Yet another example of the Conservatives’ shameless use of public resources for partisan political promotional purposes was provided today (March 25, 2015) by Candice Bergen’s (the Minister of State for Social Development) announcement of the Harper Government’s (emphasis mine) (note not the Government of Canada’s) upcoming legislation in the coming days to enhance the Universal Child Care Benefit. The announcement was made earlier today at West Side Family Place in Vancouver, a non-profit “family resource centre that offers parenting support and child focused programming for families with children from birth to six years”.
As part of the announcement Minister Bergen and/or her staff at first tweeted out a number of innocent enough looking photos showing Minister Bergen interacting with various kids at West Side Family Place (a place interestingly not supported by Federal funding in any way according to their Funders page) as well as various staff members (see below).
Fair enough. Entirely appropriate. However, for some inexplicable reason (other than for partisan political purposes of course) all of a sudden two currently unelected, young Conservative candidates, Jojo Quimpo, the Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Kingsway, and Tim Laidler, the Conservative candidate for Port Moody-Coquitlam, appear in a photo with Nicky Scott (Chair of the Board of Directors for West Side Family Place) and Minister Bergen that was subsequently tweeted out by the Official Twitter page for the Ministry of Employment and Social Development (see below) and is now part of the official announcement and record for the event (see below). Neither Mr. Laidler or Mr. Quimpo are identified as Conservative candidates in the photo leaving the false impression that the two gentlemen are either workers at and/or directors with West Side Family Place and/or that they staffers with the Ministry because otherwise why else would they be in the photo?
You may ask yourself what these individuals were even doing at the announcement let alone why they were included in the official pictures of the event other than for political purposes? The answer is nothing of course as Mr. Laidler specializes in the treatment of veterans with PTSD and Mr. Quimpo, whose candidacy interestingly is not without controversy, apparently is a paralegal, cultural event organizer, and musician (assuming his resume issues have been sorted out), neither of their areas of expertise on the surface appear to be appropriate to West Side Family Place.
Subsequent to the tweeting out of the photo by the official Ministry of Employment and Social Development account, Minister Bergen then tweeted out on her own official account (entirely appropriate of course) a tweet identifying Mr. Laidler and Mr. Quimpo as Conservative candidates and suggesting that it was good to see them and that she “can’t wait to work with them in the House of Commons”. Entirely appropriate as this was on her own account and not the Ministry’s official account.
While this may all seem like much ado about nothing, please remember that Mr. Laidler (an Afghan veteran) is a repeat offender when it comes to being part of the shameless partisan use of public resources to promote Conservative candidates as he appeared in a shameless bit of partisan promotion put out by Erin O’Toole and the Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs (detailed in the post All on the Public’s Dime) where Mr. Laidler is again not identified as a Conservative candidate but appears in official Ministry communications (in that particular case the actual news release) (see below). The continued use of official Ministry accounts and therefor public resources to promote Conservative candidates, particularly young candidates, is troubling.
The Honourable Erin OToole, Minister of Veterans Affairs, meets with Tim Laidler of the Veterans Transition Network, and several prominent Veterans stakeholder groups in Vancouver to gain their perspectives on key issues facing Canada’s Veterans and their families. (CNW Group/Veterans Affairs Canada. Note Mr. Laidler is not identified as a Conservative candidate anywhere in the news release.
While the promotion of Conservative candidates particularly young Conservative candidates by sitting Conservative ministers on their own personal pages is commonplace (as detailed in the posts the CPC’s Youth Appeal Strategy for the Upcoming Election and Revving up the CPC Machine) and for the most part entirely appropriate, the promotion of Conservative candidates using public resources clearly is not appropriate. One would have hoped that Mr. Laidler would have been above being again part of the shameless promotion of his candidacy using public resources but that clearly does not appear to be the case. Shameless promotion, again All on the Public’s Dime.
Edit: Interesting that all of the inappropraite tweets and photos shown above have since been deleted from the Ministry Twitter feed and from Minister Bergen’s Twitter feed. If there was nothing wrong with them (from the Ministry and Minister Bergen’s perspective), why delete them?
Where One’s Sympathies Lie: Tar Sands Pipeline Projects, Old Friends, and the 2015 Manning Networking Conference
Any outstanding questions as to what Tim Laidler’s (the local Conservative candidate in the newly established riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam) position is in regards to the proposed Tar Sands pipeline developments within B.C. was answered for me by Mr. Laidler’s recent participation and interactions, prior to and during, the recent Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa that took place March 5th-7th, 2015.
The first indication was provided by what at first glance seemed to be a fairly innocuous tweet (seen below) from a fellow named Donny van Dyk who posted a tweet saying “Who’s pumped for #MNC2015?” (the 2015 Manning Networking Conference), identifying Tim Laidler and a fellow named Patrick Beatty in the tweet.
As noted, at first the tweet all seemed fairly innocuous, a tweet between a couple of young Conservatives (old buddies?) excited to reconnect at the upcoming conference in Ottawa. Who can blame them? Innocuous until you realize that both Mr. van Dyk and Mr. Beatty are both heavily involved in the Tar Sands industry. In fact, Mr. van Dyk is (since 2013) the Kitimat-based Manager of Coastal Aboriginal and Community Relations of the Northern Gateway Project and was one of the more prominent faces in the recent failed plebiscite in Kitimat. Mr. van Dyk, who is a former New Hazelton administrator, was also very actively politically in the BC Liberal party and its youth wing (as was Mr. Laidler). The other recipient of the tweet, Patrick Beatty, is in fact the Governmental Relations advisor at Suncor (since 2012), a major energy giant involved heavily in Tar Sands development. Interestingly, Mr. Beatty is the son of former Conservative cabinet minister Perrin Beatty who lists maverick Conservative MP Michael Chong as a hero (suggesting that he too may not be a fan of Stephen Harper but I digress…).
The fact that Mr. Laidler was going to be closely interacting with such obvious representatives of the Tar Sands industry was probably reason enough to question where Mr. Laidler’s sympathies lie in the pipeline debate. This was further compounded however by a random photograph from the conference that showed a receiving line for Premier Christine Clark which showed Mr. Laidler chatting with someone very familiar to anyone familiar with Mr. Laidler’s political past (see photo below). The person to the right of Mr. Laidler appears to be none other than Mr. Gavin Dew.
Tim Laidler (left) and Gavin Dew (right) waiting in the receiving line to meet Christie Clark after her speech at the Manning Networking Conference.
NPA Under 40 Chair, Eli Zbar, with Board Member, Tim Laidler and Gavin Dew in an image from 2012.
