Peter Braid Wins Award for Asking Really Stupid Questions

Wikipedia describes a push poll as:

A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll .... little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data.

Instead, the push poll is a form of .. propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as a poll.

Harper's buddy, Karl Rove, was a master at push polling and the Reformers have developed their own Canadian style, under the guise of keeping constituents informed.

They do this mainly through what is called a ten per center, a term most Canadians are now all too familiar with.

After years of complaints by opposition members, with nothing being done; some have decided that if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em. Not the best approach since the corporate media now justify the Reformer's vile behaviour by presenting similar by the NDP or Liberals.

However, statistics have shown that Harper's party abuses this privilege more than double the times by all other parties put together.

Blogger Rupert Taylor reports on one that he received from Peter Braid, and lists the absurd questions asked by a man who is proving to be a master of miscommunications.

1. “Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party, was quoted in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record on April 19, 2004 saying, ‘We will have to raise taxes.’ Do you support a tax hike?”"

See how that was done? Right off the top he he uses 'Liberal - Ignatieff -raise taxes', to plant the seed of an idea. The fact that it was misleading, since Mr. Ignatieff did not say he was going to raise taxes, only that it might be an option to erase the deficit. Braid doesn't care what a respondent's answer is, because it doesn't matter. That was not the intent of the question.

2. “Are you satisfied with the performance of Prime Minister Harper?”

A legitimate question, though I'm told that anyone who returns this flyer to the address provided, and checks 'yes', has their name added to a database, and used in future fundraising.

3. “Do you approve of the Conservative government’s handling of the global recession?”

Wow! Handling of the global recession? Aren't we full of ourselves? But as Mr. Taylor points out "Barack Obama ... Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Yukio Hatoyama, and a few others have a bit of input." However, what this question does is deflect blame for the way the Conservatives have been mishandling our finances, to the 'global recession'. Not their fault. I beg to differ.

4. “Are you satisfied with the over $112 million in local investment Peter has helped secure for the riding since being elected in October 2008?”

A little self-promotion, but anyone who knows how this party operates, knows that Braid would have very little to do with securing anything. This is done at party central, and since this riding is vulnerable, unelected officials decided to throw OUR money into it.

5. “As part of its Economic Action Plan, the Conservative government will make $5 billion in new, strategic investments for research and innovation. Do you agree with this use of tax money?”

Again a little plug for the bogus Economic Action Plan, that has proven to be nothing more than a PR stunt.

So next time you get one of these, tell the government that you don't appreciate this abuse of our tax money. Don't mail it back to the address shown but to the office of the MP who sent it. Then write a letter to the editor of your local paper and the one of the offending MP, to let them know that this is totally unacceptable.

Canadians are not as stupid as the Reformers would like us to be, so they can keep this nonsense south of the border.

But now I have a couple of questions:

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA? IS PETER BRAID REALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR KITCHENER-WATERLOO?