Roundup: The illogic of the fear campaign

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It’s difficult not to question the logic behind the Conservatives using that supposed threat from al-Shebab against West Edmonton Mall as a party fundraiser/data mining tool, particularly as the blowback starts to affect everyone around it. It defies logic that they tell people to still go shopping there while simultaneously whipping up a panic that they’ll be next on a terrorist hit list – never mind that al-Shebab is pretty marginal as an organisation and has neither the resources nor the reach outside of East Africa, and that by the government whipping up the hysteria around a video by a marginal group like this one, they’re playing right into the terrorists’ game – fomenting terror, no matter what the Conservatives’ objectives are. Meanwhile, merchants suffer – oh, but the fragile economy! – and cheerleader teams are pulling out of the competition being held at said mall, ostensibly because their insurance companies are freaking out (never mind that the very act of cheerleading is more likely to result in death or dismemberment than a terrorist event). If you ask Tim Uppal about it – under whose name this went out – he gives you talking points about the threat of these groups, and as Paula Simons discovered, it’s just talking points rearranged in a different order than his fundraising appeal talking points. Well done there. It’s still too early to tell whether this will in fact blow back on them, but with other conservatives lining up to denounce the move, it’s hard to see how they can continue to justify it without causing even more damage.

Good reads:

  • The system is riddled with problems, but Corrections wants to go ahead with electronic bracelets to monitor prisoners out on patrol. Sure.
  • By early evening on October 22nd, the Chief of Defence Staff was describing the shooter as someone with mental health problems in emails, and wanted to assure the Americans there were no cross-border links.
  • Prior to October 22nd, security incidents on the Hill were rare and relatively tame.
  • The RCMP had been checking in on Mike Duffy’s trips to ridings for partisan events and then charging the Senate expenses, and many of those MPs will be witnesses at the trial.
  • The NDP want the Information Commissioner to investigate Jason Kenney’s former senior policy advisor’s practices of regularly wiping his emails every two weeks. (Serious question: Does she have the budget to?)
  • The Elections Commissioner had concerns that moving out of the same offices as Elections Canada would compromise investigations, but he was largely ignored.

Odds and ends:

An Estonian-Canadian group is chastising the Liberals over their opposition to the placement of the Victims of Communism memorial. Unmentioned are the ties to the monument and the party.

The $2-3 billion netted by the latest wireless spectrum auction is already being counted toward the deficit.

We finally have an idea what the new Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships will look like.