Very interestingly (and somewhat simultaneously timely and topical at the same time), Mr. Dew’s Masters of Business Administration (MBA) thesis at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School focused on pipeline politics particularly Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project. In his MBA, he spoke of the vagueness of the concept of “Social Licence” concerning pipeline developments (somewhat echoing Joe Oliver’s recent comments no?) and suggested that “the prognosis for Enbridge isn’t great” as “Enbridge has a major moral legitimacy problem”. See here for further information concerning his MBA Thesis and a survey that was conducted as part of his MBA research. A September 26, 2012 BC Almanac CBC radio interview with Mr. Dew concerning his MBA, Enbridge, and the concept of Social Licence in regards to pipeline developments does apparently exist but it is no longer available on the CBC website. Is it any wonder that he was retained by the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project accordingly given his familiarity with the failings of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project concerning gaining social licence? And one wonders whether or not Joe Oliver, Trans Mountain, and others were/are aware of Mr. Dew’s MBA research and thesis given the nature of the social licence discussion that is currently taking place?
(Edit: Rumour has it that Mr. Dew is in fact the campaign manager for Mr. Laidler. Not surprising given his presence in nomination meeting photos, his past experience as a campaign manager, his presence at campaign fundraisers, and his long-standing relationship with Mr. Laidler).
Gavin Dew at the All Candidates Forum at Inlet Theatre at Port Moody City Hall, July 31, 2014
(see below for a picture of both Mr. van Dyk [Northern Gateway project] and Mr. Dew [Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project] [“the pipeline guys!!”] at the Manning Conference that was tweeted out by the Manager of the Campaigns [Christina Pilarski] for the Canadian Association of Petroleum producers. You get the sense that Mr. Laidler is just to the side of whoever took the photograph.)
Back to the matter at hand, as there are now what appears to be some fairly clear and demonstrable ties between Mr. Laidler and both the proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project and the Northern Gateway pipeline project in B.C., it is now clear in my mind where the allegiances of Mr. Laidler lie in reference to proposed tar sands pipeline projects. This confirms my earlier suspicions which were identified during the City of Port Moody National Energy Board Trans Mountain Town Hall Meeting that took place on June 25, 2014 concerning the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project. During the meeting, at which numerous environmental concerns over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project were expressed, Mr. Laidler stood up, walked up to the mike, and made the following statement/question.
Tim Laidler, Port Moody: Hi there. I grew up in Anmore, but I have recently moved into Port Moody. I think what we’re faced with here is weighing the risks and the benefits of the project. So my question is specifically around the economic benefits and some of the jobs numbers. I, myself, served in Afghanistan with the Canadian Forces and, since coming home have been working at a non-profit organization helping Veterans transition with things like PTSD. And what we found from the veterans is we can help them with some of the psychological issues from war, but if they don’t get back into meaningful careers, they tend to struggle quite a bit. So what would be really important to me and to my colleagues who are all transitioning back into the work force is some of those job numbers, during the construction, but also are there going to be jobs after the construction. Also the second question is around the access to world markets. I’ve heard that a lot, and I was wondering if you could explain that a little bit better.
Michael Davies: Okay, there is a lot there. In terms of economic benefits, it’s a $5.4 billion construction project. About 60% of that will be spent in British Columbia. There will probably be about 4,500 jobs at the peak of the construction and 750 of those would be in Burnaby. And those would develop benefits or spinoffs for all of the local communities along the pipeline and, particularly, there is a lot of construction that is proposed for the Lower Mainland here. In terms of longer term jobs, we have about 130 employees in BC now. I think there would be about another 90 jobs in total in Trans Mountain. About 50 of those would be in BC. What Scott didn’t get to with his part of the presentation around Western Canada Marine Response and those new spill bases and the expansion of the existing spill response; that would probably result in, and the early estimates right now is probably 90-100 new positions as well in those communities along, well there would be more here in Burnaby as well, but certainly along the route through the Salish Sea. The, we pay local taxes. We pay about $50,000 a year in taxes to Port Moody for the piece of pipeline that we have now. That’s not going to change because there is no change to the pipe, but the local taxes in BC would increase by about $20 million. About $6 million of that is for the City of Burnaby. So there are some significant benefits. Those are the ones that are directly related to the project. The second part of your question is about world markets. Of late, the price of oil in North America has been about $20-$30 less per barrel than what it is in the rest of the world. Canada can only sell into the continental US market, that market with the depressed price. So we are selling our oil to the US at a markdown price, where if we had access to tide water and global markets, we would be able to, I mentioned earlier two million barrels a day that is exported, we would have the opportunity to raise the price of those two million barrels a day by $20-$30. That’s a big part of what this project is about. Now those differentials come and go. Things will change in the market and they won’t always be there, but the point is that when they occur, Canada has no opportunity to take advantage of that. And that’s where the interest is in expanding our infrastructure to be able to serve international markets.
Tim Laidler: Thank you. Can I do a follow-up? (Sure.) I just want to say thanks. That answers my questions. And I just wanted to offer something to the process here. Again, my experience in Afghanistan, we saw a lot of community type forums like this that were not nearly as civilized, so I think we all are doing a pretty good job in the process. Thanks so much to the City of Port Moody for hosting.
A link to the video of the Port Moody Town Hall Meeting can be found here on the City of Port Moody website. Go to 78:21 to see Mr. Laidler’s participation in the meeting. Please consider his question/statement in the context of the rest of the questions that were being asked that day and remember that at the time of the Town Hall meeting that Mr. Laidler was already actively seeking the Conservative nomination for the riding (note the date on the tweet below indicating that a reception took place almost a full month before the Kinder Morgan hearings). However, he choose not to disclose that as part of his question/statement. Knowing now his close relationship to Mr. Dew and in turn Mr. Dew’s employment with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project makes his statement/question even more interesting. Did he attend the meeting at Mr. Dew’s request I wonder?
So what are we to take from the Conservative candidate of Port Moody-Coquitlam’s question to the NEB concerning the Trans Mountain Pipeline project? Was he concerned about the environmental impacts of the project on his potential constituency? Clearly, the answer is no. Did he somewhat oddly repeat the same talking points about himself out of context when the only instruction to speakers from the NEB was to “clearly state their name, City of residence and whether they are representing a Port Moody business”. Well, frankly yes. Did he take the job values and economic spinoff values provided by the Trans Mountain representatives at face value? Yes, numbers that have since been shown to be greatly exaggerated as identified in the recently published SFU report (Nov. 10, 2014) entitled “Economic Costs and Benefits of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) for BC and Metro Vancouver” which clearly identifies that Kinder Morgan has inflated the pipeline’s job numbers by a factor of three while dramatically underestimating spill costs. So where does Mr. Laidler stand on the singular most paramount environmental issue potentially facing the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam? His question to the NEB during the Town Hall meeting would seem to indicate that environmental concerns are not a concern of his at all.
