You have a Facebook: No Rallies for you!
Apr. 5th, 2011 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bcholmesConservative Leader Stephen Harper has long been known for martial discipline, but his campaign may have crossed the line when someone frog-marched a young woman out of a rally in London, Ont., Sunday.
The first-time voter’s crime, apparently, was to have posed for a picture with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and posted it for all to see on her Facebook page.
About half an hour before Harper arrived at the crowded hotel rally, one organizer asked to speak with Awish Aslam and a friend outside the room. There, he ripped up their nametags and ordered them to leave.
“We know you guys have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook,” the University of Western Ontario student recalled being told. “You are no longer welcome here.”
[...]
The incidents highlight the different campaign styles, particularly of the Tory and Grit leaders. Harper’s morning announcements are held at secure locations with adoring local partisans. To attend his evening rallies, people must pre-register with the local candidate’s campaign headquarters. As Aslam’s experience proves, those names are investigated to ensure opposition trickery does not obscure Harper’s message of stability and security for the nation.
“I just think when you get to a situation where people can’t come to a public meeting in Canada ... because they have a Facebook friend from another party, you’re in a bad place,” Ignatieff said Tuesday. “You’re in a very bad place, you’re in a very un-Canadian place.”
— "Harper’s closed-door campaign marches woman out of rally in London", The Toronto Star
I'm under no illusions that The Toronto Star is completely neutral in the way that it chooses to report on the election, but still.
Boo, Harper.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-05 06:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-05 07:22 pm (UTC)It seems conservatives cannot brook possible disagreement, even if silent.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-06 05:49 am (UTC)I fear the former may be the more accurate.