Safe? Yes, please. Keep Me Safe From Your ConCrap.

The subject of MPs privileged use (and abuse) of franked mailing has been making the blog rounds of late. For excellent laying of the smacketh-down see posts by PSA over at The Canadian Cynic here and here.

The issue has been going much longer than since last month. Concerns were first raised, and reported by the traditional media, back in early February.

The House of Commons is reviewing the way it educates MPs about sending mail after a Conservative caucus research group mailout was sent to households across Canada for free, a privilege the group does not enjoy.

According to the Canada Post Corporation Act, mail sent to or from members of the House of Commons is not subject to postal fees, an arrangement often referred to as the "franking
privilege." However, the Conservative Resource Group's mailing did not have the name of a sponsoring MP as part of its return address

House of Commons spokeswoman Heather Bradley said MPs may need further education on how the franking privilege works.

Yeah, and they learned their lesson well, and learned it quick. Over here at ACR webmistress Pale picked up on it later in February.

Yanno. I got this flyer in my mail today. (could have been there a while. Mail is so depressing I find, and I get the important stuff via email) Outlining how you, Harper and the rest of the merry band of twits have "kept that promise and now all parents are receiving $1,200 per year, per child under the age of six".

You left out a few VERY important parts.......Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh I know. Sooooooo misleading.

Richardson is a CPoC member from Calgary, Pale lives in rural BC. But she is in a Liberal held riding that was previously held by the Conservatives. In the comments in that post it seems some folk in SW Ontario were receiving the same mailings. An attempt to influence votes in swing ridings or ridings that often have a dreaded Liberal-NDP vote split on the left?

Quite possible and likely. More from PSA earlier this month.

Bev Oda, Rob Anders, Jeff Watson, Deepak Obhrai, Dean Allison, Chris Warkentin... a veritable who's who of Con jobbers are among the sneak cheats papering this region and much of the rest of the country with franking mailers.
In the last few weeks limo junkie and friend to media lobbyists, Bev Oda has papered my riding twice. She's been joined by Rob Anders, the far right, fundie loon who made his political bones as a professional heckler and agitator for American politician and extreme crank Jim Inhofe.

There's plenty more there. Also look at Halton MP Garth Turner's archives going back to early March of this year. They're pissed off and ready for battle in the Kitchener and Waterloo region, Ummm... until reality reared its head.

And all the while Pale kept on receiving mail from waaaaay out of town MPs.

I have been getting all those taxpayer funded-push-poll-flyers in the mail. Lee Richardson seems to have monumental amounts of OUR money to spend on non-CONservative ridings, in another province. Not to mention the amount of paper and resources to send these lying peices of shite to all mailboxes.

So much so that, my personal favourite post on the topic, she snapped.

So here are some versions you won't see from the Conservaliars. Feel free to print em out and mail em in. (Just fold it, tape it closed, and write one of the following adresses on it.) Although you can mail anything to a Member of parliament for free, please use a stamp. We shouldn't stoop to their level. Rocks must be so heavy when you live under one.

Or. Email it as an attachment!....Why be as wasteful as the Cons? Unlike the Harpercons we have to live with budgets, and save at least a few trees.

MP, and party Contact links. MAIL AND EMAILS.

Hey now, that's still a great idea.

But through all of this I, sitting here in the safe Liberal riding of Vancouver-Centre, never once received one of these sheets of industrial grade toilet paper. Until this Thursday.

Just how many talking points did they manage to squeeze in there?

I'm a suspicious and sceptical sort, ya' know? After months of seemingly being ignored by the merry merry mavens of mailing made up shit this suddenly appears? Something's up sez I. Sure enough.

Longtime Downtown Eastside activist and advocate and Vancouver city council candidate blogs yesterday, August 15th.

Stephen Harper took pot shots at the most vulnerable and sick members of our society in an attempt to earn cheap votes this week, delivering a flyer that suggested that "junkies" shouldn't be near "children or families" and that they should be "in rehab or behind bars."

Same flyer. Mailed by a different dumbass.

The flyer says it was delivered courtesy of Colin Mayes, MP. Mr. Mayes is the MP for Okanagan/Shuswap, but does not explain why Mayes is delivering flyers in Vancouver.

And look at the comments further down. Other Vancouver residents have received these in the past couple days.  Yep, it's no accident. These are deliberately targetted mailings to a specific region on a single specific issue. Campaign literature all on our, the taxpayers, dime.

Eby takes down the 'talking points' in a much more succinct and concise manner than your humble ACR scribe.

The flyer fails to note that most of the reason why "junkies" are causing grief to Vancouverites is because Mr. Harper's government has failed to fund adequate drug treatment options, including detox on demand. etc...

Go read the entire post.

