Mediaboss Marketing

Robyn LeGrow is among the thousand-odd people rejected by the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador to vote for its next leader. (Peter Cowan/CBC)

Some people registered to vote in Newfoundland and Labrador's Liberal Party leadership race are being ousted from the process, and left questioning the party's reasoning why.

Among the rejected is Robyn LeGrow of St. John's,who two weeks ago posted on herpersonal Facebook account a critique of candidate Andrew Furey's campaign policies.

"I can only assume that that is why I have been disqualified. I had no idea when I put that post out on my personal page, to my personal friends, that it would get as much attention as it has," LeGrow told CBC News on Wednesday.

The party is informing the former voters via email.

"We want to thank you for your interest in the Liberal Party and this election. However, our records indicate that you do not support the aims and objectives of the Liberal Party of NL. As a result, you have been found ineligible to vote," reads an emailwritten byLewis Stoyles, chief returning officer of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador leadership election.

The upcoming party vote will elect its nextleader and the province's next premier on Aug. 3 ahead of a provincialgeneral election which will be called within the next year.

LeGrow took to Twitter Wednesday morning with her concerns, with many people commenting that they, too, have received rejection notices.

Emails being sent to rejected voters include an opt-inreview process by the party.

"If our records are incorrect or you wish to have this decision reviewed, please respond to this email by9:00 PM (NST) on July 8, 2020," the email from Stoyles reads.

That leavesmany, includingLeGrow, with less than 12 hours before the deadline for appeal closes.

An appeals process will continue throughout the rest of the week, according to Judy Morrow, a member of the leadership election committee and past president of the Liberal Party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The first part of the appeals involvesasking Stoylesto review thedecisionthat rendered the voterineligible. If the voter is not satisfied,then they have an opportunity to make an appeal to the party's appeals committee, which wasput in place in February.

The party plans to have a finalized list of voters by July 14, with voting starting onJuly 28.

LeGrowistaking the party up on its appeals offer, and says she has notified them she'll be pursuing it.

"My concern is that communications all along haven't been consistent," she said.

"It seems to me that they are creating the rules as they go, making decisions and then responding to them based on feedback from people who are on the other end of those decisions."

On Wednesday afternoon, the Liberal Party held a virtual news conference for anupdate on the election process.

Since voter registration closed on June 25, the election committee has been going through what its calling a "multi-faceted vetting process." Thatincludedcalls and email blasts to verify and authenticate registered voters, and waspartnered with a research company.

As of Wednesday roughly 33,500 voters have been designated eligible, according to Morrow, who took questions from reporters.

When asked if the vetting process included the research company combing through social media accounts of registered voters to find past comments which could find them in the ineligible category, Morrow said no.

"They were just given pure lists from our Liberal list database," she said.

Morrow saidanyone who signed up with the party to vote for itsleadership, and in a follow up robocallsaid they would vote for any other party, were automatically disqualified from voting.

Anyone who said they didn't support the aims of objectives of the Liberal Party were also disqualified. Those categories addedup to about 300 people.

There were about 1,000 ineligible voters total, Morrow said.

"They were for various reasons. That could be because their date of birth was missing, or they didn't have an email or telephone number, or they were no longer a resident of the province," she said.

"We found some individuals who had been deceased. There were different reasons for knockouts."

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

See the original post here:
Liberals rejected 1,000 voters in its leadership race. One of them is questioning why - CBC.ca

We is once again a touchy subject in Justin Trudeaus Liberal party.

While the hits just keep on coming about Trudeaus connections to the WE charity, the controversy has touched off grumbling in Liberal circles about the lowercase we as in, how exactly did we get into this mess, and who is we anyway in the decision-making circle around the prime minister?

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Liberal MP for the Toronto riding of Beaches-East York, says he was on the phone immediately after the news emerged about WE being chosen to hand out nearly $1 billion in pandemic relief to students. He placed a call last week to the office of Diversity, Inclusion and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger whos now gone silent with the media to get an explanation.

I was struggling to understand why it was being done this way, said Erskine-Smith, a rare MP willing to go on the record on Friday about his concerns with the entire WE affair.

He made the call before he knew all the details, which have been emerging daily, about how closely WE had been working with Trudeaus family, including nearly $300,000 in speaking fees paid out to Trudeaus mother and brother.

Had I known what I know now, I would have said this was too close to the prime minister, Erskine-Smith said.

Other MPs, preferring to talk off the record on Friday, said there has been a lot of chatter in the caucus over the past week about how this WE controversy has revived concerns about team culture or lack of it in Trudeaus government.

