Angry in the Great White North

I got this email from a reader in Calgary. Let's call him Mr Smith:

I Iive in Calgary. Yesterday I received an envelope mailed under House of Commons privilege for members. It was from Massimo Pacetti, member for Saint-Leonard/Saint-Michel. It contained a double-sided advert for Turner's appearance in Calgary on September 12th. It was addressed to the [Smith] Residence.

I've replaced the real name with "Smith".

Massimo Pacetti is a Quebec-based Liberal MP sending advertising for Garth Turner, Liberal MP for Halton in Ontario, all the way out to Calgary, Alberta, to a household whose occupants aren't even Liberal Party members.

Now the rules for the use of Canada Post franking privileges are broad:

The House covers the cost of printing newsletters, commonly known as "householders", sent by the Member to all constituents. Members have free mailing privileges to send out householders and other materials. These mailing privileges are often referred to as "franking" privileges. "Franking" is the process by which Members of the House of Commons, by affixing their signatures to an addressed piece of mail, may have that mail delivered postage-free anywhere in the country.

Here is what Canada Post says about franked mail:

Canada Post provides free mailing privileges to the following:

• Governor General or Secretary to the Governor General
• Speaker or Clerk of the Senate or House of Commons
• Parliamentary Librarian or Associate Parliamentary Librarian
• Members of the Senate
• Members of the House of Commons

In addition, anyone mailing an item to the above in Canada receives free postage. As a general rule, only Lettermail, Publications Mail and Addressed Admail are acceptable.

And addressed admail?

To qualify as Addressed Admail, your mailing must be consistent with the definition of the service.

Specifically, Addressed Admail is defined as mailable Items bearing a uniform message, that;

1. Promote the sale or use of products or services;
2. Report on financial performance, primarily for promotional purposes; or
3. Solicit donations or contributions.

Promoting the "service" provided by Garth Turner counts, I guess. But addressed admail must be delivered to a named person, not a generic "occupant".

That means Massimo Pacetti had to be provided with the name "Smith" living at that address, a Canadian household he would normally have no reason to contact since he is a Quebec-based opposition MP, and in particular, a household that had not initiated a discussion with Pacetti that would have given him the name and address information.

My correspondent in Calgary says that the phrase "the Smith Residence" is one he sees on commercial flyers only.

So I have to wonder if Garth Turner or his supporters are purchasing mailing lists from commercial operations targeting the areas where he will be presenting, then feeding those lists to Liberal MP Massimo Pacetti who then uses his franking privileges as a member of parliament to send mail free of charge from Quebec to Alberta.

Or maybe this was just one rogue (and mysterious) piece of mail sent to the Smith residence and nowhere else.

And we don't even know if Garth Turner had anything to do with this.

Even if he did, I don't think anyone has done anything wrong here. It just seems to a weird path for this bit of partisan Liberal advertising to go, especially since the Liberal Party is not supposed to be involved in the Lost Tory Tour:

Who is sponsoring this tour?

MP Turner is traveling to communities in response to local invitations, from local Liberal MPs, candidates, or readers of his blog. There is no sponsoring or umbrella group.

Is the Liberal Party behind this?

No, but the office of the party president and the leader have assisted with some details, such as coordinating local meeting notices.

How have events such as Town Halls been organized?

All events, including public meetings, stakeholder group meetings, speeches, mainstreeting and a motorcycle run, have been organized by local citizens and community groups.

Who is paying for this?

MP Turner and his wife Dorothy are using flights allocated in his existing office budget. Local volunteers are providing ground transportation. Most hotel rooms have been donated. Other costs will be paid personally by Turner. The goal is zero public cost.

Pacetti is not a local Liberal. Franking mail is not zero cost. And if more than one Liberal MP has been franking mail for Garth Turner, and this was organized (you handle this list, I'll handle that list, he'll handle another list), then it would be hard to say the Liberal Party isn't behind this, at least a little bit.

Well, it was just one mail from one Quebec Liberal MP on behalf of another Ontario Liberal MP to one resident in Alberta, so we'll keep it in perspective. Unless, of course, other people in Calgary and in other cities got "householders" as well?

Addendum: OK, so there is a pattern. From my Garth the General post, a comment that I regret to have missed reading, brought to our attention by reader muttrus:

I received an invitation to the Garth Turner Public Meeting in Abbotsford. I am a Conservative member, so it is obvious Turner used his list of Conservative member to try to pack his meetings because he knows he won't get enough Liberals interested. On top of that, the invitation were mailed from John McCallum's office! I guess Turner doesn't have much of a budget with the Liberals.

I hadn't even considered that Garth Turner might be using Conservative Party data lists to drive the advertising campaign targeting households in western cities but originating out a network of eastern Liberal Party MPs offices using free mailing privileges. An interesting interpretation of the limited data we have. I wonder if more people can come forward with similar mailings.

Asked and answered? I went back to the Garth Turner post in which he spends his time calling me a loser. There was this response near the end of the comment trail:

John McCalum was one of 15 MPs from across the country who diverted local riding communications to support my tour effort. This was done so costs would be contained within existing MP budgets, with no new money spent letting people in these four provinces know of the Town Halls.

