facing a formidable battle to keep his seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

The groups are Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria, the Dean Park Advocacy Association, the Economic Advisory Council of Saanich and the Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council. Their respective contacts are Donna Evans, Ralph Bodine, Patricia Trottier and Dana Dickinson.

Interestingly, all four share the same address, 800-1070 Douglas Street in downtown Victoria, the office of the law firm Crease Harman and Company. They also share the same phone number. The receptionist said she'd never heard of Evans, Bodine, Trottier or Dickinson. Andrew Macleod, Oct. 15 2008 The Tyee

One wonders if any of those groups paid for auto dialing services. One also wonders how effective third party election advertising restrictions really are.