There arent a lot of relationships between the PM and caucus, one MP said. Now, he said, with most of caucus relations taking place remotely during the pandemic, there are even fewer opportunities for MPs to have contact with the PM and the tight team around him.

It is either ironic or fitting that WE has made the Liberal we annoyed and nervous.

One MP said he was surprised to learn from news reports first in the Star, as it happens that WE had been given a contract to do work that would normally be done by the public service.

This is a real head-scratcher for me and several of my colleagues, the MP said. I like to consider myself plugged in but the first time I heard of the WE contract was when I read the controversy in the papers. I know for a fact that I was not alone.

What baffled many MPs was why the government needed to do any contracting out at all, especially after months of proving that it was nimble and adaptable enough to get COVID-19 aid directly to citizens.

This was Erskine-Smiths main concern at first: the government has generous and effective programs in place already for students and summer jobs. MPs themselves, of all stripes, are often helpful in steering that help toward where its most needed in their ridings.

So, while Erskine-Smith didnt put it this pointedly, not only was the WE decision made without input from MPs, the plan itself which has now been reversed also kept MPs out of the loop.

Its just so frustrating, he said, citing all the good work the government has been doing to provide help to citizens in this crisis. Now this is taking up so much of the conversation. Erskine-Smiths own mother asked him on Friday why this was going on, though he says his office is not being inundated with complaints, at least not yet.

The exquisitely bad timing of this controversy has Liberals frustrated too. Not only is it happening during a pandemic, but also still in the shadow of the humbling the government received during last years election.

From all accounts, Trudeau had been making genuine efforts after the election, also after last years SNC-Lavalin saga, to forge some greater connections with the Liberal team. Just this week, Trudeau handed a major ambassadors appointment to former interim leader Bob Rae a decision seen as a symbolic olive branch to Liberals who had been kept at arms length from the PMO.

Make sense of what's happening across the country and around the world with the Star's This Week in Politics email newsletter.

But the WE controversy is viewed by some Liberals as being about how easy it is for Trudeau and his team to lapse back into old habits of keeping to themselves and giving access and benefits only to the small number of people they trust. Many MPs chose to speak off the record on Friday precisely because they were worried about reinforcing that outsider-insider culture.

None of the MPs or Liberals I reached were calling for Trudeau to resign, as his official opponents are. But there were suggestions that the PM had to surround himself with people who ask harder questions, who would have immediately spotted that WE would hurt the Liberal we.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Q:

How do you think Liberal MPs should address the WE scandal?

Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)

Sign In

Register

More here:
Blindsided by the WE scandal, Liberal MPs wonder: How did Justin Trudeau get us into this mess? - Toronto Star

A government-ordered inquiry into the funding of legal class actions descended into acrimony on its first day of hearings when the first witness from a Liberal party thinktank was accused of misquoting a federal judge and citing unreliable figures.

James Mathias, the chief of staff at the Menzies Research Centre (MRC) and a former Liberal candidate for federal parliament, sought to defend his submission during tense exchanges with the Labor senator, Deborah ONeill, who described it as an undergraduate essay that would fail on multiple grounds.

Mathias appeared on Monday before a parliamentary committee investigating whether Australias class action industry needs tighter regulation to ensure fair and equitable outcomes for plaintiffs with the government raising concerns about the role of large companies that sometimes fund class actions.

Labor has claimed the inquiry is a sham set up by the Liberals to deny hardworking Australians any chance of defending their rights against large companies and governments with virtually limitless resources.

The first line of the submission from the MRC the Liberal party thinktank quoted the federal court justice Michael Lee as saying in a judgment on 5 June: The phrase access to justice is often misused by litigation funders to justify what at bottom is a commercial endeavour to make money out of the conduct of litigation.

It was purportedly from a judgment on class actions stemming from allegations that the Australian defence department negligently allowed toxic chemicals known as Pfas to escape from defence bases and contaminate local environments.

But Mathias, who was just 21 when he ran as a federal candidate for the Victorian seat of Holt in 2016, confirmed under questioning he had not read the full judgment cited in the submission as judgments are very long some hundreds of pages.

ONeill said the judgment was actually 37 pages long and the words you quote in the very first line of your submission are nowhere, nowhere to be found in his honours judgment.

The NSW senator said the only place that quote could be found was in an article in the legal journal Lawyerly on 9 June, titled A significant inequality of arms: Funding led to better outcomes in PFAS class action, judge says.

