Are Stephane Dion's supporters stuffing partisan Liberal pamphlets into Universal Child Care Benefit envelopes?
This is simply shocking.
The Universal Child Care Benefit is the program brought in by the Conservative government that issues monthly payments to every family with children under the age of 5, amounting to $100 per child per month.
The Liberals, of course, offered a universal daycare program, funded through tax increases, but in all likelihood only available to eligible families based on income.
We receive our benefit by direct deposit, but many Canadians receive their benefit by cheque sent in the mail.
This month, one person is reporting that his envelope was stuffed with partisan Liberal Party material, issued by the office of the leader of the opposition, Stephane Dion.
Allegedly, someone is using the bureaucracy to distribute partisan Liberal pamphlets and to use a government program to target specific Canadians with tailored Liberal Party messaging.
There is a notion that the public service is really a hotbed of pro-Liberal activists who are actively sabotaging the efforts of the duly elected Conservatives to govern this country.
Frankly, I've always figured the fear was blown out of proportion.
But now I'm not so sure.
Allegedly, a recipient of the Universal Child Care Benefit cheque found in his envelope, in addition to the cheque itself, a pamphlet from Stephane Dion (click to enlarge):
This is a recent pamphlet. It mentions the recent Throne Speech, and discusses in detail Stephane Dion's plan to fight poverty that he announced last November.
Someone is trying to undermine the Conservative's UCCB program by using the distribution of UCCB benefits as a means of delivering the Liberal plan for social programs at a targeted audience.
Remember, if you use any of the normal means of sending out franked mail or 10-percenters (that is, mail from MPs to constituents), there are limitations:
- the mail is directed geographically, not by economic demographics
- the mail goes to one riding at a time
- it is tracked and managed by Parliament
By hijacking the UCCB distribution of benefits, Liberals and their supporters can surreptitiously send material across the country, and be certain that it is being delivered only to households with young children, and not to condos with double-income-no-kids couples or to retirees or to single college students, for example.
Someone has done something quite outrageous. We don't know if it was one envelope or thousands.
One is enough, though.
If this report is accurate, the public service as a whole must answer to this.
But where to begin?
Might I suggest starting with the only name that we can see on the inserted pamphlet. I say we ask Stephane Dion just what he knows about who printed off his pamphlets, delivered them to the UCCB people, and arranged to have them stuffed into one or more benefit envelopes.
Update: Apparently this flyer is a scheduled Liberal Party 10-percenter:
A flyer in my mail box informs me that
- 3.4 million Canadians live in poverty
- 242,000 seniors live in poverty
- more than 788,000 of our children live in poverty
- most adults below the low income cut-off are working
It goes on to state that the Conservatives have abandoned low-income families.
I've asked for confirmation that the flyer was inserted into a UCCB benefit envelope.
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