canada elections, tory blogging

Call for probe into Tory blogs
ALLAN WOODS CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=abd1dd87-a10a-41a2-82a3-a6babc78e230

QUEBEC – Elections Canada has been asked to investigate the Conservatives after allegations the party is overseeing a group that operates partisan on-line Web logs.

Canada’s election watchdog received a complaint yesterday from a disaffected party member who claims the Tories tried to sway political opinion in cyberspace in the leadup to, and during, the election by setting up the popular “Blogging Tories” website.

The site appears to be a coalition of like-minded individuals who have met in cyberspace to share their political opinions and express their frustrations with Paul Martin’s Liberals.

But a Victoria man, Eugene Parks, and Toronto Tory dissident Carole Jamieson allege the venture may be in contravention of the Elections Act and thirdparty financing laws. They say it may have “unduly influenced the election coverage and potentially the outcome of this campaign.”

“They’re using a third-party agency to get elected,” said Parks, a former Conservative supporter who now says he is an opponent. “It’s pure hypocrisy.”

Parks said he was approached by senior Conservative MP Diane Ablonczy in December 2005 after a Tory caucus retreat in British Columbia and asked to head what he described as a preelection initiative on behalf of the party. “At the time I was somewhat willing, but my loyalty to the Conservative Party was somewhat shaky,” he said.

A Conservative Party campaign official said yesterday there is “no connection” between the federal party and the website and chalked the complaint up to a party member who is still upset about the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance in 2003.

Third-party election financing laws state that it is illegal for a group to spend more than $150,000 during an election period related to a general election. It can also spend no more than $3,000 of that money “to promote or oppose the election of one or more candidates in a given electoral district.”

The law also says that the third party cannot bypass the spending restrictions by “splitting itself into two or more third parties.”

The Blogging Tories website does not hide its political preference and even includes some Conservative MPs, including finance critic Monte Solberg, among its members.

But Parks’s allegation that the group was set up as a concerted effort by senior Conservatives to win the election casts the website in a controversial light. “They’re trying to make it look like these are individuals rather than a party effort,” Parks said.

Parks passed on his information, which included email exchanges, to Jamieson, a former aide to former Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark. Jamieson confirmed she had forwarded all the information to the chief electoral officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, yesterday.