Mathias took that question on notice. But when ONeill accused him of misquoting and taking Justice Lee completely out of context in an attempt to convey the false impression that Justice Lee is opposed to litigation funding, Mathias said: I fundamentally reject the premise of that, senator.

In Lees judgment of 5 June, the judge made a more qualified statement that the term access to justice is commonly misused, most often by some funders who fasten upon it as an inapt rhetorical device.

He then cautioned against generalisations. While noting litigation funding is about putting in place a joint commercial enterprise aimed at making money, Lee went on to say that recognising that reality does not diminish the importance of litigation funding in allowing these class members to vindicate their claims against the commonwealth.

Referring to the alleged victims in the Pfas class actions, Lee continued: Without litigation funding, the claims of these group members would not have been litigated in an adversarial way but, rather, they would likely have been placed in the position of being supplicants requesting compensation, in circumstances where they would have been the subject of a significant inequality of arms.

ONeill also challenged Mathias over the claim in his submission that by 2019, the average amount paid to plaintiffs had fallen to just 39% of the settlement proceeds a figure that has since been quoted in several news reports..

He said it was based on a presentation contained within a PowerPoint of analysis by the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.

In later proceedings, Andrew Saker, the managing director of litigation funder Omni Bridgeway, said he believed the 39% figure was based on incomplete data.

Saker said Herbert Smith Freehills had informed his company that the figure had been included in a PowerPoint slide for continuing legal education, it related only to settlement approvals determined by the courts, and it was not authorised for outside use.

Earlier, Mathias said he was not arguing against class actions, but for reform to ensure they remained a vehicle for justice.

We find ourselves in an environment where damages awarded to plaintiffs who have been most wronged is declining, and if you care about access to justice then you would care about the percentages that have been paid out to these people, he said during a hearing conducted via videolink.

James Paterson, the Liberal chair of the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services, repeatedly asked ONeill not to interrupt or reflect on witnesses with the protection of parliamentary privilege.

ONeill told the chair she was happy to discuss the issue offline but I dont want to be berated as a senator of the Australian public by you in front of the media.

Weve got an undergraduate essay that would fail on plagiarism and [is] incorrect, put to us by the Menzies Research Centre - its just not up to standard, she said.

When Mathias attempted to ask his own question of ONeill, she shot back: When you become another young senator for the Liberal party you might be able ask me questions, but at the moment you dont have that opportunity.

When contacted for a response to the criticism of his submission, Mathias said it was astonishing that the Guardian would be siding with foreign backed, super-profitable litigation funders just because it does not like the politics of the MRC

But the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the Liberal party had been humiliated at the first day of its class actions inquiry.

When setting up the inquiry in May, the attorney general, Christian Porter, cited growing concern that the lack of regulation governing the booming litigation funding industry is leading to poor justice outcomes for those who join class actions, expecting to get fair compensation for an injury or loss.

Originally posted here:
Liberal thinktank submission on class actions labelled 'an undergraduate essay that would fail' - The Guardian

Under fierce attacks from the opposition over his decision not to release the Department of Treasury's review into the government's $70 billion wage subsidy scheme, JobKeeper, Mr Morrison said he was "carefully weighing up" the important issues.

Labor has seized on modelling showing about 4800 businesses and an estimated 18,000 workers in the electorate, which takes in Queanbeyan and includes the towns of Yass, Bega and Cooma, were reliant on the subsidy.

Ms McBain and Labor's treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers have called on the government to release the review and reveal whether the $1500-a-fortnight payment would be made available beyond its September cut-out date.

"I've already flagged very clearly there will be a next phase and we are calibrating that next phase and targeting it to ensure that the support is there for those businesses and those employees who will continue to need it," Mr Morrison said.

"But for many other businesses, we're pleased to see that there has been some improvement and so these are decisions that you don't rush to meet Labor's timetable."

Dr Kotvojs, appearing alongside Mr Morrison at Lobs Hole in Kosciuszko National Park, was forced to defend a submission she made to the royal commission into the summer's bushfires.

Labor seized on the words, written by the candidate and her husband Alan Burdon in April, which called for fuel loads to be better managed and did not reference climate change.

"For us, there is only one issue fuel load. Unless this is addressed, everything else is meaningless," they wrote.

Dr Kotvojs said she believed the climate was changing and that humans were contributing to that change.

"Where I live, the fires came through our farm and we watched them coming at Cobargo, into Dignams Creek, and the areas where there been hazard reduction already occur, the fire came through low intensity and much slower," she said.

