The PenOpticon

As a Canadian, I’ve more or less been forced to “dis” the federal Liberals since the infamous Sponsorship scandal. By this I mean I’ve grown disturbed, disgusted and ,consequently, a little bit disinterested in the current Liberal leadership race. If anyone asked, I’d kinda, maybe, sorta like to see Bob Rae have another shot. Rae might bring some much needed integrity to the position, along with a little wisdom acquired from getting beaten up by the right and the left during his tenure as Ontario Premier.

Whatever happens, I do not want to see Joe Volpe in the driver’s seat. In the still swirling wake of old Liberal scandals, it’s troubling that Volpe took contributions from children and spouses of drug company executives. It would be equally troubling if the Liberals had left office with a clean record. Even though these contributions were returned after the story broke, it demonstrates (yet again) that the federal Liberals have a long way to go before they’ll earn the trust of voters again.

Adding to the taint of the whole story is this weekend’s news that a website parodying Volpe was removed at the request of his campaign office. The Globe and Mail quotes Brenden Johnstone as saying “my Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with…”. Of course, CIRA officials deny they removed content at the request of a political campaign office, insisting their actions were necessary because the domain owner would not provide Canadian contact information. Who knows? The truth may be out there, but it’s down for the count.

I mention all of this — though it’s rapidly becoming old news — to highlight the short version of Volpe’s “story” as posted in Wikipedia and to point out that neither FIRA nor CIRA can remove content such as the parody of Volpe’s questionable campaign fundraising practices. Once expressed, free speech such as this can be awfully hard to control.