Stephen Taylor, Author at Stephen Taylor

PMO listserv exploited by anti-Harper activist

I just received this email from [email protected] which was spoofed quite easily on the Conservative Party website willyoubetricked.com

Subject: Why you shouldn’t fear me

Hi The Average Canadian,

Stephen Harper wanted to tell you…

My name is Stephen Harper. I am an ALBERTAN, here me roar! My goal is to make Canada America’s 51st state and destroy health care that all Canadians cherish by infusing my propaganda with hard core ad hominem attacks. Please vote for me, because if you do, I promise you’ll be able to vote for McCain 2012!

We are a tar sands level party, not a grass roots party. We consider anything with the word \”Green\” offensive, except for the almighty American dollar, which we hope to be able to implement in the coming months! We shall first have to make sure that American and Canadian jelly beans have the same standards, and then we shall proceed.

I hope everyone has a great weekend,

Take care,

Stephen \”I can lead you to Hell but not back\” Harper

If you agree click here.

Somebody emailed the PMO listserve address sending this email to whoever signed up on the Prime Minister’s government website for the email mailing list. Someone should look into the legality of using the Government of Canada’s resources to impersonate the Prime Minister.

The email seems to have originated in Winnipeg from an MTS Allstream account from this IP: 142.161.178.253.

Liberals from Alberta jump shift

Yesterday, Stephane Dion abandoned the Green Shift as a central plank of his campaign while the Liberal war-room and other senior Liberal communication officials did their best to shift the story by denying the departure.

Today, as revealed by the Calgary Herald, we see that the Liberals in Alberta are splitting from the rest of the candidates by releasing their own platform called the “made-in-Alberta agenda”. This rogue platform which promises free tuition for first year undergrads and a national pharmacare strategy shows that the Liberal Party’s Alberta candidates aren’t waiting around for Stephane Dion to flip-flop on ideas that are important to them.

In an election, the candidates are the team and the leader is the captain. Now, the Alberta candidates are off playing their own game while captain Dion is madly erasing the team’s chalkboard and fails to come up with any new plays.

Can you imagine a Prime Minister Stephane Dion that can’t implement his own agenda because his Alberta caucus has gone rogue? What does this say about Dion’s leadership when his team is turning their backs on Dion’s plan for winning this election?

Click here to download the “Made-in-Alberta” agenda

Abandon Shift!

In Winnipeg today, Stephane Dion gave his stump speech but Bob Fife from CTV noticed that it was lacking something. Fife noticed that Dion only mentioned “Green Shift” once in his speech and did not mention the carbon tax once. The CTV reporter asked if the Green Shift was still central to the campaign. Dion responded, “You have said it was but never me”

Stephane Dion in the Kingston Whig-Standard July 26th 2008,

“The answer is yes. It [the Green Shift plan] is at the heart of our strategy but it’s not our whole strategy.”

When was the last time a party leader, running to become Prime Minister framed an issue as a referendum as an election period? That would have been Brian Mulroney with free trade. I cannot remember the last time an opposition leader has done so, and for Dion to abandon his central policy plank mid-campaign, Liberals and Canadians will lose confidence in the man during an election which is also defined by leadership.