Spam... For #CdnPoli, It's What's For Dinner

Last night, the Canadian political Twitterverse exploded with indication -- from conservatives, at least -- over what appeared to be a censorship campaign against a Twitter account the Ethical Oil Institute has been using to promote its boycott of Lush Cosmetics.

Personally, I've never been that big a believer in boycotting critics of the oilsands. Boycotting them may hurt their business for a short period of time, but frankly I see it as just vengeful. A boycott may change someone's behaviour, but it doesn't change their mind. For supporters of the oilsands, the latter should be much more important than the former.

Now, with that aside, onto the censorship.

After a long Twitter conversation with Alheli Picazo, the alleged perpetrator of the censorship, I've personally come to the opinion that the entire affair is actually a mutual misunderstanding between Picazo and EOI. And I think it would be a good time to address what are some very important concepts.

Obviously, Twitter is still an emerging medium. Accordingly, it can often be difficult to classify the kind of interactions that take place over it. Take, for example, the belief popular amongst left-wing Tweeters that anyone who disagrees with them is a troll. It's almost certain that some of them are disingenuous in this -- it's simply a cheap shortcut to discount opinions of people who disagree with them. Others may believe it more genuinely, even if it's comically false.

But that's just one example. What's more important to the issue is how we understand what is or is not spam.

A quick case in point also involves Picazo, and took place a few weeks ago. Picazo recommended that her followers flag a pro-motion 312 Twitter account (Motion 312 is Conservative MP Stephen Woodsworth's motion to debate abortion). At that particular point, after quickly reviewing that account's feed, I actually agreed with her. The account was Tweeting identical messages over and over. Clearly an automated account in my view. So I agreed with her. Reporting that particular account for spam was just the right thing to do. Anyone who wants to support Motion 312 should come down here and debate like the rest of us.

As of the writing of this blogpost, the @BloodLushAlerts Twitter account has been suspended, so it's hard to see whether or not it was similarly sending identical Tweets. What does remain to be seen is that the user of the account responded to Picazo's suggestion that her followers report it for spam. She then reiterated her suggestion that it be reported for spam.

On its face, it may look bad. But I think there may be a better explanation for this than Picazo being censorious.

For one thing, Picazo seems to be operating with a different definition of spam than the rest of us. She defines "hardcore trolling" as spam. In her view, if someone is uninterested in any kind of actual dialogue -- and no hardcore troll really is -- then they're a spammer.

Does she have an argument? Absolutely she does. But did @BloodLushAlerts try to engage Picazo in dialogue? As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, they did. But this also led to a huge misunderstanding. In my view, I see it like this: Alheli Picazo misunderstood the intentions of the @BloodLushAlerts Twitter account, and recommended that her followers report it for spam. The operator of the account then misunderstood Picazo, and from there Picazo merely interrupted.

So what does my argument have in its favour? For one thing, history: in my view, Picazo was entirely right about the Motion 312 account -- as would anyone who received an unwanted "Truth About Tim" or "Queen's Park Update" Tweet, and reported the associated account for spam. For another thing, it has human nature on its side: both Picazo and the @BloodLushAlerts operator are human, and humans sometimes overreact.

Misusing Twitter's spam reporting procedures to censor other Tweeters has been a hot topic lately. Sheila Gunn Reid has been a victim of it. Others have as well. Mostly they tend to be conservatives, but Kikki Planet is fairly left-leaning, and she was victimized as well during the recent Alberta election.

I surmise that in this heated environment a lot of people -- including, at first, myself -- simply assumed that Picazo was maliciously censoring people. After a conversation with Picazo, I no longer believe that to be true.

As I understand it, Picazo still blogs at Rabble.ca. I'd say that the Twitterverse would benefit from hearing Picazo make her case for her definition of spam at greater lengths. I'd encourage her to make use of her soapbox there to tell her side of this story more publicly, and make her case for her definition of spam.

So far she seems to disagree with me about both things -- I consider trolling to be a problem separate from spamming, and that it should be handled in different ways -- but I genuinely think that she has a lot to add to this conversation.

