Saturday March 26th, 2011 I was asked to deadhead to Quebec City on a 130 pmish charter to drive an empty truck back to Ottawa to save the Conservative Party some campaign expense. (Little did I know it was on the Conservative Party campaign jet as it flew its’s first leg of the long campaign tour.) After getting on what must have been the safest airplane in the nation and sitting in my seat, the Prime Minister came on board. I then had the privilege of seeing the Quebec City rally where I got to speak to Senator/Minister Marjory LeBreton for a good hour or so.
Then last Saturday afternoon as I was working in the campaign office of the Honourable Gordon O’Connor, the phone call came in. The party was looking for some athletic youth for a photo op at Greco Lean and Fit on Sunday morning (April 3rd, 2011) in the north side of Kanata which is in our riding. So I voluntold my kids (who were actually keen on the idea) and Saturday by 9am I was in a room full of press and supporters as my kids worked out in the background. Senator Jacques Demers gave a rousing introduction of all the local MPs and then proceeded to introduce the Prime Minister and his wife. I think the best moment for me was watching from afar as the Harpers spoke to my kids.
Which brings us to Saturday April 9th. My daughter Cookie, as many of you know, plays volleyball with the Ottawa Fusion 15u Girls competitive team. The provincials this year are being held in Waterloo again at RIM Park. The girls did fine yesterday winning their pool which put them into the top 16 in the province for today’s seeding round. We arrived early and got to spend some time watching the 15U boys play as they played in the gaps between the girls games. So as the day goes on, we notice the number of RCMP security in the building creeping upwards finally culminating in the PM arriving to watch his son play in the provincials. (and may I add, the Boys 15U team from Ottawa has a great team likely to medal this year).
So there you have it. Three Weekends…three different cities…and the Prime Minister is there each time. I told you that he was stalking me.
Seriously. I consider myself pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to have met him once, let alone the few times that I have gotten to meet him. I am proud to say I am a supporter of him and the Conservative Party of Canada and I am glad to put in volunteer hours above and beyond what many consider normal. I am of firm belief that the party is on the right track and guiding our government properly with minimal problems.
When your Lib, NDP, Green or Bloc friends say something about Harper signing up for a coalition in 2004, you can call them a bald faced liar and point them to this blog post.
Today on CTV’s Question Period, one of the caretakers at the “Mop ‘n’ Pail” newspaper glosses over the ripple effect taking place by stating a moderate was elected in Ottawa. Mr. Simpson should look deeper than the mayoral elections.
Ottawa had it’s epiphany 4 years ago when we elected in businessman Larry O’Brien to the Mayor’s chair because we were tired of the same old left leaning values. Yet the citizen’s of Ottawa did not at that time give the Mayor a supporting cast of councilors. How do we know the change was desired? Because in the 2003 election, 180,000 voters turned out, yet 300,000 turned out to elect Larry O’Brien in 2006.
And this election, Ottawa did indeed elect a moderate, yet fiscally prudent man in Jim Watson, (who has straddled both the Liberal and Progressive Conservative camps in his career), yet this time the electorate knew the mayor was only one vote. So they got smart and the council itself made a MAJOR shift to the right.
In 2006 Ottawa re-elected EVERY incumbent councilor who ran. In 2010, Ottawa ousted 6 councillors and had 4 ridings up for grabs where no incumbent was running. This is how the 10 wards played out.
Ward 7 – Bay Ward – Extreme Lefty and long term councillor Alex Cullen was ousted by Liberal Mark Taylor. A shift to the right.
Ward 11 – Beacon Hill/Cyrville – Lefty Michel Bellemare was ousted by moderate Tim Tierney. A shift to the right.
Ward 12 – Rideau/Vanier – Lefty Georges Bédard ousted by moderate Mathieu Fleury. A shift to the right.
Ward 13 – Rideau/Rockcliffe – Conservative Peter Clark beat out 9 other candidates.
Ward 15 – Kitchissippi – Lefty and now 1 term councilor Christine Leadman ousted by newcomer and moderate Katherine Hobbs. A shift to the right.
Ward 17 – Capital – David Chernushenko, who is a well known Green Party member lined up very well with past Green Party leader Jim Harris who was a conservative. i.e. Chernushenko comes from the conservative side of the Greens and not the whacko “get in front of a harpoon boat in a rubber dinghy” envirofanatic side of the Green Party. Considering the area is represented federally by a New Democrat and was where lefty Clive Doucet sat on council last term, this is also a clear shift to the right.
Ward 19 – Cumberland – Wishy Washy middle of the road Rob Jellett was replaced by conservative Stephen Blais. Clear shift to the right.
Ward 21 – Rideau/Goulbourn – moderate to right leaning Glenn Brooks and long time councilor was ousted by youngster and rising conservative star Scott Moffatt. Slight shift to the right.
