OK - Spit it Out
NOW!
As BC Mary points out this afternoon, thanks to an inquiry by a concerned citizen to Elections BC, there is no reason, AT ALL, for all the information recently released (after FIVE LONG YEARS and an FOI) from the Campbell government's secret vault to be unavailable to the public at this time.
According to M. Nola Western, CA -Executive Director, Electoral Finance & Corporate Administration, Elections BC:
The Election Act does not require registered political parties to make parts of their websites inaccessible during a campaign period. I am unable to provide any clarification on why some sites may appear to be inaccessible.
So, unless Gordon has sold the province to China, and doesn't intend to tell us until after the election, if ever, it's time the people had access to the information they need to make an informed choice on May 12.
Otherwise, all I can do is speculate about various scenarios that would be maligned as conspiracy theories. All the anti-NDP drivel at the BC Liberal Government Caucus website has been available all along, of course. It hardly seems right that gratuitous attacks by Liberal hacks should be available while actual PUBLIC documents are behind some StoneWall in the name of fairness(?)!!!!!!!!!!
posted by kootcoot at 3:31 PM
2 Comments:
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Right on, Koot.
After all, I was searching for a one-page letter amongst the 8,000 pages of Basi-Virk documents ... not election posters!
I wanted a copy of the letter signed by Gordon Campbell and Lara Dauphinee recommending that Bobby Virk be hired as aide to the Minister of Transportation. A letter written almost 8 years ago is not exactly an election issue.
And even if it was ... have B.C. elections become illegal??
Leonard Krog provided a public service when he applied to the court for copies of those 8,000 pages ... sorted them ... and got them up online for the public to read.
I guess "Someone" didn't like that.
What also shocked me was that so many people quietly accepted the idea that The Law wanted us locked out. That's the scary part: so many people accepted it and tried to "obey".
Whew! What is happening to us?
Very special thanks to "Concerned Citizen of B.C." who tackled the problem and resolved it.
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Forgive me if I'm daft here Koot,
But the answer Elections BC gave to BC Mary isnt incorrect- the parties CAN maintain their party websites that are funded with donations etc.
However, my understanding as I have been told is that they are required to take their government caucus sites offline because they are funded with public/government dollars.
The NDP clearly have taken all of their caucus website offline and it appears not to be accessible by any links.
The Liberals, as you have pointed out several times, HAVE NOT taken their site offline, only the home page. It is clearly still accessible to any person with half a brain who knows how to Google.
I would say that this means the Liberals are in violation of the Elections Act, if it is indeed true that their caucus sites must be taken offline, and I fired off an email to elections bc just now with the links etc to show this.
They have gotten in a good week and a half with it...
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