[mtbr]

WAYNE THIBODEAU
The Guardian

By Wayne Thibodeau
The Guardian
Conservatives across Prince Edward Island are launching complaints with Elections Canada over a series of flyers being sent from Liberal MPs during the election campaign.
The mailouts, also referred to as householders or 10-percenters, have been arriving in people’s mailboxes all week. They are either a single sheet of paper, or a small stapled book outlining the accomplishments of the Liberal MPs, and usually featuring a picture of the local Liberal candidate and Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.
The flyers are printed and bulk-mailed at taxpayer expense.
Mary Crane, the Conservative candidate in Malpeque, says she was surprised to get one in her own mailbox from Liberal Wayne Easter.
“I just thought, ‘what’s going on?’” said Crane.
“I’m going to leave it to the powers that be to decide how that works but obviously there is an election campaign underway and that stuff is not supposed to be sent out at this time.
“Now, I have no idea when it was sent out. I know when I received it and that was this week.”
But Wayne Easter, the Liberal candidate in Malpeque, said he’s done nothing wrong.
“The householder was drafted and designed way back in early August,” said Easter.
“We had it in the system. We checked to make sure that we met our timeframes.
“One of the reasons it couldn’t get through the system, I suspect, was because of the avalanche of 10-percenters that Conservative MPs were sending into ridings across the country. So if that householder is coming out during the campaign they only have themselves to blame for blocking the system.”
Elections Canada is looking into the matter.
Dana Doiron of Elections Canada says the householders can be sent during an election campaign as long as it left the MPs hands before the election writs are issued.
“If, however, it leaves their hands after the writs then it is something that is considered an election expense and they should declare it,” Doiron told The Guardian.
Ironically, the issue is now making headlines across the country, but in other parts it is the Liberals who are complaining about the mailouts.
A Liberal candidate and former cabinet minister has formally complained to the auditor general that voters are receiving deeply partisan, taxpayer-funded flyers in the mail from his Conservative adversary John Baird during the election period.
“I was appalled when I saw that Mr. Baird’s ‘MP’ communiqués to constituents flagrantly attack the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and feature messaging, images and rhetoric essentially identical to that found on campaign literature and the Conservative party’s own website,” Ottawa West-Nepean candidate David Pratt wrote to Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
“A series of these politicized flyers have arrived in constituents’ mailboxes during the election writ period.”
A Baird spokesperson said the flyers are little different from those used by MPs from other parties.
“They are creative, but they follow all the rules and they are factual,” Courtney Payne, Baird’s campaign communications director, said in an e-mail.
“And you have to be creative when you are competing with so much other information people receive at their door.”
(With a file by The Canadian Press)



but, the Conservatives do it too

[Reverend Blair]

Yup, you should both stop it. If I wanted to contribute to your parties, I'd write a cheque. Using taxpayer money for this is dishonest.

It's kind of funny, for almost twenty years I got one of these things every month or two from Bill Blaikie except during the summer or an election. It was basically a short note from my MP telling his constituents what he'd been up to. That's a good thing.

In the last few months I've received nearly 20 of these things. Two have arrived since the writ was dropped. They are all from Conservative MPs, some not even from my province. They have the tone of negative election ads.

Now it looks like the Liberals are doing it too.

We need a new rule...If I get another one of these things that looks like election advertising or is not from my MP, I get to staple it to the forehead of the cheating bastard who sent it to me.

[bootlegga]

Reverend Blair Reverend Blair:

We need a new rule...If I get another one of these things that looks like election advertising or is not from my MP, I get to staple it to the forehead of the cheating bastard who sent it to me.

I guess you can't trust any politician...dirty bastards!

And they wonder why voting is at an all time low...the choices are the lesser of four/five evils. I frankly don't trust any of them to do a good job.