And last but likely the most prominent shift took place in Ward 23 – Kanata South. Lefty Peggy Feltmate, who was endorsed by previous lefty Alex Munter chose to endorse NDP supporter Aaron Helleman. The ward is traditionally conservative at the federal and provincial levels and when party affiliations came out among the three leading candidates, the clear winner was conservative Allan Hubley.
The remaining ward, Knoxdale-Merivale elected Keith Egli. I am not sure of Egli’s leanings but suspect he is a moderate meaning minimal shift in any direction.
But all in all the residents of Ottawa corrected a mistake they made 4 years ago and gave their mayor a clearly right leaning council. Hallelujah!!
So Simpson can preach that Ford’s election was a one shot move to the right in Ontario. But he would be clearly wrong as we have shown.
Originally Posted 9/10/2010 but being bumped due to importance
Kanata South Candidate and NDP Supporter Appears To Be Attempting To Deceive Voters
The best way to predict future behaviour is to look at past behaviour.
On Thursday September 9th during the CFRA Municipal Panel, Rob Snow had guest Aaron Helleman on the air. Aaron is running in Ward 23 – Kanata South in the upcoming Ottawa Municipal Election. During the interview Rob Snow mentioned that Aaron Helleman was described as a lefty. Let’s pick up the conversation at that point.
Aaron Helleman: That’s interesting. The entrepreneur. The fella who’s a market believer. The fella who’s running his own business and is a professional engineer.
Rob Snow: So How did you get that tag then?
Aaron Helleman: I have no idea.
Well OfficiallyScrewed.com has the scoop on this one. And considering how much we have found out about Mr. Helleman, I can assure you his response is not a simple admission of not knowing, but it is quite clearly an effort to hide his true orange NDP roots.
1) Let’s look at his own words. He says he is a market believer. Yet when he was VP and blogger for the Federal NDP party back in 2005, he posted a “Quote of the Day” by Wendell Berry which stated:
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
Wendell Berry
# posted by Aaron Helleman @ 9:19 AM 0 comments
How can someone be a market believer yet also believe that “Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand.”? I can just see Milton Friedman shaking his head at this one.
2) Aaron Helleman was a Vice President and Membership Director of the Federal NDP riding association in Carleton Mississippi Mills and he was also very involved in the campaign of the Carleton-Mississippi Mills NDP Candidate, Tasha Bridgen, during the January 2006 Federal Election. You can find his words on the blog of Rob Cottingham from a post back in December 2005 when Cottingham was gathering information on NDP campaigns. Helleman was not only glad to provide his status as a blogger and VP of the CMM NDP but he was pleased to announce that Tasha Bridgen’s site had video. You can see this in the comments of the blog post located here.
December 7th, 2005 at 20:40
Aaron Helleman says:
Hi guys,
Just wanted you to know that Carleton Mississippi Mills has a candidate – Tasha Bridgen. Check out the blog – http://www.cmmndp.ca
Later,
Aaron – CMMNDP Blogger/VP
December 7th, 2005 at 20:44
Aaron Helleman says:
Oh – and we do video too.
Cheers!
Aaron
3) Additionally, via archive.org, the CMM NDP website had a very prominent blogger who attacked both Conservatives and Liberals, clearly staking his position to the left in the political spectrum. This blogger was Aaron Helleman.
4) In 2005, he also posted a piece entitled “Proud to be an NDP Supporter”. Yet he has no idea how he can be tagged a lefty. Where did his pride go?
5) Back in May of 2005, the Carleton-Mississippi Mills NDP Riding Association had a fundraiser at O’Connor’s pub featuring party leader Jack Layton and well known NDP MP Charlie Angus. And who could you contact for tickets? The screenshot of an email below gives you the clear answer. Aaron Helleman.
Click to enlarge
(note the phone number has been hidden by us)
6) In January 2007, Mr. Helleman reached out to the United Church (bells ringing yet?) for help on how to reach their community with voter kits. This is demonstrated at the “Faith Justice” wikipage we found. In this page, Helleman states clearly:
How do we plan on offering this potential voters kit to Christians in our ridings? Would it be published by ‘us’ as individuals or by our riding association, or some other way?
Some great links: (I’m a member of CPJ and would invite you to join them as well… check them out http://www.cpj.ca )
Which “riding association” did Helleman mean? And stating that he is a member of the CPJ does him little good in an attempt to paint himself as a conservative. The link he himself provides on that page takes you to a page where the CPJ clearly states it’s opposition to the Conservative attempt to remove party funding by the public purse back in 2008.
7) The CBC website carries a great section during Federal Elections called Canada Votes/Riding Talk. And in the commentary for Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Helleman clearly promotes and even provides a direct link to the CMM NDP website.
Health Care
Child Care
High-Tech unemployement and outsourcing
Seniors Charter
Youth
are just a few of the issues for this riding.