What this sudden campaign is really about is the Conservative Party of Canada's war on InSite, Canada's only safe injection site.  Another issue where ideology trumps science. Every. Single. Time. That the issue is raised.

The only response from the government was that the decision on Insite would not be based on scientific evidence alone.

If the Conservative government is not making its decisions based on evidence, then what on earth is it basing it on?

What exactly is the government desperately seeking that was not covered in more than 20 studies? What is it so afraid of in dealing with the scientific evidence before it?

What it's so afraid of is giving their base the appearance that they are 'soft on crime'.

Never mind that, as David Eby has pointed out, funding for detox and mental helath facilities just isn't there. That a US styled 'war on drugs' is unmitigatingly doomed to fail. That we don't have the prison space to house all of Canada's junkies. That jailing drug users is the least cost effective way of dealing with them. That jail likely increases the chances of a continued dependancy on drugs and increases susceptability to health issues surrounding injected drugs. That jailing junkies only has the dealers looking for new clientele to take the place of those gone to the hoosegow. That 22 verifiable, peer-reviewed scientific studies on InSite agree on the merits and benifits of the program. Never mind that all three of Vancouver's mayoralty candidates, as well as the Vancouver Police Department support the continued operation of InSite.

None of that matters, because Health Minister Tony Clement and the rest of the Lawn Order gang have the only 'expert' they need. The only one.

Ah yes - Colin Mangham.
Colin Mangham is "director of research" for the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, an offshoot of , wait for it , the Drug Prevention Network of America, headed up by Calvina L. Fay of Drug Free America, Save Our Society From Drugs, and Drug Watch International, dedicated to "combating the drug legalization movement globally".
DPN of Canada lists her as an "honorary board member" who has "served as an advisor to President Bush on drug policy".
Rounding out the board of our very own 'war on drugs' Canadian clonetank is past president ReformaTory Randy White and REAL Woman Gwen Landolt as current VP, plus a couple of Scientology's Narconon graduates.

So there it is. Our drug policy is best left in the hands of Randy White, Gwen Landolt, a promoter of that fantastically failed US styled 'war on drugs' and Teh Scientologists. And obviously, MPs like Rob Merrifield and Colin Mayes.

Jail the junkies? Hey you Cons, it'll cost you more of your precious tax dollars to house and feed inmates. It doesn't stop the flow of heroin from locations such as Afghanistan (supplying 93% of the world's supply) where record crops were harvested in 2006 and 2007 with 2008 projected to surpass even that. What are we fighting for again? Is poppy eradication really the answer?  Or working the way we think it does? InSite does 'encourage' drug use anymore than your support for maintaining needle exchange programs does. People don't wake up some morning with a crystal clear decision that they absolutely must become a junkie today.

No, I don't think the mailers are going to work on the majority of folks in Vancouver. When you're losing even nominally Conservative cheerleading traditional media journalists like Barbara Yaffe your 'ideology over science' mantra is in trouble and going unheeded.

Shorter Yaffe: Tony Clement, will you please STFU!

Health Minister Tony Clement's diatribes against Vancouver's safe injection site are becoming tiresome and embarrassing.

<snip..>

Here are a few facts for the minister to consider:

- Between June of 2007 and June of 2008, 222 users overdosed at the East Hastings clinic and received immediate intervention. Some of those users might otherwise have died in a back alley.

- During the same period 3,862 addicts received first aid and medical care from Insite nursing staff and 2,269 were referred to social agencies. It's possible some of those addicts entered rehab and kicked their habit.

Moreover, the WHO strongly endorses harm reduction clinics such as Insite. According to the organization, it's a way of ensuring drug addicts use clean needles and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

The clinics don't supply drugs, merely offer safe conditions for injecting. Without the clinics, addicts would still inject.

Sure, tolerating drug use is not something a society enjoys doing. That's why it's called "harm reduction," in recognition that the practice would go on regardless.

Hey! Babs gets it. I believe a majority of the BC Lower Mainland also gets it.

And she finally mentions something I had been thinking about but had not seen in the traditional media until now. Might also explain Clement's forked tongue approach. He's practicing his doublespeak for another side issue.

On the safe injection front, some 49 sites now operate in Australia, Europe and Canada. More are slated to open in Quebec, where the Harperites would dare interfere.

Yeah. Quebec's looking at InSite and prepping it's own facilities. Harper doesn't have much in the way of votes to gain in urban Vancouver, but Phat Daddy desperately needs votes in Quebec for his preciousssss majority. I don't believe Clement would be Mr. Hardline with Quebec's Ministry of Health, do you?

As for the mailer I received?

I've managed to pick up about 20 that were delivered to my 55-suite apartment building.  Each one will be neatly folded and taped over, each containing a thoughtful and sensitive billet doux to Mr. Merrifield.

It's the least I can do. The very least.