This is why democracy and capitalism cannot co-exist.
Wouldn’t you just need 1 Flat Earther candidate?
This story broke over the weekend and I’m hoping that there is some clarification from Elections Canada about this soon. The story came from an environmental group who attended a seminar workshop with Elections Canada. So I’m hoping that the person running the workshop just spoke out of turn and someone more senior at Elections Canada can set the record straight.
The Conservative Party of Canada now takes the position that climate change is real but this is a recent change in the last few years. There have been previous elections where they took the position that climate change was not real and humans were not responsible. During that time environmental groups didn’t have stop talking about climate change.
There are a lot of advocacy groups in Canada who push for a wide variety of issues from environmental to public housing to poverty to gun control. They have in the past run ads during an election in Canada as they don’t promote a particular party. These groups will often ask questions to all political parties and then post responses on their website. I’ve often seen from these kinds of groups tables where breaking down each party lands on a number issues important to them.
So yeah, this latest report flies in the face of what Elections Canada has done in the past and doesn’t make any sense. Which is why I’m hoping they are busy right now crafting a carefully worded response on how someone junior said something incorrect at a workshop and how it should be.
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Elections Canada has been a model of nonpartisanship, I strongly suspect that this is a misrepresentation or misinterpretation of the law.
Running an ad about climate change without focusing on a particular party is nonpartisan. Running an ad attacking a particular party for their position on climate change is partisan.
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So, effectively, there are no facts, so long as anyone is of the opinion that any fact isn’t a fact. That’s… disturbing.
I mean, I guess I should be used to it as a result of US politics, but it’s still disturbing to see it codified, especially in another, seemingly more rational, country.
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Is the adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and is full of potholes? Because if not it’s not a Canadian road 
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Well-established scientific fact is a political opinion. Who do they think they are, Donny Two Scoops?
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They say that they’re going to look at it case by case, which is useless, because by the time an answer comes down, it’ll be too late.
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I’m sure they’ll do the same thing about paid advertising for the benefits of pipelines, or any of the other things that are election issues.
and only if it receives complaints.
This guarantees that there will be a political intern in every campaign in charge of finding or producing complaints.
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This just in: Gravity is fake news, feel free to float about at your leisure.
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which is a problem right now for canadian environmental groups
Tim Gray, executive director of the advocacy group Environmental Defence, says registering as a third party is onerous for groups like his and could draw unwanted attention from the Canada Revenue Agency, which prohibits charities from engaging in partisan activity if they want to maintain their tax exempt status.
It is “discouraging” that Environmental Defence and other charities might need to revise their messaging about climate change during the campaign period “because one party has chosen to deny the existence of this basic fact,” Gray said
via:
I’m floating about right now.
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CBC now has a lengthy explanation.
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That’s worded to sound like an all-clear, but there’s still a spending cap on advertising any election issue, even when it’s general advertising.
I wonder if anyone’s looking at the amount of pro-pipeline advertising that’s occuring?
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Meanwhile…
“Energy” and “move” were popular words in ads targeted in B.C., mostly due to ads from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) promoting pipelines as a solution to climate change and as a contributor to the economy. CEPA ran more than 1,250 ads nationwide, 280 of which were seen only in B.C., making it Facebook’s biggest political advertiser in the province.
Pipelines as a solution to climate change? A giant straw to suck the CO2 away?
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/s
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Carlsberg are currently running ads saying they’re probably not the best lager in the world.
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“Carlsberg definitely is the best lager in the world! Vote Fatman!”
