Angry in the Great White North

Here is an excerpt of the registration record:

Subdomain: gerardkennedy.ca
Renewal-Date: 2008/01/08
Date-Approved: 2003/01/08
Date-Modified: 2006/06/26
Organization: Parkdale High Park Liberal Riding Association
Description:
Admin-Name: Andrew Tereshyn
Admin-Title:
Admin-Postal: 276 Pacific Ave, Toronto ON M6P 2P9 Canada

Now according to the website itself, the website was authorized by the Gerard Kennedy Campaign on St Clair Ave in Toronto.

But the registration says the site was established by the Parkdale High Park Liberal Riding Association under the direction of Andrew Tereshyn. Andrew Tereshyn is an employee of the provinical government, working as a computer system administrator. He is also a supporter of the Ontario Liberal Party. The address given is Mr Tereshyn's personal residence.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with Mr Tereshyn providing time and services to support his favoured candidate.

But what about this Parkdale High Park Liberal Riding Association?

Is the federal riding association supporting Gerard Kennedy?

It isn't. First, that's not the name of the riding association. The proper name for the federal riding association is Parkdale High-Park Federal Liberal Association.

But it's not just the name. I got in touch with the riding association, on the off chance that the name was typed incorrectly in the registration information. A member of the executive promptly responded and explained that (1) the riding association as a whole has not endorsed any candidate, and (2) he doesn't know who Mr Tereshyn is.

So I think it's safe to say that the "Parkdale High Park Liberal Riding Association" is not the federal Liberal riding association, just mislabelled. Is it the provincial riding association?

Well, I can't find any organization called the "Parkdale High Park Liberal Riding Association". But even if it refers to a provincial riding association, what is a provincial riding association doing managing the website of a federal Liberal leadership candidate? Shouldn't the association be busy helping Sylvia Watson win the by-election to fill the seat vacated by Kennedy?

And in any case, what about the Gerard Kennedy Campaign?

Fact is, this is probably nothing. Maybe all that needs to happen is someone has to update the registration information. But it makes me wonder just who was working the Kennedy Campaign and when. Was someone just making up names of "riding associations" while setting up the website? Even though Gerard Kennedy is coming from the provincial party, you would think all Liberals would have learned a lesson when it came to being less than 100% honest on documentation. It will be a while before little slip ups like this can be dismissed as mere paperwork issues.

I wonder what CIRA would think. That Joe Volpe parody website was shut down by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority because the person who set up the site provided a bad phone number. CIRA seems to take the integrity of the registration records very seriously.