- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor

"The Conservative Party will respect your privacy through the protection of any of your personal information that you provide to us."  - the privacy policy on the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) website. 

So a local member of the CPC wants to know why he received an email during the campaign from a Jim Karahalios of "Axe the Carbon Tax", disparaging the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (OPC), Patrick Brown.  Although many of the federal leadership candidates expressed opposition to any carbon pricing, no candidate was named in the email, and the subject line was "Can we trust Patrick Brown?"

The recipient only joined the CPC this year, and was taken aback by Mr. Karaholios' assumption that he was also a member of the Ontario PC party with this line:

"As loyal PC Party members,we cannot stand idly and watch our PC Party lose in 2018 because of Patrick Brown’s Carbon Tax plan – a policy that has almost no support within the party."   [emphasis in the emailed text]

He was also surprised that the CPC, or any candidate for its leadership, would condone a communication that would appear to undermine the Ontario PC leader of the Official Opposition going into a provincial election year.  His queries to both Mr. Karaholios and the Conservative party about the email went unanswered.

The Conservative Party is now investigating another breach of their privacy policy by an identifiable but unnnamed leadership candidate's campaign as members across the country and here in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound began to receive unsolicited mail from the National Firearms Association. The possible consequences for violation of the privacy policy have not been released.

Joining a political party is a choice relatively few Canadians make -  on average only 1 to 2 percent of Canada's 25 million eligible voters belong to any registered political party.  In general, federal and provincial parties maintain separate membership lists - the exception being the NDP.

As of this writing, neither BGOS MP Larry Miller nor MPP Bill Walker have replied to our request for comment.