At Home in Hespeler

sounds more like a patch honest politicians would wear on their Armani jacket. It is, instead, a rule for an MP sending Parliamentary flyers to someone else’s riding.  It’s wrong, and it should end.

When a bureaucrat designs a "ten percenter" patch.

John Mraz goes over the top,  calling it corruption. It’s not, but it is, as he notes, “the diversion of public resources to politicized ends.” I would not call it corruption more because it’s above board, and of such a small scale. Mraz, a former Liberal campaign manager, also throws a blame grenade at the Conservatives, both here and in the US. Note, for example, fringe Republican Obama birthers are the only ones who are nuts, ignoring Democrats who thought GW Bush was a) the dumbest man ever to learn to knot his own tie b) the criminal mastermind behind 911. In other words Mr. Mraz’s biases get in the way of his thesis.

His thesis, however, is spot on. Ten percenters are wrong. Parliamentarians are using the rule that allows them to send informational material to ridings other than their own, up to a total of ten percent of the constituents in their riding. I have complained before about this policy, but still receive quarterlies from Jack Layton. These things are not informational, they are propaganda. Paper wasted bashing the other party, taking biased surveys, that you can send back at parliamentary expense (i.e. taxpayer expense).

To be sure, I receive the same nonsense from my MP, Conservative Gary Goodyear, but he’s at least my MP. Their is a legitimate argument to be made that an MP needs to communicate with constituents, and needs to offer constituents a forum to let their MP know how they feel on issues. If I find the communiques so offensive, I can always vote for someone else. I can’t, however, choose to vote against Jack Layton MP. So why am I receiving his mailers? And why, far more significantly, am I receiving his mailers at parliamentary expense?

Conservatives and Liberals are not innocent in this, and Gary Goodyear has been the subject of a formal complaint to the speaker on this very subject.

They are all doing it. And they are all wrong. On this, I agree with Mr. Mraz. It’s time to stop the practice of ten percenters.

Politicians acting badly, Silly Politicians 911 truthers, Barack Obama, Canadian Parliament, Conservative Party, Democrats, Gary Goodyear, GW Bush, Jack Layton, John Mraz, Liberal Party, National Post, NDP, Obama Birthers, one percenters, Parliament, Republicans, ten percenters

I managed to get an invite to the big cheque ceremony (which didn’t, disappointedly, feature a big cheque) for National Research Council announcement of a grant for Cambridge company MedShare today. Full disclosure, MedShare founder and owner, Barry Billings, may have some relationship to me:

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – April 3, 2009) – The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology), announced today a contribution to MedShare Inc. from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) to support an innovative research and development project.

“The Government of Canada is committed to building a competitive advantage for the Canadian private sector and supports these leading edge technology solutions,” said Minister Goodyear. “This investment in the development of advanced technologies, taking place right here in Cambridge, can one day make the lives of the sick and the elderly much more manageable in their homes.”

MedShare is a software company that provides mobile health record solutions to meet the needs of North American home health care agencies. This initiative will receive a grant of up to $284,500 under the IRAP program and allow the company to explore a new solution for the management of electronic health records for the home care sector. The technology will ultimately be delivered to clients by one of MedShare’s health care delivery partners.

Minister of State (Science and Technology) Gary Goodyear

Barry Billings and Minister of State Gary Goodyear

Gary Goodyear Barry Billings, Blackberry, Gary Goodyear, Homecare, MedShare, Minister of State (science and Technology), National Research Council, NRCC

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology)

Gary Goodyear, Picture of the Day Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (science and Technology)