Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Shadowy MPs from a shadowy parliament

Losing to Lib Blair Wilson in the last federal election in the West Van Sunshine Coast Sea-to-Sky riding didn't slow SoCon candidate John Weston down one whit : he just went ahead and behaved as if he had won.
Referring to himself as "the candidate of record" and Dion as "a left-wing Liberal leader more accountable to France than Western Canada", Weston regularly sends out "Getting Things Done In Ottawa" missives in the mail. This year he held a party at his house for 50 new Asian Canadians and announced that he had adopted a Chinese name for himself : "Wei Tzu Ang". [OK, John, but you're still Caucasian]
Local papers regularly run info ads and photos of Weston with visiting Con MPs, like this :

"I will continue to work for the people of Whistler and of other regions of our riding. Jason Kenney’s visit last week was just one endeavour that will produce benefits for Whistler. I will continue to work with the people of Whistler myself and to invite senior elected officials here in order to foster better decision-making in Ottawa that affects us here."

or this one :

"Over the past two years, I have worked closely with the Whistler Chamber of Commerce and local business people to resolve issues relating to critical labour shortages. I passed on these concerns to the Ministers of Citizenship & Immigration and Human Resources Development, along with specific recommendations."

Trouble is, this is the guy we didn't elect, apparently doing an end run round democracy here.
Ah, but we didn't elect a candidate from the Getting Things Doners, did we?
How can we expect to be properly represented in the HoC in this riding by a candidate from other than the ruling party?

Now if this seems a peculiar interpretation of democracy, it is part of a larger concerted bullying strategy from the Cons, and when they turn it up one more notch, it looks like this.

Dr Dawg does his usual round up. Frank Frink has updates.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The emerging stories of federal ridings having either officially or unofficially approved, Party annointed CPC personnel usurping the duties of the riding's duly elected MP...

...seems part and parcel of the CPC's "eternal election mode" strategy. Never mind an election hasn't been called. If they position the party 'candidate' as having the power of an elected MP before the actual election, the official show is just window dressing. It's a venal attempt to psychologically condition voters in the riding into accepting the annointed one as the only real avenue to power, so they'd best vote them in...when the time actually comes. Not that it matters when it comes if they spread this across all opposition ridings.

How long can a person stand as a 'candidate' for a party in a riding before they have a stale date?

I know the power cores of all federal parties have the ability to appoint candidates for any riding, but have the Cons done away with riding elections altogether, without telling anyone?

What do the local riding organizations think of this? Especially the alleged Reform based ones?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Alison, and the new info. That's four that we've heard of now - S-BV, VAn. Island North, Western Arctic, and now West. Van/Sunshine Caost/Sea-to-Sky. There's likely more. Expect CTV to pick this up soon. Other media will follow.

Pale said...

I wrote to Blair Wilson on Monday, with a link to the story on ACR...

My area too. Ill contact the papers here today as well.

Anonymous said...

This is much more than being about an unelected person assuming the mantle of local spokesman for the federal government.
It is the blatant exercise of economic intimidation hatched by the twisted minds in Ottawa.

First the ground is prepared with promises of federal largess, with the tacit understanding that MP in waiting is key to opening the piggy bank.
The feds then throw some money around funding a pet project or two.
Keep things at a simmer with timed announcements and feasibility studies of more to come.
As soon as an election is called, out comes the warnings and veiled threats that all will be lost if the populace doesn't elect the liaison as MP.

My tax dollars at work!

The whole mechanism works just like a Mafia backed heroin racket, the first few hits are free, but that seems to be S. O. P. for Harper lately.

Omerta, bribery and strong arm tactics are not things we look for in a leader.
Qualities like honesty and ethics are totally foreign to these crooked lowlifes.

MgS said...

Just how does that fuckwit think that having Jason Kenney come out to the riding is going to "have benefits" beyond leaving a slug-like trail of slime in his wake?

Kenney's been my MP for too many years, and to date he's brought exactly nothing useful to the riding other than his absence.

Unknown said...

Where, oh where, oh where is Rick Mercer when we need him?? Heh.

Jennifer Smith said...

What fun! Gee, I can't wait until the Halton CPC Riding Association gets their act together and nominates a Con-didate so we can "Get Things Done" too.

I really hope it's Pat Whyte:

"Over the last week or so, ever since the Conservatives brought out their new Clean Air Act, there has been a brouhaha over whether it goes far enough (Liberals, Greens and NDP) or whether it goes too far. Of course, this Act is in response to the global warming scare being promulgated by Al Gore, David Suzuki and a bunch of so-called scientists."

Oh yeah. I'm saving that one.

Alison said...

Jennifer :
"In closing I am happy to say that -- for the first time in a long time -- I feel confident that Halton will have a real Conservative M.P."
~ Pat Whyte

Got my fingers crossed for you.

Phyl : Vacances. Selfish bastard.

Niles : Reform, of course! Whatever one may think of their actual policies, you have to respect their belief in grassroots politics. This Harris business is going to get right up their noses.

Grog : I'm fairly certain Kenney was actually out here for an Olympic thingey and Weston just happened to swim up his stream of piss.

Mes Amis : Dispicable to be bribed with one's own money isn't it?

Pale : Same riding? Maybe we can get together on something for the next election.

Frank : For the many blogging miles you put on keeping us all in touch via comments sectionns, I thank you.
Brill post at DKos, btw.

Anonymous said...

"I'm fairly certain Kenney was actually out here for an Olympic thingey and Weston just happened to swim up his stream of piss."

HAHAHAHAHA! That's the best mockery I've read since I first saw JJ talking about trolls humping her leg. :D

Anonymous said...

Blair Wilson - our current representative, is in serious glue. He sems to to represent the bad old days of the Liberal Party. While most of us have known Blair Wilson as "fake" etc, the most recent allogations are really really bad. I personally think he has to step down. I don't know John Weston but I do feel that he's honest.

Alison said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

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