As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough to be a Conservative after the In-Out election campaign spending scandal broke, the party is continuing to abuse the MP communication budget by spamming phony questionnaires to ridings where they don’t have a seat.
Their propaganda mailouts are using our tax money to spam contested ridings like Ralph Goodale’s in Regina Wascana. This is an obvious abuse of their communication budget, and it should stop!
I [and apparently all of my neighbours] got 2 spammy mailouts from different Conservative MPs in the last two days to my Wascana postal address! Shame on MPs Andrew Scheer, and Brian Jean. They join the disgraced like Gerry Ritz another MP from Saskatchewan whose fliers pointed at Goodale, ended up in my mailbox. Garth Turner and many other bloggers including myself have previously talked about this sham. It will be up to voters to punish the Conservatives for wasting your tax money in this way, because so far nothing else has held them to account for their obvious contempt for the law and ethical use of our tax money for communication.
I’m sending the latest two back to the Conservatives with a link to this blog post. Canadians are catching on to the Conservatives’ unethical campaign spending tactics. The tactics will backfire.
UPDATED: PSA has a Public Service Announcement regarding the Conserva-spam-scam.
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Hat tip to Impolitical
WC also writes more on the subject. What is hilarious about all of this, is that the spam uses the template of the In-Out scam that the Conservatives are denying. The ad is a nationally run standard flier, with only the local name inserted to claim it is a local ad.
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Here are some Liberal party thoughts on Conservative election spending.
@hotmail.com
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
M@ | 25-Jul-08 at 8:33 am | Permalink
I got the stupid flyer in my riding too — but from my own MP, as I live in a CPC riding. When I was done wetting my pants from the scary pictures, I sent it back to him with appropriate comment.
Mike’s post at RR is by far the best and most complete response I’ve seen.
Wandering Coyote | 25-Jul-08 at 10:01 am | Permalink
I got another piece of propaganda in the mail yesterday - from a Con MP in St. Catherines! I plan on doing a post on it today. I have already written a snarky comment on the mail-in part and will send it off today.
Devin Johnston | 25-Jul-08 at 11:22 am | Permalink
Here in Winnipeg South (held by a Tory MP), I get non-incumbent mailings from an assortment of Conservatives about once per week.
I’m considering filling one out with my email address as a little experiment. If I get emails from the MP that relate to his/her business as an MP, fine. If I get email from the Conservative Party of Canada, I will file a complaint with elections Canada as well as suing both the MP and the party in the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench for violating my privacy.
Saskboy | 25-Jul-08 at 12:58 pm | Permalink
I included my email on the first one I sent back Devin.
WC, I’m considering collecting my neighbour’s mailouts too and sending those back with more links. One of the spams says “Above the law?” I’m going to ask MP Brian Jean if he thinks he and his party are above the law by sending me junk mail, paid with my tax money, for a purpose that is neither ethical, nor legal.
Dillon | 25-Jul-08 at 7:22 pm | Permalink
The first four or five flyers I received from Gerry Ritz were laughable, but the next ten or so identical flyers finally convinced me!
In the next election, I plan to vote for Gerry Ritz as my representative in Wascana.
Wandering Coyote | 25-Jul-08 at 7:40 pm | Permalink
I got another today (post & pic now up). I’m getting sick of this and increasingly angered. As I said in my post tonight, four mailings/month to 3000 people is $6240 (+GST) and I can think of about 1 million other and BETTER ways this kind of money can be spent.
Bridget Jones | 27-Jul-08 at 12:22 pm | Permalink
Geez how come the politicians get to do this? If anyone else did this, public or private sector, their butts would be canned in a second!!
Two tiered policy, how wonderful. We now live in an oligarchy.
peter nicholas | 10-Aug-08 at 10:34 pm | Permalink
We continue to get Carol Skelton’s flyers here in Saskatoon. But she’s already said SHE’S RETIRING (like it was a CAREER working for Harper)…
Saskboy | 11-Aug-08 at 11:28 am | Permalink
The last two batches of Conservaspam haven’t even been from Regina MPs. One sounds like he may be from Quebec, but I haven’t checked.
I collected at least half a dozen of each from the paper/junk mail garbage under the mailboxes. Clearly Conservatives are wasting our money, time, along with paper, and Canada Post resources.
That’s funny about Carol Skelton sending out “communication”.