"It caused much less damage. The area where the hazard reduction hadn't occurred, the fire was just so intense. It's caused so much damage."

Labor candidate Kristy McBain is aiming to retain the seat Mike Kelly won in 2019 before leaving politics.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Ms McBain, who stood aside as Bega Valley mayor to contest the by-election, said on Tuesday that holding onto the seat vacated by two-time MP Mike Kelly was going to be "difficult".

ALP sources told The Herald that preferences from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party would be critical for the party's chances to retaining the seat. Mr Kelly won by about 1 per cent last May.

They said it remained uncertain whether Nationals voters would give their second preference to the Liberals and there was an grassroots campaign among some party members to send a protest vote elsewhere.

Loading

Ms McBain said the community was "really hurting" after drought, bushfire and the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shut down the tourism sector.

"I've spoken to so many business owners, so many residents. Everybody is really concerned about the future of their work, the future of their jobs," she said.

"They actually want someone that's going to go into bat for them long term. Not someone that just shows up during a by-election, but someone who's already got their runs on the board."

Rob Harris is the National Affairs Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based at Parliament House in Canberra

View post:
Liberals confident they are in 'striking distance' of Eden-Monaro upset - Sydney Morning Herald

B.C. Liberal MLAs are using taxpayers' moneyto payfor ads in a Christian magazine that includes articles opposed to transgender rights and medically assisted dying.

The party caucus has billed more than $2,000, listed under various MLA accounts, for ads in The Light Magazine in the 18 months leading up to the end of 2019.

The story was originally reported on Monday in PressProgress, an online non-profitnews publication that bills itself as "progressive" and was founded in 2013 by the Broadbent Institute, according to its website.

Receipts showing how members of the B.C. legislaturespendtheirconstituency office allowancearepublicly available online.MLAs are allowed to bill for communications such as newsletters, flyers or advertisements.Expenses for 2020 are not yet available.

The Light Magazine is described on its website as a free Christian lifestyle magazine that discusses topics such ashealth, marriage, family, finances, faith and culture. The magazine, which is basedin Langley, B.C., says its mission is to connect Christians and encourage participation in local church life.

Past issues have promoted controversial views on topics ranging from transgender rights to medically assisted dying and conversion therapy.

An article in the magazine from 2018 details the rise of a conservative Christian movement that resulted in a document called the the West Coast Christian Accord. That accord, reprinted in The Light, condemns unconventional marriages and those who "adopt a homosexual or transgender self-perception."

In the most recent edition the magazine published an editorial about the struggle of Christianity in COVID-19 times, urging Christians to beware pundits who heighten fear and anxiety to "sell commercials."

Constituency expense receipts show various MLAs billing for ads placed with Light Christian Media Inc.

In December, long-time Langley MLA Rich Coleman alonebilled $1,428 for a Christmas ad paid to Light Christian Media Inc. bythe B.C. Liberal Caucus.

A sum of $503 was paid for an ad in the magazine's October 2019 edition, showing B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson and nine other MLAs in a Thanksgiving greeting.

That ad appears adjacent to an article on sexual temptationthat warns of the dangers ofpornography, sexual anarchy and orgies.

A few pages after the ad, there is a feature that criticizes a ban on conversion therapy as an assault on freedom of speech.

Conversion therapy is a practice that aims to change an individual's sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, which means identifying with the sex assigned to them at birth. It uses different ways in some cases,electric shocks to create aversion to certain stimuli.

In the November edition, a writer in The Light discusses the Delta Hospice Society's move to become a Christian organizationand describes the practice of medically assisted dying as "barbaric."

A promotional ad for MLA Marvin Huntis a few pages away one of many similar ads Hunt has taken out in The Light, costing just under $150 per issue.

B.C. Liberal MLA Simon Gibson also wrote a monthly column for the publication, offering spiritual advice.

His April 2019 column appearedbeside an editorial by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, a former televangelist andfailedPeople's Party of Canada candidate, that criticizedSOGI 123, the sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum taught in B.C. schools.

CBC has reached out to B.C. LiberalMLAs for comment.

At 9:15 a.m. PT Tuesday, Wilkinson tweetedthat there is "no room in the B.C. Liberal Party for homophobia, transphobia or any other form of discrimination."

"Going forward, we are taking immediate steps to ensure our advertising decisions reflect those values at all times," he added.

See the original post here:
B.C. Liberals ran ads in Christian magazine that features content opposed to trans rights, assisted death - CBC.ca