How Yellow Journalism Vilified the Innocent... and How the Left Loved It

Facts, issues be damned -- the far-left is out for blood

Anyone who has ever spent a significant amount of time observing the left -- especially the far-left -- can easily conclude one thing: they don't like getting caught.

The farther left they are, the less they like being caught. And the more virulently they respond when they do get caught.

So when conservatives began to catch onto Tides Canada and its abuses of Canadian tax law to fund far-left political organizations with tax-deductible donations, it was only natural that the far-left's response would be both virulent and impotent.

Naturally, they would dig under any rock in sight in an attempt to identify conservative groups that they could tell people were also breaking the rules, regardless of whether or not those groups were actually breaking the rules. And so they chose the most predictable of targets: the Fraser Institute.

The left has hated -- nay, despised -- the Fraser Institute for years. The Fraser Institute is a continual source of quality research that consistently disagrees with the left. And so, in the narrow mind of every far-left zealot in Canada, the Fraser Institute is a front for the Conservative Party.

Never mind that nothing could be further from the truth; the Fraser Institute has proven to be as much a critic of the Harper Conservatives as of anyone else -- excepting the NDP, with whom the Fraser Institute can be expected to readily disagree.  And for good reason.


But that doesn't matter. The left is desperate to change the channel, to direct attention away from Tides Canada's funneling of money collected under the guise of being a charity into the coffers of political groups which would never be able to pass for a charity under Canada's tax laws -- organizations like PETA, The Tyee, and the Canadian Youth Climate Congress, among others.


The attack on the Fraser Institute began about a month ago, when the Vancouver Observer -- a far-left rag if there ever was one -- reported that the Fraser Institute had received donations from the Koch Foundation. Operated by US billionaires Charles and David Koch, the Koch Foundation has funded various conservative organizations. Often the Koch Foundation does indeed fund open political activity, but in the case of the Fraser Institute -- which engages in no such activity -- they were funding research projects.


Unlike the various left-wing organizations that received funding from Tides Canada, often coming from foreign donors, the Fraser Institute is not an advocacy group. It's a think tank. It does research and puts on events like student seminars. It's goal is to educate the public. Certainly, The Tyee could attempt to make the same claim, but when it received funds from Tides Canada, Tides Canada listed that grant as "Tarsands Campaign" in its tax returns.


If conservatives were scrutinizing the Parkland Institute or the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, perhaps the Fraser Institute would at least appear to be an appropriate target. At least it's actually the same thing as the organizations currently under scrutiny.


It's a predictable response from the left. With the Canada Revenue Agency already auditing Tides Canada, it seems inevitable that Tides Canada is going to lose its charitable status. So instead of examining their own practices and deciding whether or not the money laundering carried out through Tides Canada's charitable status was a good idea, their response is to try to draw some blood: to demand that the Fraser Institute be stripped of its charitable status.


It's childish, but that's pretty much what anyone should expect from these people.


Beyond the childishness of it, it's actually rather astonishing. In the face of the prospect that a far-left financial clearing house is about to lose its ability to help the far-left cheat, their solution is that the Fraser Institute be punished for not having broken any rules. Astonishing.


I've taken it upon myself to ask various left-wingers who complain about the funds the Fraser Institute received from the Koch Foundation just what they think the Fraser Institute has done wrong. Almost invariably they have no answer at all. They mumble something about "hypocrisy", then shuffle off into the twaddle of the Twitterverse where they belong.


But even in terms of "hypocrisy", these are people who just don't get it. They never have. This issue isn't just about taking funds from foreign organizations, but taking funds from foreign organizations and then campaigning to put Canadians out of work. And breaking the rules while they're at it.


It would certainly be interesting to know just what research the Koch Foundation issued grants for, the Fraser Institute has broken no laws, done nothing wrong, and is under no obligation to share that information, even if they probably should.