In summation, Mr. Laidler’s past participation in public hearings concerning tar sands pipelines and his seemingly cozy relationship with various Tar Sands pipeline proponents would suggest that if elected by the people of the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam, that you can pretty much guarantee that Mr. Laidler will back any Tar Sands pipeline project in B.C. without reservation or question. If as a voter in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam that is what you are looking for, then by all means vote for Mr. Laidler and the Conservative party in the upcoming election. If not, if you have at least some question in your mind regarding the projects, then perhaps you will need to seek a candidate from another party that does not seem so obviously tied to the development of the Tar Sands and Tar Sands pipeline developments and who is willing to at least consider the environmental damage that could be caused both locally and globally by the continued unfettered development of the Tar Sands. Again the above all speaks to Mr. Laidler being a seasoned and well-connected politico who just happens to be an Afghan vet rather than an Afghan vet who is suddenly drawn to politics in order to serve for the greater good. OK this post is going to get me on the Bill C51 subversive list now for sure…
(PS: Before anyone gets their knickers in a knot, I have to point out that I am not against all pipeline developments. I, in fact, own a considerable amount of stock in a company that will likely benefit greatly from LNG development and in my profession have worked on a number of resource extraction and development projects. By being against Tar Sands pipeline development and expansion and pipelines in B.C. does not make one by default against all resource development and large scale developments in B.C. It makes one for responsible, environmentally sensible, development instead).
An interested third party forwarded to the Port Moody-Coquitlam Election 2015 Blog a recent notice regarding the upcoming Annual General Meeting of the Port Moody-Coquitlam Conservative Electoral District Association to be held on February 14th, 2015 at 3:00 p.m. at the Place des Arts. Below is a screenshot of the notice, which unfortunately, is unintentionally both somewhat amusing and embarrassing at the same time.
I’ve posted the actual text from the email below as it is somewhat difficult to read in the screenshot (with emphasis kept from the original):
“Registration for the meeting will start at 2:30pm. You must be a member in good standing for a minimum of three weeks prior to the meeting, and a resident of the Port Moody-Coquiltam Electoral District, in order to attend and vote. A current Conservative Party of Canada membership card or valid government ID will be needed to credential those with voting rights. We encourage you to renew your membership now if it has expired. To do so, please take advantage of the easy-to-use online membership site at secure.conservative.ca.
A new board of directors will be elected at the AGM, and attendees will enjoy a special update on the state of the Party to be delivered by MP James Moore.
There are a few positions available on our volunteer board and if you wish to seek a position, we would be very interested in hearing from you.
We also wish to inform you that we are currently undertaking our fundraising drive to elect our Conservative candidate Tim Laidler to be the next MP for Port Moody-Coquiltam.
Did you know that a donation to a political party gives you a tax credit, regardless of your annual income? Canadian citizens and permanent residents (not corporations) may contribute up to $1,500 per year to the Port Moody-Coquiltam Conservative Electoral District Association. Please remember that while contributions to both the local and national levels of the party are greatly appreciated, when you donate locally, 100% of your donation stays here in Port Moody-Coquiltam.”
What is somewhat amusing about the email (if you haven’t noticed already) is that the author of the email managed to misspell Coquitlam as “Coquiltam” a staggering four times. I have no reason to believe that the e-mail is not legitimate. You would think that whoever composed the e-mail notice would have a clue as to how to accurately spell the actual name of the riding wouldn’t you? The fact that it was misspelled in the e-mail notice suggests that some party staffer in Ottawa may have sent out the notice on behalf of the President of the riding association. At least you would hope that is the case…And these are the people that are looking to run the country for four more years? Yikes.
In researching my local Conservative Candidate, Tim Laidler, the young Conservative candidate in my home riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam, I started to notice a remarkable number of repeated patterns and parallels between his social media feed and the social media feeds of many other young Conservative candidates across the country. These patterns kept coming up again and again. They included: (1) a considerable amount of social media interaction between young Conservative candidates from different regions, (2) an apparent disproportionate number of endorsements of these young candidates prior to their nomination from various sitting MPs and Conservative party brass, and (3) a large number of congratulation messages for these young candidates from sitting MPs following their nomination. Some of these endorsements and congratulations seemed somewhat strange to me as they came from what appeared to be from quite distant and seemingly unconnected sources. Some examples of the endorsements noted above are provided below.
I began to wonder was everyone’s social circle really that broad or were there some connections between these young Conservative candidates and sitting MPs and party brass that were not immediately apparent? Interestingly many of these young candidates seemed to somehow know each other often tweeting congratulations directly to each other when they are nominated (below) and even more recently
arranging meetings amongst themselves following their nominations. Case in point:
What exactly was going on here? Could this all be part of some Conservative strategy for the next election? Could they be trying to appeal to the youth vote by putting forth as many young candidates as possible in the hopes that they would represent an untapped resource that would put them back into a majority position? The Conservatives had already been successful with a previous focused appeal to ethnic voters in the last election, could the same be happening again? Is there evidence out there of a focused movement to appeal to young voters by actively promoting young Conservative candidates?
(Before going any further I must give a hat tip to Minister James Moore for providing me with the first list of the candidates for me to research and for giving me the idea for this blog post. That came from the tweet below).
I began my quest for evidence of this potential focused youth movement by looking at the websites and social media feeds of a number of young Conservative candidates including my local candidate Tim Laidler. I was quite frankly surprised by what I discovered. I ended up focusing primarily on three candidates and the nomination process within their ridings and compared that to what took place in my local riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam (a few of these candidates have already been identified above). The candidates selected for comparison included: Tom Kmiec (the young Conservative Candidate for Calgary Shepard), Garnett Genuis (the young Conservative Candidate for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan), and Marshall Neufeld (the young Conservative Candidate for South Okanagan-West Kootenay). I then compared their social media accounts and their nomination websites with what I could piece together for my local candidate, Tim Laidler, the young Conservative Candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam. What immediately jumped out at me (and will to you if you’ve already clicked on the links provided above) is, and was, the obvious similarity between the websites for all of these candidates, right down to the use of similar fonts, similar page names, similar information provided, size of graphics, format, etc. suggesting that an overriding customizable template had been used for all of these websites thereby suggesting some type of overriding intra-riding outside influence was apparent within these campaigns. The common pages within these websites included:
Similar Welcome Pages:
Similar “Why I’m Running” pages:
Similar “Supporters” pages:
All of these sites show the unmistakable signs of a common origin and thereby suggest that a larger overriding hand is at work here.
It should be noted before proceeding any further that in the case of my local candidate, as noted previously both here and here, Tim Laidler’s nomination website had been deleted following his successful nomination campaign and a full copy can not be retrieved from any of the usual internet archives. However there are enough remnants and tidbits out there surviving on the Net to suggest that Mr. Laidler’s nomination webpage would also fit the same established pattern that can be observed in the campaign websites of the three other candidates previously identified. For example, the first few seconds of Tim Laidler’s campaign video shows the immediately recognizable familiar template of the other three candidates welcome pages. A screen shot of this is provided below.
In addition, one tweet from July identifies the existence of a “Why I’m Running” section and the captured content identified earlier includes what appears to be remarkable reminiscent of the Bio Section of the other candidates webpage along with an apparent link to a supporters page. The captured content from his website also includes a reference to “click here to see who else supports (fill in the name)”, a tagline and link common to all of the three candidates’ pages (see below). Taken in its totality, I would argue that is more than likely that Mr. Laidler’s page very likely would have looked very similar if not almost identical to the other three candidates webpages as it more than likely was generated from the same template. Remember these are websites that were created for the nomination races. These are not the websites that will necessarily be used when the actual race begins. The similarity of all these websites suggests the presence of an outside influence in the nomination races.
