All right, perhaps I'm wearing my tin-foil hat a bit tight but there's something else on one of the Government of Canada's (GC) web pages that strikes me as a bit creepy.
To recap, if you go to this official GC page, you can get information on the Canadian embassy in Washington, DC, and almost all of the links on that page take you simply to other pages in the "gc.ca" domain, which is pretty much what you'd expect. The first exception is, as we've seen, the garish, colourful link to "Canadian Ally," which takes you here. But that's not the only exception.
Just above that link is a link to something called "Connect2Canada," which is also an external link to http://www.connect2canada.com. So what's that site all about, then? Again, like the earlier link, that site looks sort of vaguely official in a Canadian government kind of way, but who exactly is "connect2canada.com" anyway?
A quick "whois" command shows:
Registrant:
Grassroots Enterprise, Inc.
410 Jessie Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
US
Domain Name: CONNECT2CANADA.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Grassroots Enterprise, Inc. domainroleacct@GRASSROOTS.COM
410 Jessie Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
US
415-633-1100 fax: 415-633-1101
Record expires on 27-Jun-2006.
Record created on 27-Jun-2005.
Database last updated on 2-Apr-2006 14:15:23 EDT.
This is clearly not an official Canadian government site. So who, or what, is "Grassroots Enterprise?" Let's find out:
The Business of Politics and The Politics of Business
Whoa, hello there. I'm sorry -- how precisely did the Government of Canada end up linking from an internal page to an external site run by this group? Let's keep reading:
At Grassroots Enterprise, we help a wide range of Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, political campaigns, and nonprofit clients mobilize and motivate their stakeholders.
What the hell? "Fortune 500 companies?" Now I'm getting a bit uneasy. Onward:
Our award-winning team of professionals brings experience from a bipartisan range of some of the most successful grassroots movements in American history, including MoveOn.org, the NRA, the Draft Wesley Clark movement, and the Christian Coalition. Working together, they combine cutting-edge technology with established communications practices to create campaigns that are incredibly cost effective and make an impact.
And now I am officially creeped right out. This is not even remotely a Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation thing -- it's more like two, and that's being generous.
Would someone like to explain what's happening here?
WHOA, THERE'S MORE. This just gets stranger by the minute. Initially, I didn't think that the GC linking to the external web page Connect2Canada was such a big deal since, at first glance, Connect2Canada seems like a useful page to let Canadians abroad stay in touch with home or something. Apparently, it's not that innocuous.
If you go to Connect2Canada's home page and scroll down, you eventually find this:
Canada and the Campaign against Terrorism
Did you know ...?
* Canada has 1,250 troops in Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan, plus Special Forces.
* Canada has deployed 20 Warships, flown 5,000 tactical air sorties and has sent 15,000 personnel to Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf since October 2001.
* For more, see CanadianAlly.com.
Hello! Our old friend Canadian Ally is back. Can you say "incestuous," boys and girls?
JUST TO RECAP, so we all understand the (hypothetical) issue here, it's fairly obvious that the entire "gc.ca" domain belongs to the Government of Canada (GC) and (again, hypothetically) should contain information that is restricted to official GC stuff.
And that's why it's cause for concern when a page within the "gc.ca" domain hyperlinks to a page outside of the "gc.ca" domain. When that happens, one would think there had better be a good reason for that, since it allows all sorts of subtle (and not so subtle) abuse by letting the folks currently in charge start referring to external parties for reasons of propaganda or cronyism or what have you.
So the question here is quite simple -- is "Canadian Ally" an official arm of the government of Canada? Yes or no? And how is that site connected to grassroots.com and connect2canada.com? And how come, when Dave at TGB sent an e-mail to try to clarify the situation, that message came back as undeliverable? So many questions.
Perhaps Tim Harper at The Star has time for a followup piece.
5 comments:
Here's my take on this. These sites, administered by the Canadian Embassy as they are, do not meet the criteria of a Government of Canada site. For one thing they're not bilingual.
They are intended for an American audience, very clearly.
And you can bet, they are there to make kissy-face.
Harmless? Perhaps. Unnerving? Definitely.
Good research. With more and more politic stuff - truth and propanganda - don't be surprised if more of this type of stuff is used in the future.
I just emailed the Canadian embassy to find out more. I tried emailing the contact person identified on canadianally.com, but, golly gee Festus, it got returned as "undeliverable".
More to follow soon.
Remember "The Task Force on the Future of North America" from Feb 2005?
It was sponsored by the Washington think tank "Council of Foreign Relations/Council on Foreign Affairs" who have funded other shmoozy Can/US websites like the one you mention here, although I don't know if they are backing this one.
The Canadian Task Force Chair was John Manley, the Vice Chair was Tom D'Aquino, and among the six members were Tom Axworthy and Michael Wilson.
This was a Candian initiative towards deep integration : one passport, one currency, one energy grid, one resource pact, one security perimeter.
Anyone wanting the full pdf can email me with 'Task Force' in the header.
This site has been around for a while. It started up when McKenna became the ambassador.
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