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.

Coming soon to a city near you

Ottawa Citizen : Military wants more troops in cities

"The Harper government plans to increase the Canadian Forces presence across the country with new units in 14 cities ....Between now and 2016, the army will establish "territorial response battalions" in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Niagara-Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Saint John, Halifax and St. John's. The units would be designed to react to domestic emergencies such as natural disasters or a terrorist attack."

A year ago January prior to the last election, we had an all-candidates meeting at the Legion. Gory details here. All the candidates were asked to answer : "What are the most important issues to this riding?" and they each took a turn at it : the environment, daycare, green collar jobs, affordable housing, the poverty gap, social justice.
Last to go was Conservative John Weston, who answered, "The 2010 Games and increasing police and military presence on the streets."

There was a momentary silence while we absorbed this, caused in no small part by the fact that his audience was living on a small island where 1) we don't have many streets and 2) when a crime is committed we mostly just call the perp's mom.
Now in fairness to John Weston, Bowen Island is just a small part of the largest riding in Canada and he was merely putting forward the generic Con agenda. An increased police and military presence on the street was always on it from the beginning. The environment, daycare, green collar jobs, affordable housing, the poverty gap, and social justice were not.

The outrage here is not the addition of troops to the streets; it's the missing programs they are replacing.

Red Tory : Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada. Heh.

Thanks to Marcus for the great graphic from the brilliant Banksy.
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