Fifteen MPs for sixteen meetings in thirteen cities? Let's try to build up a matching list:

1. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to LaBroquerie, Manitoba
2. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Winnipeg, Manitoba
3. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Regina, Saskatchewan
4. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Duncan, BC
5. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Victoria, BC
6. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Surrey, BC
7. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Vancouver, BC
8. John McCallum using his mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Abbotsford, BC
9. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Kelowna, BC
10. Garth Turner using his mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Edmonton, Alberta
11. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Red Deer, Alberta
12. Massimo Pacetti using his mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Calgary Alberta
13. Liberal MP XXX using his or her mailing privileges to send an unknown number of addressed admails to Lethbridge, Alberta

Kept within existing MP budgets? But I thought the Liberal Party wasn't helping out with this? Coordinating local meeting notices means sending addressed admails based on mass mailing lists from one end of the country to the other? And isn't that taxpayer money?

This sounds more and more like an official Liberal Party function. I just don't understand all the secrecy.

Garth Turner also denies that Conservative Party lists were used. As my correspondent suggests, only commercial flyers used that style of addressee at his house. I wonder how much those lists cost for those 15 cities, and who was footing the bill for those too.

The 10-Percent Solution: Legislative assistants might have helped send the advertisements to these people. But the descriptions don't seem right. Could this be a householder?

Householders inform constituents about federal issues that affect their everyday life, such as health care and employment. They are sent to each household in the MP’s riding. LAs may help write and design Householders before they are printed and mailed to constituents.

Or a 10-percenter?

As its name suggests, 10-percenters are printed communications sent to 10-percent of the constituents in a MP’s riding. These communications represent the views of MPs and their political party, and they tend to be more partisan and targeted in their message than Householders. LAs may help select or write articles for the 10-percenters and collaborate with the Constituency Assistant to determine where to send them in the riding.

Definitely more like a 10-percenter.

The problem, of course, is that neither John McCallum nor Massimo Pacetti are sending mail into their own ridings. Maybe that's not really a restriction, and the Consistuency Assistants for the many ridings involved (larger cities like Edmonton and Vancouver would cover many separate ridings) might have created the 10-percent lists for each of their ridings, sent them to the Legislative Assistants of McCallum, Pacetti, and the other 13 Liberal MPs, who then collated the data, stuffed the envelopes, and used their franking privileges to turn around and send the advertising for free to 10-percent of the households in each of the locations on the tour.

That's a lot of paper for an MP like Garth Turner who is so worried about the environment. And a lot of work by Liberal Party folks. And a lot of free mail from Canada Post.

But then a 10-percenter is supposed to paid for out of the House of Commons budget assigned to MPs for this sort of thing, which then begs the question about exactly how this tour is not Liberal and not taxpayer funded.

Karen Redman would not be amused: Liberal Karen Redman, MP for Kitchener, is quite clear when she says 10-percenters targeting unheld ridings for any business unrelated to that MP and that riding is a misuse of House funds:

All parties have significantly increased their output of ten percenters. They've also adopted a centralized strategy for distribution. Specifically, these seem to focus on redistribution in unheld ridings. But rather than focusing on members' own parliamentary initiatives or those of their parties, these ten percenters have been used for negative and often personal attacks. We've seen the deplorable examples of blatant abuse of the House of Commons privileges.

It's neither appropriate nor valuable, I feel, for members of Parliament to circulate material of this nature. Clearly, what we do with our party funds under the banner of partisan politics supported by those who choose to support the parties is a totally different matter. This is something to do with the use of taxpayers' dollars and our role as members of Parliament.

Ten percenters are not an appropriate venue for electioneering, and by eliminating partisan logos on ten percenters and householders we can take a big step to ensure that they can continue to be used to put forward policy discussions as well as bring updates to parliamentary affairs.

Throughout this minority Parliament, we've seen a significant increase, as I've said, in the ten percenters in unheld ridings. Ten percenters, as everyone around this table realizes, are unlimited, and a continued increase in the distribution of ten percenters in unheld ridings will become--and I would say have become--a significant expense to the House budget.

Mr. Hill made a comment that the Board of Internal Economy has dealt with that, and I would absolutely concur with him. As a matter of fact, I think I've done my best to push this matter to the fore. But the reality is that the statistics we receive and the documentation we receive in the Board of Internal Economy is in camera. I think this issue needs to have an open and transparent discussion so that Canadians and other parliamentarians will be able to see the exponential increase in this cost to the House.

The ability to send material into ridings held by a member of another party leads to aggressive mail strategies and electioneering-style messaging. Ten percenters are a tool for MPs to communicate to their own constituents, as I said--and I would defend that--but anything further than that is an unnecessary financial burden on the House, and I would say it's a misuse.

Now all parties do this. Redman was upset because the Conservatives were using 10-percenters to hit the Liberal about the Sponsorship Scandal inside of Liberal ridings. She probably has a point. But she also emphatic when she says that sending out aggressive and election-style 10-percenters from one riding to another via some sort of centralized operations centre is a drain on the House of Commons budget, a burden on taxpayers, and an abuse of the 10-percenter system.

If Garth Turner and is merry band of MPs, including John McCallum and Massimo Pacetti, were using the taxpayer-funded 10-percenter system to try to fill the chairs for his appearances, I wonder what Karen Redman would say.

And what about this Garth Turner tour not being a burden on the taxpayers?

Update: I think I've been on the wrong track with the mail. Here's my new idea on the nature of this mail. Thanks to Garth Turner for explaining the ethical considerations.

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