So where exactly did this master template come from that is clearly being used by all these young Conservative candidates? The answer can be found at the base of the last page of each of the pages that remain viewable.
I’ve zoomed in on the credit at the base of the webpage so that it is more easily visible.
The answer is to this question is that the pages are all credited to (aka “built by”) a Vancouver-based company digital company named Go Newclear. So who is Go Newclear you may ask? Go Newclear, which describes itself as an “independent digital agency with a focus on advertising and digital public affairs”, will be immediately familiar to those that follow the inner workings of the Conservative Party and Ethical Oil (see below).
The principles of Go Newclear include Brendan Jones, who according to their website, was “the creative force behind the television and digital campaigns during the 2006, 2008, and 2011 elections”, and Hamish Marshall, who was the “Manager of Strategic Planning in the Office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, where he was involved in the strategy behind the ‘Not a Leader’ campaign.”
Hamish Marshall is also, according to Desmog’s Emma Pullman, “the husband of current Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall, and a former Conservative campaigner, former PMO staffer and Conservative strategist deeply connected to oil interests”.
“worked as a website administrator for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition from August 2005-February 2006. Following Harper’s election, he worked as the special assistant for the Prime Minister from February 2006-November 2007. Jones then moved to the Conservative Resources Group, or Conservative Caucus Research Bureau, an agency responsible for developing political communication products, branding and marketing decisions and liaising between the federal Conservative caucus and Prime Minister’s Office, until 2009.”
Additional details concerning Go Newclear can be found here. Needless to say but Go Newclear is clearly linked to the highest echelons of the Conservative Party if not directly to the Prime Minister’s Office itself. Greenpeace, according to an article in the Globe and Mail, even suggested that as part of their business, that “Go Newclear Productions, created and host websites for Ethical Oil, and Conservative cabinet ministers Joe Oliver, Pierre Poilievre, and Jason Kenney”. A promo video for the type of products and service provided by Go Newclear can be seen here.
The obvious and clear connections of Go Newclear to the higher echelons of the Conservative party suggests that the highest levels of the Conservative party are involved in the clear and deliberate promotion of selected young candidates in certain ridings potentially at the expense of others. The presence of the handiwork of Go Newclear suggests that the pursuit of the youth vote may be part of a focused campaign at the National level. It seems apparent that, like the previous focused effort to secure the ethnic vote, that materials and a strategy were clearly being made available to certain young (and perceived electable) candidates by the party brass in key ridings.
The apparent promotion of these young candidates by party brass and sitting MPs (as noted above) in addition to a well-connected digital agency with clear and deep Conservative party ties raises a number of questions: Were all of the Conservatives nominees in these ridings given equal access to the template and materials provided by Go Newclear or was it just certain candidates (particularly the chosen and seemingly deemed electable, young ones) that were provided these materials? In my review of numerous websites of candidates from several different regions of the country, I have yet to find an older candidate that utilized the now familiar young and hip Go Newclear template. If all candidates were given equal access to the Go Newclear materials, is it just a coincidence that only certain young candidates seem to be utilizing the template provided? Does the apparent promotion of these young candidates potentially at the expense of others on the part of the Party cross the line in terms of the fairness of the nomination process within Conservative constituencies? Does the support of these young candidates at the senior party level constitute meddling in the affairs of local Conservative constituencies and nomination races?
Interestingly, a recent CBC news article (Dec. 29, 2014) suggested that the Conservatives have quietly nominated approximately 60% of their candidates for the upcoming election. It will be interesting looking forward to see if the pattern established and described in the following holds in the upcoming Conservative nomination races that are still to be decided. This pattern includes: (1) the putting forth of and/or preference of a young candidate by the party and the party brass, (2) the selective endorsements of young candidates by sitting MPs and party brass over other candidates, (3) the use of templates and materials supplied by the party via Go Newclear to selected individuals, (4) increased interactions between these young candidates once nominated, and (5) the passing over of older candidates without much perceived political upside in favour of candidates potentially handpicked for their perceived electability on a number of narrow attributes? If I were a Conservative candidate running in any upcoming and/or future nominations I would be very wary if I was running against a young candidate using the familiar Go Newclear template and brandishing endorsements from sitting MPs and party brass as the chances that I would be winning the upcoming nomination would appear to be not be so good. It should be noted that not all young Conservative candidates utilized the Go Newclear template. It is unclear whether this means that they just choose not to utilize it or if they were not offered it for use.
It seems that Mr. Laidler, the young, and dare I say handsome, articulate, and a veteran to boot! candidate in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam (pictured above, third from left) would appear to be the poster boy for this new-found focused strategy especially when one considers the AV club vibe that one gets from most of the rest of the candidates identified above. Consider again the recent numerous endorsements and the recent partisan promotion of Mr. Laidler on the public’s dime, etc. from party brass and you can see that the party is clearly actively promoting Mr. Laidler for a number of reasons. I would suspect from the interaction going on between the various young Conservative candidates identified that they will all be part of some upcoming “New Conservative Generation” campaign that James Moore may have slyly hinted at back in November.
Turning our attention back locally and to the nomination race in my home riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam, I do wonder if all of the other Conservative candidates for the nomination within the riding were aware of what was going on prior to the nomination meeting? By his own admission, Mr. Laidler only recently moved into the riding and has only a somewhat distant past connection to the riding having grown up in Anmore. Did the other nominees know that Party sources were potentially providing resources exclusively to Mr. Laidler? Did they really even have a realistic chance against Mr. Laidler when it really came down to it? Would the party have let someone else represent Port Moody-Coquitlam other than “the chosen one” given their investment in him and his perceived larger value to the party and cause?
I do wonder how many other earnest and sincere candidates in Port Moody-Coquitlam as well as in other ridings were pushed aside by the party as they didn’t fit the new contrived mould (them being too old, etc.) and/or because they just happened to be running in a riding in which certain young chosen ones were running? In the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam, the local popular Head of the Chamber of Commerce, Janine Davies, who one normally would think would be a “shoe-in” for the Conservative nomination, was unsuccessful in her candidacy. Was she as well as the other impressive local nominees with significant local ties to the riding perceived by the party brass and sitting MPs to be less of an asset than Mr. Laidler and subtlety (or not so subtlety perhaps) pushed aside accordingly? Did she and the other candidates for the nomination just have the plain misfortune of seeking the nomination in one of the ridings selected for the presence of one of “the chosen ones”? Are these young candidates the best people being put forward by the Conservative party or are they only those that fit a narrowly preconceived cluster of electable criteria established by party insiders?
It could be argued that the recent Canada Apprentice Loan program could also be part of a calculated effort to court the youth vote too. BTW, is this program the updated 2015 appeal to former Harper strategist Muttart’s archetypal swing voter “Dougie”?
Is it just a coincidence that Prime Minister Harper has as a backdrop the flag and a large number of youthful workers? Then there’s the summer intern program for university students.