So enter the Globe and Mail's Gerald Caplan. Clearly frustrated that the Vancouver Observer's yellow journalism has gained absolutely no traction outside of the far-left, Caplan waited a whole month before he reported those "revelations" in his column for the Globe and Mail. For his own part, he took it upon himself to draw up a list of the Koch brothers' perceived sins, and attempt to make the Fraser Institute seem guilty by association. Frustrated with the inability of yellow journalism to turn the tide of public scrutiny in favour of the left and against organizations that have done nothing to warrant that scrutiny, Caplan simply reproduced the same yellow journalism at a larger paper.


It's sad that Caplan can think of nothing better to do with his soapbox than to attempt to villify an organization has done absolutely nothing wrong; sadder still that his editors didn't crumple his column up and toss it into the nearest wastebasket where it belongs -- or at least make judicious use of their delete key.


For their own part, the left can be counted on to wail at the injustice of the Fraser Institute being able to use its charitable status to do the things that charitable organizations in Canada are allowed to do, and retreat into silence when asked precisely what they think the Fraser Institute has done wrong.

Delivering the Death Blow to Thomas Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" Theory

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is a man with a theory. And like many previous men with many previous theories, he isn't willing to get go of it.

His theory is that the strength of Canada's resource sector -- particularly the energy sector, especially the oil sands -- hurts Canada's manufacturing sector. In greater detail, he argues that exports of energy resources have "artificially" inflated the Canadian dollar, making manufacturing exports more expensive to international buyers.

When Mulcair first floated this thesis, response to it was fairly tepid. But it has slowly picked up steam, and revealed to Canadians precisely how ill-suited Mulcair is to become Prime Minister. Even as all the evidence disputing Mulcair's thesis has trickled out, Mulcair refuses to back down. No matter how many economists dispute his thesis, Mulcair simply insists that "everybody knows" that Canada is suffering from Dutch Disease. Despite the fact that this can immediately be seen to be untrue.

There was Jack Mintz in the Financial Post pointing out that the so-called decline of the manufacturing sector in Ontario and Quebec closely mirrors that of US rustbelt states like Michigan and Ohio -- two states that don't have booming resource sectors to blame for their plight. Then there was the Institute for Research on Public Policy pointing out that Canada has a mild case of Dutch Disease at best, and that the symptoms suffered by the sectors of manufacturing that have struggled can actually be attributed to their products, and to their failure to reinvest in capital. Mulcair simply pretended that the IRPP report supported his thesis -- it doesn't -- and pro-NDP hacks on Twitter attacked Mintz on an ad hominem basis. Neither is what anyone would expect from people who are confident in their own theories.

Now, Philip Cross has delivered the death blow to Mulcair's thesis, pointing out that a stronger dollar is good for Canada, and that the benefits far outstrip any harm that a stronger currency would do. Cross points to the addition of low-wage, manufacturing jobs in Canada during the 1990s -- manufacturing products such as textiles, clothing and furniture -- at a time when other countries were shedding those jobs in favour of adding high-wage jobs. It's certainly no coincidence that those are the very manufacturing sectors that are suffering under a stronger Canadian dollar.

It's in the wake of this particular point that it becomes clear that Thomas Mulcair never heard of a man that you may have heard of... a man by the name of Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs was a person who never bothered making products of low differentiation and low complexity, even in compared to his immediate competitors. Nor was he a person who focused on making a product that was less expensive compared to his competitors. What the success of Steve Jobs, Apple, and their various products -- particularly the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone -- is that if someone wants or needs a particular product badly enough, they will buy it at a more expensive price. Certainly, nobody ever bought any of these products because they were less expensive. They weren't. Therein lies the shortest logical route in demonstrating Mulcair's thesis to be both shortsighted and foolish. And it applies to Canadian manufacturing just as much as it applies to resource exports.

In fact, the success of the oilsands, even with a stronger Canadian dollar, proves that people will buy what they need at a comparatively higher price if they want or need it badly enough. The United States badly needs Canadian oil. China badly needs Canadian oil. India badly needs Canadian oil. And they're all buying it, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar, and despite the detail that this makes Canadian oil more expensive for them to buy. As it turns out, the same has turned out to be true for Canadian manufacturing. Sales in most of Canada's manufacturing sectors have actually climbed, despite the strength of the Canadian dollar.

