Thursday, March 07, 2013

This Day In Snooklandia...Look Who They're Smearing Now.

FalseEquivalencies
AreStillFalseVille


Last night we noted that Alex Tsakumis thinks Suzanne Anton, who was earlier rebuffed by the fine, creme-sheened folks of Vancouver-Quilchena is going to be parachuted into creme-free Fraserview.

You know, the riding where Kash Heed's campaign smeared the Dipper candidate Gabriel Yiu in 2009.

Which is also the same riding where Mr. Yiu will run this May.

And guess who the Wizards and their foot soldiers in the legislature were smearing today, with a complete false equivalency that even the proMedia folks can understand.

You guessed it...

Hon. B. Bennett: I'm sorry that the fact that I come from the Kootenays offends the member from Vancouver Island. He has three members from the Kootenays in his own caucus. I'm not sure how they're going to feel about his slight. In any case, hon. Speaker, perhaps the member will think that this is more relevant.

Perhaps the member who asked the question could tell us exactly who Gabriel Yiu is. Gabriel Yiu has collected almost $375,000 of public money since 2007, and what did he do? What was Gabriel Yiu up to? Well, Gabriel Yiu, according to his own website, was an adviser to the B.C. NDP opposition. He facilitated "unprecedented communication outreach into the Asian immigrant community at large, as well as cultivating…."


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It's all deflector-spike-spin-all-the-time these days with these people.

Essentially, they are saying that...

The fact that Mr. Yiu has a government job (thus the terrible, awful $$ numbers over six years...try the long division) and ran as a candidate is the same thing as being a government-funded caucus staffer or government-funded inner circle Wizard who used their job to hatch political party smear sites and/or funnel government information to political party databases.

Now.

Why would these people engage in this twisted pretzel logic to conflate such clearly different situations?

Because if all parties are 'equally' guilty, nobody is really guilty, right?

Which is what one of the chief satellite-circle Wizards is now saying outside the legislature.

Or some such thing.

Sheesh.

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And what government job would that be ? Checked his site but no info on that.

Guy in Victoria

RossK said...

Doesn't matter Guy.

Honestly.

This is nothing more than 'make the bastard deny it' -type bullshit that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that people working for the government were caught in the ACT of doing BCL party hack work and working to funnel government-collected information about private citizens to BCL party databases.


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James King said...

This is just Fox News bullshit - exactly the kind of thing one expects from folks on a sinking ship.

RossK said...

JK--

Exactly.

And Mr. Marrissen is doing his best to help crank the wurlitzer, justifying it by saying he is just 'asking questions'.

This reminds me of the time, not long ago when a Federal Liberal Party operative serially wurlitzered an unsubstantiated rumour about Olivia Chow in an attempt to smear her.

And how did the operative, who is actually a lawyer, justify this?

Well...

He said he could do it because the rumour was 'out there'.

Seriously.


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Anonymous said...

You think the BC Liberals would be ashamed of themselves.

What dishonourable behaviour: smearing opponents, bald-faced lying, wrongly spending public money for partisan purposes, secret and undocumented government decision-making.

And they obviously think that British Columbians are just mindless sheep to be herded into voting for another Liberal regime.

I hope the good citizens of the province send the BC Liberals a strong message on May 14.

My God, we need a good, competent, ethical provincial government.

otr

Eleanor Gregory said...

In today's Globe and Mail, Mark Hume's interview of Elizabeth Denham, the BC Information and Privacy Commissioner, is published. She points out that when government responds to an FOI request, government is required to (that means must) produce records in private email accounts that are responsive to the request.

Elizabeth Denham said:

"So, if there are responsive records relating to government business and they happen to be in private e-mail, then the government is required to produce those records in response to an FOI request...I think a lot of people, journalists and people in the public, don't realize this, but e-mails that contain information about government mandate, government business, sent from a personal account, are subject to those FOI laws. And the determining factor is not the type of account, personal or government, but actually whether the e-mail relates to the performance of that employee's or that contractor's duties."

In the early days of Blackberry and smartphone use, for the sake of personal convenience, employees and contractors of different levels of government may have had their government emails automatically forwarded to their Blackberry or smartphones, thus potentially taking those records out of the public domain. I say "potentially" because when complying with an FOI request, such "FOI'able" content should be produced. In my time at the Vancouver School Board any FOI request forwarded by the FOI coordinator to staff and trustees included the request to check personal email records.

There was and is a potential for non-compliance. Some levels of government have dealt with this potential problem by issuing Blackberries or smartphones exclusively for government use so that there is no "need" to use a private communication device. Of course, that solution doesn't work if employees, contractors, etc. continue to use their personal emails for government business, and, when required to respond to an FOI request, don't turn over any emails that end up in their personal Blackberry or smartphone.

RossK said...

Thanks otr-- I do not disagree.

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Big news Eleanor--

Big, big news.

I seem to remember some gmail accounts on that header. Does this mean that they would be able to go to, for example Google and ask for the records...If I recall correctly this has happened in the States and there has been some pushback due to American privacy laws.

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