You could also argue that the recent tax cuts and increased child care benefits could also be part of the larger strategy to appeal to youth as who else has young children? Is this the updated 2015 appeal to former Harper strategist Muttart’s archetypal swing voters “Steve and Heather”?
Many of the sections of the party’s platform for supporting families could also be interpreted stepping back as a direct appeal to youthful voters. Sensing a pattern yet? Note that Mr. Kenney’s name comes up constantly in association with these younger candidates and initiatives. I have definitely chosen to focus on him and his social media accounts as he was arguably one of the main architects of the strategy of focused engagement during the last election. It seems to me that it is a tell that he seems so active in regards to youth matters.
So, is this all so far-fetched? As noted, you may remember during the last election that the Conservatives initiated a concerted effort to court the ethnic vote. At the time the thinking was that the base demographic for the Conservatives was getting older and frankly smaller year by year and the Party Brass came to the realization that they need a new source of supporters in order to have a legitimate shot at gaining a majority in the House of Parliament. As a way of trying to bolster support, the Conservatives smartly identified a target group (the substantial immigrant and recent immigrant population) and hatched a plan in order to specifically appeal to these voters. Ethnic voters, who had long been considered largely Liberal and NDP supporters, were identified as a potential source of votes and accordingly, a party led strategy was initiated in order to court the ethnic vote. This initiative, which appears to have been largely led by Jason Kenney, was accompanied by directives and materials supplied by the higher echelons of the Conservative Party and the identification of target ridings which were perceived to be ripe for the picking. Evidence of this can be found here. The eventual result was, as we are all aware, that the Conservatives were able to achieve a majority and retain power with only 39% of the popular vote in part as a result of their new-found success in certain targeted riding that had substantial ethnic populations.
Fast forward to 2015 and a new dilemma has now appeared. The Conservatives have now largely tapped the ethnic vote, their base is still getting older and smaller year-by-year, they are in trouble over the economy, and they are now looking for a new source of votes in order to retain power. But where are they going to get these votes? I believe that the Conservative party has already identified this potential new source of Conservative support and, like the ethnic voters in 2011, the source of these new votes appears counterintuitive. It is in fact young voters. The justification for this youth movement on the part of right-wing parties can be found here. Going after youth represents an opportunity to renew the party and put a new face on what is largely an old tired image. Whether or not they will be successful in attracting young voters remains to be seen but it seems clear that the Conservative party is betting on this as part of their strategy for the upcoming election. The evidence would suggest that that is indeed the case.
Note the banner above from a Conservative riding association. Just who are they trying to appeal to here?
Conservative Minister Jason Kenney and Conservative Candidate Tim Laidler
Considering the most recent news release issued by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs followed almost immediately (within a few days) by two tweets, (Tweet #1 and Tweet #2), issued by the official Twitter account of Jason Kenney, the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism, it appears that the full on promotion of Mr. Tim Laidler as a Conservative candidate within the highest echelons of the Conservative Party has now begun. Mr. Laidler is the Conservative candidate for the newly established riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam in the suburbs of Vanouver, a new riding that takes in portions of James Moore’s former riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam. As you may be aware, Mr. Laidler is an Afghan veteran who is extremely supportive of the Conservative government and in that sense, is very politically useful for the Conservatives in countering the public beating that they have been taking recently over their treatment of veterans. An example of Mr. Laidler’s partisan and unwavering defence of the Conservative’s handling of Veterans Affairs during the reign of former Minister Julian Fantino can be found here. It should be noted that this particular episode of “The West Block” aired a mere 15 days before Minister Fantino was replaced as the Minister of Veterans Affairs and officially demoted to associate minister of National Defence, a junior portfolio position that has been vacant for the majority of the past five decades.
Of the two most recent tweets by Minister Kenney, one of them caught my eye and is shown below. In the tweet, Mr. Kenney expresses his pleasure at meeting some of the former Afghan translators that came to Canada as part of a special program and he thanks Tim Laidler. This is of course, wonderful to see as these individuals performed a great service for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan and it is great to see that they are being taken care of. These former translators were often the targets for reprisals once the Canadian Mission ended so anything that we as a nation can do to help them is great. Mr. Laidler had previously argued that Canada should help these former translators and he should be commended for that and I am pleased to see that he was successful in his lobbying.
There is however a somewhat awkward irony about the tweet that may not be immediately apparent upon first view. One must remember that this is the same Jason Kenney who personally issued a niqab ban in citizenship ceremonies while he was the Minister of Immigration. This ban is currently the subject of a lawsuit as the Government of Canada is currently being sued by a Pakistani woman living in Mississauga. According to the CBC, “at the time, Kenney said the niqab represented a view of women that is unacceptable in Canada.” This edict was roundly criticized at the time with many suggesting that racist views underlied the edict rather than any procedural issue and that the edict was an “act of racism and abuse of power”. Mr. Kenney has also recently come under fire for not deleting anti-Muslim comments on his official Facebook page when posts critical of the Conservative government are of course quickly deleted. Examples of these offensive posts can be seen here.
So stepping back what you see in this particular tweet is the political partisan use of the former Afghan translators and, at the same time, the cross promotion of Mr. Laidler, the Conservative candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam. Underlying all this is a smiling, self-promoting Mr. Kenney seemingly saying “while we appreciate what you did for us in Afghanistan, for goodness sakes don’t expect your wives to be allowed to wear their niqab wherever they wish”. I wonder if the former Afghan translators knew about Mr. Kenney’s background and his apparent personal views whether they would have been so willing to have their picture taken with him. Again, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Laidler obviously has no control over the contents of Mr. Kenney’s tweets and/or the usage of photos that he is a part of. I am merely pointing out the irony of the Tweet given Mr. Kenney’s apparent personal views.
I will accept that it could be argued that the above may be making something political out of something that was not intended to be political. In my defence, I would remind the reader that, as suggested by Gregory Thomas, director of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation in reference to the political use of offices and official accounts both by the sitting government and opposition parties,
“They are all doing politics 24/7 365 [days a year],” he said. “You can pretty much expect that anything that comes out of those offices is going to be of a partisan nature, whether supporting or opposing what the government is doing.”
This definitely appears to be the case in regards to the two recent tweets issued by Mr. Kenney and the most recent news release from the Ministry of Veterans Affairs as well as the pictures below. Pulling out all the stops on this one. Yikes.
Erin O’Toole’s 2015 Damage Control Tour, Western Leg
Another wonderful example of the Conservatives’ partisan political use of public resources is provided by a recent news release put out by the Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs on Thursday, January 15, 2015. This news release also had a local Port Moody-Coquitlam angle hence why it is being addressed and discussed here.
