Who Is the Conservative Party of Canada?

Well we all know who runs the party and who sets the tone, it's Harper of course, he told us as much last week when he had to apologise twice for gaffes made by his staff.

I'm not sure it's fair to call them gaffes really. The staffers involved were likely simply following standard operating practices.

Those of us who follow this stuff as closely as the aroma of fresh coffee in the morning, have seen this behaviour from day one. In the House, at committee or by the behaviour of the PM with the press, etc. We see it in how he governs with no regard to how people are affected by his policies, so it's not new. I'm not however convinced that people who do not follow politics actually are aware of just how 'goon-like', while at the same time juvenile, some people in that party really are.

Week one brought us two examples. This week brings us one more.

Workers on the campaign of a Conservative MP who declined to participate in the in-and-out advertising scheme in the 2006 election were denounced as "idiots" and a "bunch of turds" by senior party officials, who wanted to "put the fear of God" into them for not taking part in the contentious TV and radio purchases.

This one is a little more interesting isn't it? Not only is there some evidence that they do indeed strong arm their members, it's linked to that darned In and Out scandal that just won't go away.

Mr. MacKenzie's campaign manager, Bruce Richards, said in one email that the plan for the campaign to contribute $10,000 to the media buys "has caused some concern internally."

Mr. Richards is the former chief of police in Ingersoll, Ontario.

Poor guy. He actually seemed to have some ethical radar. Little did he know that is not valued in the Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Richards replied that the Oxford campaign didn't have enough space under its local spending limit to take on the extra $10,000 expense limit, anyway.

Realising it was going to put him over his limit, he did the right thing in refusing, but the right thing isn't the same as the right wing, thing.

"These idiots in Oxford have now told me they don't have room for the $10K," Mr. Bracken wrote. "These people really take the cake."
Mr. Donison wrote back: "What a bunch of turds - this is not going to cost them a cent nor give them a moment of cash flow problem and in fact will allow them $6,000 more in their reimbursement and they still try to wiggle out!"

Yeah. Tell me that these people didn't know exactly what they were doing.

Bracken:
But he asks Mr. Donison to "do me a favour Mike and have the heavies from Ottawa come down like a ton of brick on BRUCE RICHARDS."

I don't generally do the Bush comparison thing, but if this doesn't sound Rovian, then I don't know what does.

I haven't seen the national media run with this yet. After all, they are much too busy explaining Liberal strategy to us. But we'll see.

So, we have an other example of who the party is and how they abuse people and power.

One other small example was cited today at Harper's announcement. Apparently, you could not be near enough to actually hear the PM, unless you gave your name and address.

Open, transparent, man of the people! Right.

h/t - Far and Wide