Calgary West Conservative candidate Rob Anders took the time before hitting the campaign trail to print a brochure aimed at voters in Richmond, British Columbia.St. John's South-Mount Pearl Conservative candidate Loyola Hearn circulated a household calendar.
What do they have in common?
The House of Commons. As sitting members of parliament in the last session, both were entitled to use public money to circulate reports on their performance to households in their constituency.
The problem is both Hearn and Anders - and any other MP of any other party - knew full well the House was due to close on November 28th. Any print jobs in progress should have been cancelled.
There are just no excuses.
It's that simple.
Hearn managed to do the same thing in 2004 with a householder that arrived in voter's homes the Friday before the writ dropped. The piece contained numerous factual mistakes and claimed credit for projects - like the St. John's harbour clean-up - that he had nothing to do with.
Anders' pamphlet is a particularly malodourous piece of political garbage, mixing together the current Prime Minister, crystal meth and something called "homosexual sex marriage". What the heck is a sex marriage anyways?
Anders is also the stereotypical
If that isn't enough, go to Hansard and grab the Connie's views on equal marriage and the separation of Church and state. Heady stuff.
Some people even went so far as to set up voteoutanders.com last election and appear to have have had an impact on both turn-out in the riding (it went up) and Anders vote (it went down).
Bottom line: these guys used public money to fund a portion of their campaigns. It's the sort of low-level corruption of the political process we should be trying to root out.