The news release, which is reproduced below, describes a meeting that took place on Thursday, January 15, 2015 between the new Minister of Veterans Affairs Erin O’Toole and various veterans stakeholder groups in Vancouver. So far so good you say. What’s wrong with that? Well, what is notable about the release is that its focus, both in the photo provided and in the accompanying text, is exclusively on Tim Laidler of the Veterans Transition Network and the Minister of Veterans Affairs Erin O’Toole at the expense of all the other groups and participants (who remain nameless in the text and faceless in the accompanying photo). What is notable about this, for those of you who may not be aware, is that Mr. Laidler is the Conservative candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam in the suburbs of Vancouver and is a staunch supporter of the Conservatives handling of Veterans Issues and of Former Minister Julian Fantino going so far as to suggest that complaints about Veterans’ treatments were “coming from a vocal minority and, in some cases, from partisan groups”. So stepping back for a moment what you have is a sitting Conservative minister and a would-be Conservative minister sympathetically portrayed and featured at the expense of all the other nameless and apparently faceless participants at the meeting without any acknowledgement or disclosure of Mr. Laidler’s ties to the Conservative party. What this is of course is the shameless promotion of two Conservatives and the whitewashing of the recent problems at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, all on the public’s dime. There may have been a time when such a blatant use of the public trough and resources would have at least been toned down voluntarily out of respect for the integrity of public office, but those days seem long gone now and all pretense of non-partisanship has seemingly gone out the window. Any hint of partisanship in the news release could have been avoided by the equal promotion of all the other groups and the equal promotion of all of the other participants and groups at the meeting but that clearly was not the intention here. It must be acknowledged it would be ridiculous to suggest that Mr. Laidler had anything to do with or could have influenced the content of a news release from the Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. This is definitely the handy work of someone in Media Relations in the Office of the Minister of Veterans Affairs (as suggested by the source byline at the bottom of the release).
What is really unfortunate here is that the overt partisanship displayed within the news release detracts from the true message that the participants at the meeting are trying to convey: that they are all working together with the common goal towards helping veterans and addressing veterans’ concerns. Instead, intentionally or not, the news release relegates Veterans’ concerns to a political tool that can be exploited for both personal and party gain. Very sad that it has come to this. I guess an election can’t be too far around the corner after all.
Tim Laidler and the since dumped former Minister of Veterans Affairs Julian Fantino.
Interesting development today as Julian Fantino was dumped by Harper from Veterans Affairs. Interesting as Mr. Fantino was a big supporter of Tim Laidler going so far as to repeatedly making Facebook and Twitter posts heaping praise and support for Tim Laidler as the Conservative candidate for Port Moody-Coquitlam.
Post promoting Tim Laidler as the candidate for Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party posted on Julian Fantino’s official Facebook account.Post promoting Tim Laidler as the candidate for Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party posted on Julian Fantino’s official Twitter account.Post promoting Tim Laidler’s candidacy posted on Julian Fantino’s official Twitter account.
In turn, Mr. Laidler was a big supporter of Mr. Fantino and the Conservatives’ handling of Veterans Affairs. Below is an excerpt detailing Mr. Fantino’s time as the Minister of Veteran’s Affairs:
“He (Fantino) found himself in political hot water almost from the moment he took the post.
Under Fantino, the department came under heavy fire from veterans groups, the veterans ombudsman, the auditor general and the political opposition.
Fantino’s efforts to defend office closures, job cuts, lapsed budget money and tweaks to pensions and benefits provoked anger from veterans and scorn from the NDP and Liberals.
There were public relations gaffes, including a much-publicized — and televised — confrontation with veterans, and the sight of Fantino walking down a parliamentary hallway, ignoring shouted questions from the wife of a former soldier.
Government lawyers went to court to argue that the government has no special responsibility to care for veterans, although that had been iron-clad policy since the First World War.
There were howls of protest when it was learned the department had allowed more than $1 billion of its budget to lapse and return to the federal treasury since 2006. The anger only grew when the department admitted spending $4 million on ads last year promoting its efforts to help veterans return to civilian life.
Reports detailed the troubles veterans encountered getting help and benefits from the department. Other studies suggested that wounded veterans would face poverty once they hit age 65.”
Mr. Laidler’s support for Mr. Fantino and the Conservatives’ handling of Veterans Affairs appears to be a clear case of political partisanship clouding his judgement. Is this what we want from our representative in Port Moody-Coquitlam? If elected, would he let his partisan view cloud his judgement in other areas too?
Following the publishing of the original Who is Tim Laidler, the Politician? post, I was able to access a website that included some content captured from the original timlaidler.ca website which appears to have been utilized during the nomination campaign. The captured content can be seen here. Interestingly, the captured content includes the statement:
My platform is founded on the ideals of moving Canada towards a Strong Economy and Jobs, establishing World Class Care for Veterans in our country, Putting Families First, and a Focus on Port Moody – Coquitlam.
What is indeed curious about this statement is that “establishing World Class Care for Veterans in our country” implies that Canada currently does not have World Class Care for Veterans. Curious that Mr. Laidler would choose to criticize the party that he is running for in his platform for nomination particularly when Mr. Laidler has been a staunch defender of the Conservative’s treatment of Veterans arguing instead that complaints about Veterans’ treatment are coming from a vocal minority and, in some cases, from partisan groups. Maybe Mr. Laidler actually agrees with the vocal minority and allegedly partisans groups after all?
The “Putting Families First” statement appears to be an homage to the BC Liberal party mantra during the last election. It should be noted that it is possible that the captured content may not have been the actual final content utilized during the nomination campaign. Only Mr. Laidler would be able to confirm that.
Tim Laidler, Conservative Candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam
As a resident of Port Moody and the Tri-Cities for the past 15 years, I was intrigued to find out more about Tim Laidler, the recently announced Conservative candidate for the newly established riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam as I personally had never heard of him previously and knew nothing about him or his background. Accordingly, I started my search for information concerning Mr. Laidler.
What I found was extensive information concerning Tim Laidler, the veteran. Like many I’m sure, my initial impressions of Mr. Laidler were highly favourable. He is young (late 20’s), dare I say handsome, a veteran of the Afghan conflict, with a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology from UBC. Very impressive indeed. It appears by all accounts that he is a tireless worker and campaigner on behalf of veterans’ rights and issues, who focuses on helping veterans transition back into society, particularly those who are dealing with Post-traumatic Stress Disorders, via the Veterans’ Transition Network (VTN), of which he is Executive Director.
But how you may ask does this distinguished background qualify you for Federal office (or any kind of political office for that matter) particularly when you have never run for or held a political office at any level (whether at the Provincial or Civic level) previously? If being a veteran, acquiring a graduate degree, providing selfless service to the community and Nation, and being an eloquent and prolific public speaker on issues on which you have expertise were exclusively the only necessary requirements to attaining public office, thereby giving you a pass on election night to election victory, then by all rights, Gaetan Royer should be the current Mayor of Port Moody as he too is a veteran having served in Bosnia, has a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from Queens, and has spoken numerous times on planning and intra-governmental issues. However that clearly isn’t the case. As such, putting his considerable personal achievements aside for the moment, I am still left with the question as to what exactly does Mr. Laidler stand for politically and who is he? In other words, who is Tim Laidler the politician? Why should I as a constituent of the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam vote for him other than in order to support a veteran? What are his views on the environment? Does he agree with the use of omnibus bills and all other aspects of the current Conservative administration under Stephen Harper, etc.? The answers to these questions unfortunately so far are not so easy to discern.
