Cons Franking Off All Over The Place

Bev Oda, Rob Anders, Jeff Watson, Deepak Obhrai, Dean Allison, Chris Warkentin... a veritable who's who of Con jobbers are among the sneak cheats papering this region and much of the rest of the country with franking mailers. In the last few weeks limo junkie and friend to media lobbyists, Bev Oda has papered my riding twice. She's been joined by Rob Anders, the far right, fundie loon who made his political bones as a professional heckler and agitator for American politician and extreme crank Jim Inhofe. In this clip that I swiped from Buckdog you can see the young Anders in all of his reputable glory as a paid agitator.



Anders is perhaps most notable for refusing to vote to grant Nelson Mandela honourary Canadian citizenship, choosing to brand the South African leader a terrorist and a communist. Classy.

I used to ignore these flyers from the Cons' eternal campaign, but no more. They are taxpayer funded, partisan spam and a waste of energy and resources. Over the last few weeks I've gathered hands full of these ten per centres from my building's recycling, where most of them end up with the rest of the junk mail. I've developed quite a pile and soon they will be returned to sender. I invite all of my fellow citizens who might object to pandering and propaganda being spun out on the taxpayers' tab to collect as many of these snotty little missives as possible and return them from whence they came. I've added brief notes to the heaping stack I've collected and you can too, but please keep them polite. Perhaps I'll visit my MP and see if she has any thoughts on this Conservative abuse of privilege. The Con's campaign to sell the idea that Stevie the Large is 'on the right track' should backfire and I look forward to helping it do so.

Take a look as Impolitical notes that useless twit Helena Guergis is called on her abuse of franking privilege after deluging Collingwood with Con tripe.

It likely would not have caught anyone's attention had it been not so frequent -- but just as Collingwood has seen what seems like a record amount of rain, we seem to be deluged by a record amount of mail from Simcoe-Grey Member of Parliament Helena Guergis.

Last week, residents reported receiving upwards of five so-called '10 percenters' within a short span of time; in a few cases, residents received three pieces on Tuesday alone.

I've written about this nonsense before, here and here

M@ in the comments to CC's post points out that Cambridge Con, Gary Goodyear is the subject of a formal complaint to the Speaker of the House after blanketing Ajax-Pickering with partisan mailings.

Liberal MP representing Ajax-Pickering has launched a formal complaint against six Conservatives including local MP Gary Goodyear for what is being dubbed a taxpayer-funded smear campaign.

But the Cambridge and North Dumfries MP was quick to dismiss the complaint by MP Mark Holland, turning the tables on the Liberal politician by calling his accusation "campaigning Liberal style".

Funny, the guy spending our money to ship out campaign style flyers and attack ads has the gall to bitch about a complainant and call it campaigning. Pot, meet kettle.

"The practice of MPs using taxpayer money to smear their opponents in other ridings has got to stop," charged Holland in a statement to the media.

He said he has forwarded a legal opinion from the non-partisan Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel which he said concluded the literature is "a document with an electoral intent...and seems to contravene the bylaws".

The old In 'n' Out gang like to play close to the line of the law and if they can get away with it they'll just erase the damn line, I suppose that kind of cheat to win attitude is "campaigning Conservative style". The only defence a smug twat like Goodyear can muster is to raise the mouldering corpse of Adscam for another cuddle.

"If Mr. Holland is so concerned about tax dollars, why isn't he looking for the $40 million stolen during the Liberal sponsorship scandal?"

Three governments and two Prime Ministers ago, that line is starting to lose its lustre.

You know, since I tend to get a lot of informative flyers and well meaning information sheets from the retail and business sectors, I may just start forwarding those to the happy Conservative MPs that are polluting my mailbox. After all, it is free to mail things to our elected representatives and the Conservatives are the free market economy party. I'm sure they'll appreciate guaranteed credit cards from Capital One and the endless opportunity to enjoy some variation on telephone service at great introductory rates. After all, that sort of mail is every bit as useful and informative as the ten per centers I receive in such abundance.