Francis Chartrand was supposed to be the NDP nominee for Riviere-des-Mille-Iles, but he was dumped by the NDP.

When Francis Chartrand was dumped as an NDP candidate, he posted a very angry entry on his blog, calling Jack Layton and the NDP undemocratic.  He alleged that he only found out about the decision through the media, and threatened to hold a news conference to discuss the matter further.

The suddenly that post disappeared, and Chartrand posted another entry.  In this one, he realized he could do more by not being a candidate, and that he fully supported the NDP, and everything was fine.

Then that post disappeared.

I wrote about the strange shifting story, and later that day, the conciliatory post reappeared, but not the angry post.

I wrote about that too.

I decided to go back again, and the conciliatory post was gone.  Annoyed at the weirdness, I went through all the blog posts, and found a post in which Francis Chartrand apparently reveals his admiration for Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and of the old East Germany, thinking Canada would do well to model itself after these countries.

That made for another post, as well as providing a  plausible reason why Chartrand might have been dropped as a candidate.  East Germany?  Is he serious? 

If the NDP dropped Chartrand because of his far left ideology, it could explain his anger, now barely suppressed.  Perhaps he bought the argument that in order to make Canada into another socialist paradise like East Germany, it required providing a more centrist face to Canadians.  Don't worry, Francis.  Once we are in power, we'll be able to do whatever we want.  We just need to hide our more...interesting...plans for Canada. 

Chartrand seemed to be playing the role of the loyal party worker, accepting the decision that he could not stand as a candidate with grace.

This attitude was reflected in his blog, which consisted almost entirely now of NDP press releases.

That has changed.  Again.

Now the angry post dated December 16 is back.  Why would Francis Chartrand change his mind and snap angrily at the NDP?  Well, the next two posts suggest that he did not, but instead that his blog was hacked.  Here is a sequence of screenshots of how the blog appears right now:

Now who would hack Chartrand's blog?  And how? 

Consider what we have here.  The angry post is back.  It lashes out at Jack Layton and the NDP. 

Then there is a post that reads simply "Merry Christmas, Raymond Guardia".  Raymond Guardia is the co-chair of the NDP's Quebec election planning committee.  He would have been primarily responsible for spiking Chartrand's candidacy, or at least would have been the focus of the blame.

Why would a hacker send Guardia a message?  Why would the average hacker even know who Guardia is?

Then the hacker announces that the blog has been hacked.  Why do that without tagging it?  Most hackers will give their nom de guerre in order to accrue bragging rights.  And most bloggers take control of a blog to deliver their own message, and not rehash the legitimate owner's message.

What would be the point of taking over someone else's blog and then post that person's own posts?

The suspicious part of my mind says the blog was not hacked.  I think Chartrand is still very pissed off.  The cheer of the Christmas season (no doubt a bourgeois holiday to be outlawed once Chartrand transforms Canada into East Germany) might have gotten to Chartrand, and he decided to put his vicious post back up on his blog.

The subsequent post is a message to Raymond Guardia, the man who strangled Chartrand's fledgling political career, to let him know that Chartrand is not planning to take this lying down.

Then five minutes later, perhaps concerned that he could be further punished by the party, he puts up a post stating that the blog had been hacked, thus providing him with what he thinks is plausible deniability should NDP party bosses call him to account for continuing to bad mouth the party.

Do I have anything more to go on than just a hunch?  Yes I do.  The exact same set of changes have appeared on Chartrand's French-language blog.  What hacker would modify both blogs, carefully making sure the two are matched?  What are the chances of being hacked by a bilingual hacker whose only interest is to post your own posts again?

Of course, the hacker could be an NDP member in Quebec trying to make Chartrand look bad...but then why announce the hack?  Why not just repost the angry entry and then quietly slip away, then snitch to NDP bosses that Chartrand was badmouthing the party again.

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