In attempt to answer who Tim Laidler, the politician is, I initially tried to access his promotional website, TimLaidler.ca/why I’m running. This website was utilized by Mr. Laidler to promote his candidacy for the Conservative nomination in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam. I tried to access the site in order to see indeed exactly that, why was he running. However, that webpage no longer exists. I became aware of its prior existence as it was identified in a series of old tweets including a tweet on Twitter on June 28, 2014 and was also referred to in a tweet posted by James Moore on August 13, 2014, the day after Mr. Laidler’s nomination meeting. The domain timlaidler.ca is currently being utilized as the website for Former Anmore Councillor Tim Laidler’s, Remax realty listings (his father’s business). The deletion of the webpages and the information that it contained is somewhat curious considering that all the other promotional candidate websites for all of the fellow candidates for the Conservative nomination (Bernie Hiller, Maria Javier, and Janine Davies) are all currently still active and I can easily see what these people stand for and their extensive ties to the local community. Curiously, only Mr. Laidler’s webpages have been taken down. One wonders why a candidate would not want their information to remain out there? Shouldn’t a website saying why you ran be a benefit for you as a candidate?
Very few clues are provided as to who Mr. Laidler, the politician is by Mr. Laidler’s promotional candidate’s video. This video was produced as part of the nomination campaign leading up to the eventual nomination meeting which took place on August 12, 2014 where Mr. Laidler won on the third ballot. The majority of the promotional nomination video is taken up by various TV news clips documenting his distinguished work on behalf of veterans (telling the Mr. Laidler the veteran story) but where is the information concerning him and his political views and his vision for the country? Near the end of the video there are a few short statements regarding the economy which are so vague and so void of actual content that no one could argue or disagree with them as they lack any real substance or meaning. I too am “for trade”. Perhaps more detailed policy discussions took place at the nomination meeting itself. Unfortunately, only those present would know.
Digging deeper, it appears that Mr. Laidler is not the political neophyte that he appears to be trying to project. In fact, digging deeper it appears that Mr. Laidler has been until relatively recently, heavily involved in both Civic and Provincial politics in the City of Vancouver (note not in the Port Moody-Coquitlam area where he only recently took up residence by his own admission with him stating on June 25, 2014 that he had only “recently moved to Port Moody”).
The following details what is publically available concerning Mr. Laidler’s prior participation in both Civic and Provincial politics in the City of Vancouver. According to his linkedin profile, from September 2011 to March 2014, Mr. Laidler was a Board Member of the NPA (Non-Partisan Association) in Vancouver. Below is a photo taken from a November 15, 2013 Georgia Straight Article showing Mr. Laidler at the announcement of the NPA candidates for the last civic election. Mr. Laidler is quoted in the article.
Mr. Laidler campaiging for BC Liberal Candidate Fatima Siddiqui in the riding of Vancouver Hastings.Mr. Laidler campaiging for BC Liberal Candidate Fatima Siddiqui in the riding of Vancouver Hastings.
The irony of one Federal candidate accusing another fellow Federal candidate of meddling in civic politics by posting tweets to two local papers, thereby meddling in civic politics was clearly lost on Mr. Laidler. These two tweets are also somewhat ironic in retrospect as the whole notion of slate politics during the most recent Port Moody civic election has recently been described by two local political pundits in the Tri-City News as being a “red herring”.
By now you might be getting an idea about Mr. Laidler’s political leanings and his political background but what about his views on major issues such as the environment? Some insight into this are provided by the transcript of the City of Port Moody National Energy Board Trans Mountain Town Hall Meeting that took place on June 25, 2014. During the meeting, at which numerous environmental concerns over the Trans Mountain pipeline project were expressed, Mr. Laidler stood up, walked up to the mike, and made the following statement/question.
Tim Laidler, Port Moody: Hi there. I grew up in Anmore, but I have recently moved into Port Moody. I think what we’re faced with here is weighing the risks and the benefits of the project. So my question is specifically around the economic benefits and some of the jobs numbers. I, myself, served in Afghanistan with the Canadian Forces and, since coming home have been working at a non-profit organization helping Veterans transition with things like PTSD. And what we found from the veterans is we can help them with some of the psychological issues from war, but if they don’t get back into meaningful careers, they tend to struggle quite a bit. So what would be really important to me and to my colleagues who are all transitioning back into the work force is some of those job numbers, during the construction, but also are there going to be jobs after the construction. Also the second question is around the access to world markets. I’ve heard that a lot, and I was wondering if you could explain that a little bit better.
Michael Davies: Okay, there is a lot there. In terms of economic benefits, it’s a $5.4 billion construction project. About 60% of that will be spent in British Columbia. There will probably be about 4,500 jobs at the peak of the construction and 750 of those would be in Burnaby. And those would develop benefits or spinoffs for all of the local communities along the pipeline and, particularly, there is a lot of construction that is proposed for the Lower Mainland here. In terms of longer term jobs, we have about 130 employees in BC now. I think there would be about another 90 jobs in total in Trans Mountain. About 50 of those would be in BC. What Scott didn’t get to with his part of the presentation around Western Canada Marine Response and those new spill bases and the expansion of the existing spill response; that would probably result in, and the early estimates right now is probably 90-100 new positions as well in those communities along, well there would be more here in Burnaby as well, but certainly along the route through the Salish Sea. The, we pay local taxes. We pay about $50,000 a year in taxes to Port Moody for the piece of pipeline that we have now. That’s not going to change because there is no change to the pipe, but the local taxes in BC would increase by about $20 million. About $6 million of that is for the City of Burnaby. So there are some significant benefits. Those are the ones that are directly related to the project. The second part of your question is about world markets. Of late, the price of oil in North America has been about $20-$30 less per barrel than what it is in the rest of the world. Canada can only sell into the continental US market, that market with the depressed price. So we are selling our oil to the US at a markdown price, where if we had access to tide water and global markets, we would be able to, I mentioned earlier two million barrels a day that is exported, we would have the opportunity to raise the price of those two million barrels a day by $20-$30. That’s a big part of what this project is about. Now those differentials come and go. Things will change in the market and they won’t always be there, but the point is that when they occur, Canada has no opportunity to take advantage of that. And that’s where the interest is in expanding our infrastructure to be able to serve international markets.
Tim Laidler: Thank you. Can I do a follow-up? (Sure.) I just want to say thanks. That answers my questions. And I just wanted to offer something to the process here. Again, my experience in Afghanistan, we saw a lot of community type forums like this that were not nearly as civilized, so I think we all are doing a pretty good job in the process. Thanks so much to the City of Port Moody for hosting.
A link to the video of the Port Moody Town Hall Meeting can be found here on the City of Port Moody website. Go to 78:21 to see Mr. Laidler’s participation in the meeting. Please consider his question/statement in the context of the rest of the questions that were being asked that day and remember that at the time of the Town Hall Meeting that Mr. Laidler was already actively seeking the Conservative nomination for the riding (note the date on the tweet below indicating that a reception took place almost a full month before the Kinder Morgan hearings). However, he choose not to disclose that as part of his question/statement.
