This 2008 election will forever be burned in my mind as an image of puffin poop.
The Conservative Party started it, the opposition fostered it.

I don’t see just Stephane Dion getting shit upon from great heights. We all are. This is a nasty campaign with nasty behavior moving from the back rooms to the front of the camera, over the airways or across the computer screen.

In the 2006 election Conservative Party officials called their own ‘turds’ and ‘idiots.’

A former Ingersoll Ontario police chief was managing the campaign of Conservative Dave MacKenzie in Oxford Ontario. Like many campaign managers he was trying to run a clean campaign and expressed concern about the in and out financing.

The party’s regional organizer for South Western Ontario wrote back to assure Mr. Richards the plan was legitimate.  “There is absolutely nothing wrong with this,” John Bracken said in his email.  Mr. Richards replied that the Oxford campaign didn’t have enough space under its local spending limit to take on the extra $10,000 expense limit, anyway.

At the same time, Mr. Bracken was emailing with Michael Donison, the Conservative Party’s national director, who was quarterbacking the plan to bill local ridings for so-called regional media buys.

“These idiots in Oxford have now told me they don’t have room for the $10K,” Mr. Bracken wrote.  “These people really take the cake.”

Mr. Donison wrote back: “What a bunch of turds - this is not going to cost them a cent nor give them a moment of cash flow problem and in fact will allow them $6,000 more in their reimbursement and they still try to wiggle out!”

The Ottawa Citizen has the story. 
This is so high school.
The guy with honest questions, the guy with the ethics, gets buried in name calling and treated like a child.

In the emails, Mr. Donison advises Mr. Bracken to attempt to find another campaign to take on the $10,000 cost, but adds, “the fear of God needs to be put into these Oxford people and they need to be told that they may get billed for this and that it will (sic) their election expense under the Act.”

The fear of God.
Oh.

Next we find out we have had a Canadian agriculture minister who doesn’t have boundaries when it come to exercising black humour.

The phone call we’re hearing about took place August 30th.
This was a strategic call with scientists, bureaucrats and political staff responding to a public health crisis.
While everyone was gathering, Ritz worried out loud about the political impact of the Maple Leaf Foods recall/listeriosis outbreak, asking if there were any more bombs out there and wondering how to frame the message.

In other words he was worried about his political fortunes.
Canadians were dying, the company had closed it’s plant August 17th. 191 products would be recalled.

Ritz allowed himself moment or two to fret about his political future, knowing an election call was days away.
That is where most adults would stop, pull themselves together, be professional and chose to behave like a Minister of the Crown.

“This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts.”

I doubt many of the 30 people participating  were laughing.
In the course of the call Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was told another Canadian had died in PEI.

“Please tell me it’s (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter.”

Wayne Easter is the Liberal Agriculture critic.
The next day, September 1, 2008 Gerry Ritz had this to say:

The Harper Conservatives are scoffing at the notion that the listeriosis outbreak will become an issue in a federal election that is expected to be called within days.

Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz defended his government’s handling of the outbreak Monday and doesn’t see it becoming an political albatross around the Conservatives’ necks in a campaign.

“Politicians being what they were leading into an election cycle will continue to drag the political spectre through it,” said Ritz.

“That’s the nature of the politics of this type of situation and it’s unfortunate, but we’ve been focused on getting to the bottom of this and we continue to be that focused,” said Ritz.

The day before Gerry Ritz had made a  choice to treat professionals from across the country like little kids. Ritz chose a death to make a joke about a political opponent.
This is not a man who knows how to behave under pressure.

The worst Canadians can do to him is vote the MP for Battlesford-Lloydminister out of office.

To the whistle blower. Thank you.

The 30 people in on that call are undoubtedly in professional jeopardy, I suspect you factored that possibility in before speaking up.
Gerry Ritz is not a member of a political party which takes kindly to the exposure of their shame.

To the voters of Battlesford-Lloydminster - it’s your decision.
The Conservative Party of Canada won’t be making it for you.
12 Canadians were confirmed dead the day of the phone call, 38 people were known to be ill and there were 21 suspected cases across Canada attributed to listeria in Maple Leaf meat products.

17 people are dead. There will be more deaths, 47 people are ill.
If you’d been working for Maple Leaf foods and used gallows humour in a conference call, you’d have been sent packing Mr. Ritz.
Ritz wasn’t joking while issuing a public apology today.
He has been the only member of parliament for the Saskatchewan riding of Battlesford-Lloydminster since it was formed in 1996.

He did however tell media called to cover his apology to ‘get out of his face, please.’
That’s as accountable as he thinks he is going to be
Battlesford-Lloydminster, it is time to cut him out of parliament, one vote at a time.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal editorial (Listeriosis is the least of it) of September 16, 2008 is deadly serious.

It’s time voters were too.

The Maple Leaf Foods plant re-opened September 17, 2008.

Update: Scott Tribe looks at what matters: policy and the cuts that affect public health and safety.