The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
If it is your money, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper is so fond of saying, why is his government so ready to spend it on partisan propaganda designed only to further its own political aims? We are not talking about Òhouseholders,Ó which every MP is permitted to send to constituents at taxpayersÕ expense to keep them informed about what the MP and his or her party is doing for them. We are not talking about legitimate government advertising Ð also paid for by the taxpayer Ð informing Canadians of benefits, services and the like that are available to them. No. What is at issue are taxpayer-financed mailings MPs can use to communicate with residents of ridings represented by another MP. With these so-called Ò10 percenters,Ó an MP from, say, Edmonton can send a mailing to voters in, say, Stouffville, Ont., as long as the number of recipients doesnÕt exceed 10 per cent of the MPÕs own constituent base. You may wonder what an Alberta MP has to tell residents of Stouffville that they cannot learn from their own MP. The Conservatives are using this vehicle to run down the Liberals in ridings they believe could swing the governmentÕs way. The message in the one sent from the Alberta MP to the people of Stouffville (represented by a Liberal) was that, if they like HarperÕs GST cut from seven per cent to five per cent, they had better not vote Liberal because ÒStphane Dion is threatening to raise it back up to seven per cent.Ó That kind of self-serving bumpf provides no purpose other than partisan promotion for the Conservative party. And as such, it ought to be paid for by the Conservatives, not by the taxpayers.