What are we to take from the Conservative candidate of Port Moody-Coquitlam’s question to the NEB concerning the Trans Mountain Pipeline project? Was he concerned about the environmental impacts of the project on his potential constituency? Clearly, the answer is no. Did he somewhat oddly repeat the same talking points about himself out of context when the only instruction to speakers from the NEB was to “clearly state their name, City of residence and whether they are representing a Port Moody business”. Well, frankly yes. Did he take the job values and economic spinoff values provided by the Trans Mountain representatives at face value? Yes, numbers that have since been shown to be greatly exaggerated as identified in the recently published SFU report (Nov. 10, 2014) entitled “Economic Costs and Benefits of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) for BC and Metro Vancouver” which clearly identifies that Kinder Morgan has inflated the pipeline’s job numbers by a factor of three while dramatically underestimating spill costs. So where does Mr. Laidler stand on the singular most paramount environmental issue potentially facing the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam? Very difficult to say from his attendance and participation at the open house in June of 2014. His question to the NEB during the Town Hall meeting would seem to indicate that environmental concerns are not a concern of his at all so we’ll have to wait for his answer to that question during the upcoming election campaign.
Given the proceeding, what then do we now know about Mr. Laidler both the veteran and the politician? Undoubtedly, he is an honoured veteran who has provided great service to the Nation and his fellow veterans and who is very smartly courting the sizable Korean vote in the Tri-City area. No one can dispute his service to the country and its veterans and I as a citizen of this country will always be grateful and thankful for his sacrifices. I myself come from a military family with my father retiring after 26 years of service in the British Intelligence Corps at the rank of Major with my mother having been a British Army nurse in Africa so I am well aware of the sacrifices made by those serving their country. Taking Mr. Laidler’s military service and personal achievements with the VTN away for a moment however, and one is left with a young, possibly parachuted candidate who has never been elected to a political office at any level who has strong ties to the Vancouver NPA party and the BC Liberal party. Is that what we as residents of the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam want as our Federal representative? Are we as a riding looking for an importation of NPA-style politics to the Tri-City region? Do we want to be represented by a candidate with only distant past ties to the riding and the community? That ultimately will be up to the constituents of Port Moody-Coquitlam to decide. Given that Mr. Laidler won the Conservative nomination on August 12, 2014 on the third ballot of a preferential vote, this would suggest that Mr. Laidler was clearly not even the primary choice of many of those local Conservatives who attended the nomination meeting. Was it because he was perceived as an outsider in the riding and someone who was parachuted in possibly by the party with the backing of local MP James Moore? How does Mr. Laidler, a relative outsider, beat out the then Chair of the Tri-City Chamber of Commerce Janine Davies and two other far more locally tied candidates? Does Mr. Moore see himself in the young candidate? Is he a James Moore Mach II? Perhaps some of the unsuccessful candidates for the position or others who may have attended that meeting could shed light on what exactly happened at that meeting.
So far the majority of the information concerning Mr. Laidler, the politician has not, from what I have been able to discern, come out publicly which begs the following question: why did Mr. Laidler avoid mentioning any of his extensive prior political involvement in his nomination video for the riding? Did he consider it not relevant or was he trying to hide his fairly extensive political past as it didn’t follow the narrative that he is trying to project?
Tim Laidler meeting with Minister Findlay and failed Conservative Nominee and Former BC Liberal MLA Dave Hayer
In regards to Mr. Lailder’s recent residency and his overall appropriateness as a candidate for the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam, I would have to say this: I personally grew up in Vancouver, went to high school in Vancouver, completed my first two years of University at Langara, and my mother still lives in the City of Vancouver as she has done so for the past 44 years. This hardly qualifies me to run Federally in the City of Vancouver, to know all the intricacies of the issues in the City of Vancouver, to know the details of the day-to-day running of the City of Vancouver, and what the most important issues are Federally to the City of Vancouver, etc. However, I personally am not running for Federal office in Vancouver. For me to do so would be highly presumptuous of me and could be interpreted as being political opportunism. It could be argued that Mr. Laidler would be a far more appropriate candidate for the riding of Vancouver Quadra given his long-term residence in the City of Vancouver, his extensive experience at UBC, and his familiarity for the politics in the City of Vancouver at both the Civic and Provincial level. The Conservative nominee position is at the time of this writing (January 1, 2015) is still not filled. One wonders why Mr. Laidler didn’t choose to run in that riding or some other riding in the City of Vancouver rather than in Port Moody-Coquitlam as he clearly has more ties politically to Vancouver? Was it that he thought (or others thought for him) that he would have an easier time getting elected in Port Moody-Coquitlam rather than in Vancouver Quadra or some other Vancouver riding? Did he perceive (or others perceive for him) that it was going to be too difficult for Mr. Laidler to defeat Federal Liberal incumbent Joyce Murray or some of the other incumbents so instead it would be better for him to go “back to his roots”, a place that he hasn’t resided in for many, many years? Mr. Laidler certainly is familiar with Joyce Murray , the Liberal Critic for National Defense, as he attended and presented at a MP Connections Breakfast sponsored by Joyce Murray on Nov. 30, 2012 (pictured below).
Tim Laidler with Joyce Murray, the Liberal Party of Canada’s Critic for National Defense.
I suppose we will have to wait for the election campaign to start before we can ask him.
EDIT:
Since the original publishing of this blog post, Tim Laidler’s campaign webpage, http://www.timlaidler.ca, was published. Interestingly, Mr. Laidler’s bio page completely ignores his past political participation at both the civic and Provincial levels. Why would that be? Is it not relevant for a politician to discuss their political past? Being a director of the NPA (Non-Partisan Association) in Vancouver is quite an accomplishment politically. Why would you not acknowledge that? Could it be that being associated with the NPA and/or the BC Liberal Party could possibly be seen as a possibly detrimental to Mr. Laidler candidacy and possibly being elected in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam? Does it not fit the narrative that Mr. Laidler and his campaign are trying to portray? His recent move back to the Tri-Cities in 2014 after living many years elsewhere is also not acknowledged.
Also interesting about the campaign webpage is that none of the news articles on the webpage have hyperlinks that link back to the original articles. Only the website addresses are listed. It is possible that this is intentional as some of the comments associated with the original articles are highly critical of Mr. Laidler and perhaps he and/or his campaign wouldn’t want anyone to directly link to those stories in the fear that someone might actually read something that is not positive about Mr. Laidler.
As pointed out here and many, many other places elsewhere on this blog, Mr. Laidler’s lack of transparency is a constant theme. I can only hope that voters in the riding of Port Moody-Coquitlam will be able to see through the opportunistic candidacy of Mr. Laidler and vote for someone else (whoever that might be). The constituents of Port Moody-Coquitlam deserve a representative in Ottawa working for us not a Harper representative in our riding working for him.
Port Moody-Coquitlam Election 2015 