There's a reason for this: it's because in these particular cases Canada is making what consumers -- whether they're individual household consumers, companies, or entire countries -- want and need. And when that is the case, consumers are buying it despite any additional expense. This is what Thomas Mulcair clearly doesn't get: is that a lower Canadian dollar isn't a substitute for innovation in Canadian manufacturing, creating a quality product, or even simple competitiveness. It's been made clear that these are the things that are wrong with the sectors of Canadian manufacturing that struggle under a stronger dollar.

But Thomas Mulcair has clearly never heard of Steve Jobs. So Thomas Mulcair doesn't know that.

Kai Nagata, The Tyee & the Far-left's Ethical Oil Strawman

There was once a time when the left despised McCarthyism.

But as I consider the left's most recent anti-oilsands talking point -- raising the spectre of Chinese communism vis a vis Sinopec's interests in the Alberta oil sands -- it becomes impossible to believe that's still true.

It seems that the left actually loves McCarthyism -- when it's baselessly turned against their opponents.

In a recent YouTube video, produced by far-left propaganda rag The Tyee and uploaded to YouTube by none other than Kai Nagata -- who left a cushy job at CTV because it simply wasn't left-wing enough for him -- two Muppet-esque puppets, K Mart and Ezy E, rap about their dedication to the oilsands.

The video is actually everything you've come to expect from the far-left, a near-three minute mashup of ad hominem attacks on Ezra Levant and Kathryn Marshall. But it concludes with what is actually the most intellectually dishonest argument anti-oilsands argument the left has offered yet: that anyone supporting the oilsands and the Keystone XL pipeline have become handpuppets for Mao Zedong.

Ignore the obvious (that Zedong has been dead since 1976) and the even more obvious (that China is no longer actually a communist state in anything but name) and perhaps this seems like a devastating argument. But considering that the logical and factual shortcomings of the argument are so purely evident, and that individuals like Kagata continue to use it, and a simple, undeniable fact emerges:

These are people who just don't respect the intelligence of Canadians.

Even if China were a communist state, this would also a drastic about-face on the approach the left demanded be taken toward communist states since the 1960s, when the left insisted that the way to approach communist states was to engage with them, not attempt to isolate them. Isolating communist countries, they insisted, would only cause them to re-trench.

Not to mention a policy of isolation is just exceedingly poor geo-politics.

Simply put, China is not a country that will simply consent to being isolated, politically or economically. An inability to import oil from the oilsands won't reduce the Chinese economy's demand for oil one iota. Instead, China will seek to satisfy that demand by purchasing even more oil from places like Saudia Arabia, Iran, and the Sudan.

Whether Nagata and the rest of the far-left like this fact or not, that one's inescapable.

So it's a very simple question of whether these people think Chinese funds would be better spent purchasing the most ethical oil on the planet from Canada, or purchasing conflict oil from the Sudan, or oppression oil from Saudi Arabia or Iran.

Regardless of how they may try to squirm out of answering this question, it's predicated on an inescapable fact: China will import oil. Knowing that, it's a question of where they will import that oil from.

And where has their inability to answer this very simple question taken them? Into the dark realm of McCarthyism. One they used to hate, but now they indulge themselves in.

All the ad hominem attacks and McCarthyite strawmen in the world will not change this one inescapable fact, and it will not make this one inescapable question go away.

Tommy Douglas & The NDP's Vision for Canada's Oilpatch

The Far-Left's Great Varmint Hunt Leads Right Back to Them

Ever since Hillary Clinton made a reference to Saul Alinsky -- on whom she had written a thesis during university -- many conservatives have taken to examining the conduct of the far-left through an Alinskyite lens.

Famously, one of Alinsky's missives for the left was to always accuse their opponents of what the left themselves are doing.

What else could be at the core of the far-left's great varmint hunt centering around the Ethical Oil institute?

