Angry in the Great White North

Liberal MP Garth Turner of the Ontario riding of Halton is on a tour of western cities, giving talks on income trusts and other financial topics, designed of course to criticize the Conservative government.

Preceding him is a wave of flyers. The flyers are generic, the sort that could be delivered in bulk for pennies a sheet. But the flyers are being delivered as first class mail, in individually addressed envelopes, which costs ten times as much to deliver as a flyer.

As flyers or as first class mail, the cost is borne by Parliament, by which I mean the taxpayer, by which I mean you and me.

Now why would Garth Turner do this?

My reasoning is speculative. Delivered as bulk at pennies per sheet, the Garth Turner flyers (so called "10 percenters") the flyers would be delivered to households at random. As individually addressed mail the Garth Turner flyers could be sent to specific households based on criteria. A Liberal Party mailing list could be sorted to skew towards retirees in order to make sure that Garth Turner's income trust message ("Stephen Harper hurts Canadian retirees!") is delivered to retirees in particular.

For that, Canadian taxpayers paid ten times as much to deliver Garth Turner's flyers.

Remember that Garth Turner insists that this tour and this advertising is not costing Canadian taxpayers anything.

Now to be fair to Garth Turner, other Liberal MPs are sending the taxpayer-paid mail (called franked mail). We know this because two of my readers contacted me to ask me why these generic Garth Turner flyers had been delivered to them in envelopes from Liberal MPs John McCallum and Massimo Pacetti instead of just being shoved into the mail slot like any other flyer. When someone asked that question on Garth Turner's blog, he revealed the size of the Liberal team sending flyers by first class mail:

John McCalum [sic] 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.

Now I'm not sure what local riding communications budgets has to do with anything. Franked mail must be sent to or originate from Parliament Hill, and the cost is carried by the Board of Internal Economy, and not individual MP office budgets.

But when asked to provide details on who these 15 MPs were, Garth Turner said he didn't know:

I have no idea and don’t actually care. Why do you? — Garth

If he doesn't know, how did he know there were fifteen of them?

When considering McCallum, Pacetti, Turner, and income trusts, I noted that one thing that they had in common is that they had served on the Commons Standing Committee on Finance (Turner was off the committee when he was ejected from the Conservative Party in October 2006). McCallum and Pacetti had joined the other Liberals on that committee to issue a dissenting opinion to the committee conclusion when the commmittee issued an report in February 2007. In that report, the committee concluded that the decision to tax income trusts was the correct one to make. The Liberals disagreed. By coincidence, there are 17 Liberals on that committee.

In the time since Garth Turner made his claim to not know the identity of the members of this team of Liberals who think flyers ought to be hand-delivered by Canada Post, we've learned the identity of two more.

First, a reader in Regina got a Garth Turner flyer in a franked envelope from Brent St Denis.

Last night, a reader in Winnipeg emailed me to tell me he got a Garth Turner flyer in a franked envelope from John McKay.

Both St Denis and McKay are Liberal members of the finance committee.

As more people get in touch with me, I'll update the lists below and bump this post to the top.

Liberal MPs on the Finance Committee:

• John McCallum
• Massimo Pacetti
• John McKay
• Robert Thibault
• Ruby Dhalla
• Michael Ignatieff
• Yasmin Ratansi
• Anthony Rota
• Judy Sgro
• Mario Silva
• Belinda Stronach
• Paul Szabo
• Maurizio Bevilacqua
• Roy Cullen
• Brent St Denis
• Lui Temelkovski
• Joe Volpe

Liberal MPs sending Garth Turner flyers by franked mail who sit on the Finance Committee:

• John McCallum
• Massimo Pacetti
• John McKay
• Brent St Denis

Liberal MPs sending Garth Turner flyers by franked mail who don't sit on the Finance Committee:

I wonder if Garth Turner will visit this post on occassion to figure out who his special secret friends are. I'm glad to help out in any way I can.

Addendum: I guess I don't need to wonder any longer. Garth Turner is checking out the list:

Wow, four minutes! I guess I'm in for it now. Loser! Loser! Loser! In the mean time, I'll continue to gather concrete evidence and quoting actual testimony to figure out how much the taxpayer might be shelling out for this Lost Tory Tour.

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