It began when CBC's Evan Solomon countered questions being asked by Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall about where the anti-oilsands movement is getting its money from. More and more, it's getting its money from outside the country. Solomon's question was whether or not EEI has received any money from Enbridge.

Solomon seemed to overlook the detail that Enbridge is a Canadian company. And sensing that they have nothing on their hands that will resonate outside the far-left echo chamber, they've instead taken to hunting for evidence a vast right-wing conspiracy.

And in order to do that, they've dug further into Marshall's personal life. What they've come up with is a shocking revelation that Kathryn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, who is a member of the Conservative Party Federal Council.

The far-left is feigning the vapours over this, but it's not really all that shocking at all. Nor is it really what they portray it is.

The Conservative Party stands nearly alone as the sole supporter and defender of the Canadian jobs the oilsands provide. It's not at all shocking that someone married to a Conservative Party official would also support the oil sands, and work with an organization that shares that common goal.

But perhaps the reason why the far-left has become so focused on this is because they honestly believe that conservatives do the same things they do: create elaborate front groups for their partisan political machinations, and expect people to see them as politically independent.

Take, for example, their favourite "news outlet", Rabble.ca. The site is almost dementedly far-left, a place where nearly any marginal far-left agenda can vent its spleen for the whole world to read -- although in all likelihood, comparatively few do.

One of their contributors is none other than David Climenhaga, a man who once described the Sun News Network as "Conservative Pravda", which is amusing considering that he's a contributor to a "news outlet" that is pretty much... well, Pravda. Just Pravda. Yeah.

The punchline is that Rabble.ca was co-founded by a woman by the name of Kim Elliott. Who is Kim Elliott? Well, among other things, she's NDP MP Libby Davies' life partner.

Is this enough evidence to proclaim Rabble.ca a front group for the NDP? In the minds of the far-left, it is.

The remarkable thing about Rabble.ca is that it's done a remarkable job of pretending to be a media outlet. They've even placed their own correspondent on Parliament Hill. They describe his reporting as "just reporting, not just reporting".

In other words, their correspondent reports stories that reflect Rabble.ca's interpretation of justice, which so often turns out to be justice for them, no justice for anyone else.

By the way, Rabble.ca's Parliament Hill correspondent is Karl Nerenberg.

All of this begs a question of how precisely one identifies a political front group. Perhaps the mere relation of one member of a particular organization through marriage isn't enough to define a front group.

The better way to judge a front group is by how devoted they are to the partisan interests of the political party in question. And there is no doubt Rabble.ca is relentlessly devoted to the partisan interests of the NDP.

Which is why the federal press gallery should waste no time in expelling Karl Nerenberg from the press gallery as quickly as they can. After all, it's not like he's there to do any actual news reporting.

Swapping Apples & Oranges

CBC's Evan Solomon is the worst magician ever.

On a recent edition of Power and Politics, Solomon made a decision: to take the side of Sierra Club executive director John Bennett against Ethical Oil Institute spokesperson Kathryn Marshall. In doing so, he attempted a magic trick:

He would take an apple -- Marshall's reference to the generous foreign funding enjoyed by environmental groups attempting to block the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline -- make it disappear, and as with all good magic tricks, make it reappear.

There was just one problem: when Solomon made the apple reappear, it was an orange. But he and Bennett tried to pretend it was still an apple.

Solomon countered Marshall's comments about the foreign funding enjoyed by these environmental groups by asking if the Ethical Oil institute received any funding from Enbridge.

The unintentional punchline is that Enbridge is a Canadian company.

Oops.

Of course, the next trick in the far-left anti-oil sands arsenal is then to attempt to write off the Ethical Oil institute as corporate shills. See, in the eyes of the far-left, even Canadian corporations are inherently evil and villainous, no matter what. Even if they're Canadian.

So then they'll try to make the issue about that: a classic bait-and-switch tactic.

Naturally, it never occurs to them that Enbridge might be donating to the Ethical Oil institute because they share common values, and because the work of the Ethical Oil institute is already beneficial to them.

Heaven forbid corporations donate money to organizations that share their values.