These issues need new thinking and positive vision. check out SITE
Posted by: Aaron Helleman | Dec 13, 2005 7:55:55 AM
8 ) There is a nice little site called Meetup, where people can create and join “meetup” groups. There is one set up for NDP supporters in the Ottawa area. Guess who shows up as one of the members? Mr. Aaron Helleman.
9) The Coup de Grace. From 2004 to 2009, Mr. Helleman donated $765 to the Federal NDP. This information is public domain at the Elections Canada website but I have provided two screenshots below. The kicker here is that not only were larger donations made of $250, $150, $120, $100 and $50. But there were several $5.00 donations which were logged monthly indicating a pre-authorized donation plan.
Click to enlargeClick to enlarge
In 2004, Helleman donated $400 to the Carleton-Mississippi Mills NDP riding association. This information is public knowledge at the Elections Canada website.
Click to enlarge
In addition, Helleman donated $400 to the campaign of Tasha Bridgen, NDP candidate in CMM for the 2006 election during the campaign and an additional $200 to the campaign after the election was over. Also public domain at the Elections Canada website.
Click to enlarge
But Helleman’s NDP roots are not only tied to the Federal NDP Party and Federal NDP Riding Association. He is also a big supporter of their provincial NDP cousins. In the 2007 Ontario Provincial Election, Helleman donated a whopping $600 to NDP candidate Michael Hadskis.
Furthermore, as recently as 2009, Helleman donated $110 to the Provincial NDP Party. This information is also public domain at the Elections Ontario website but we have provided a screenshot for you below.
Click to enlarge
So all told, he has donated at least $2475 to various NDP parties, candidates and riding associations and countless hours in volunteer time.
I think by now I have demonstrated that this municipal candidate is clearly a major supporter of the NDP Party of Canada and many of the policies of the left wing. So how could he “have no idea” on why he was tagged a lefty?
The answer to this is simple. Mr. Helleman is trying to hide his left leaning tendencies. In addition to the above information, we have backup data from sites like the Carleton-Mississippi Mills NDP website (currently down), rabble.ca (removed pages found via cache searches), and other sites that indicate someone is trying to remove posts and commentary that Mr. Helleman has made. This goes even so far as to have google cached pages no longer visible. Someone is going to painstakingly great efforts to remove these left leaning comments made by Mr. Helleman. Does he really think that removing a few webpages, printing blue campaign signs and misrepresenting himself on CFRA is enough to cover his orange roots?
But all this raises one further question. Why is he hiding his orange roots? The answer to that is simple. Kanata South is in Carleton-Mississippi Mills. This is the federal/provincial riding that has had a Conservative MP since 2000 and one who has won by a staggering vote count repeatedly. In fact, the last two federal elections had the Conservative MP win EVERY poll in the riding. It is also the riding that has had a Progressive Conservative MPP since 1977. i.e. over 30 years straight.
So the logic is there. Paint yourself as a conservative and hope no one is paying attention. But some of us who have been conservatives in this ward and riding for a long time ARE paying attention. And you, Mr. Helleman…are NOT a conservative and you ARE a lefty.
UPDATE
This week a group called OurOttawa sent out an email asking for support for their slate of 6 “progressive” candidates. (Note: progressive is secret code for socialists and small “L” liberals). The email included a flyer announcing a fundraiser for these 6 candidates, as well as a Powerpoint (which we converted to pdf for easier download) explaining the voting records of current council and why they are supporting these 6 new candidates. In this PowerPoint, (screenshot below) this group clearly states “We leave alone the progressives” and it displays the 6 existing councillors that are proven by the group themselves to support a leftist agenda. (Alex Cullen being on this list should set further bells ringing.)
Click to enlarge
Additionally to support item number 1) above, this group is promoting people who support a “living wage”. This means support of a price floor which is diametrically opposed to being a “market believer” which Helleman claims he is.
What I am thinking is that this is quite the example of bringing the mountain to Mohammed. All these illegal aliens lining up to register themselves to vote and get their names (and addresses) on a list. How convenient!!
I can’t say I wasn’t hoping for a Specter loss, but the real poetic justice will come when Toomey makes the Senate seat Republican red in the fall mid term elections.
Across the nation our local TV networks have been waging a war against the cable carriers, and Rogers in particular. The battle has basically been over Rogers taking the free air signals of local TV stations and broadcasting them over cable without compensating the local stations.
Well it looks like Rogers is going to up their rates by 1.5% in an effort to compensate for additional costs of carrying these free stations and people are EM AY DEE … MAD!
I blogged about our lack of priorities a few weeks ago but the bottom line is that EVERYONE should be raising their dander up and demanding A La Carte station ordering. i.e. There should be a base cost (say $10 or $15 a month) for delivery of service and then we should be able to order whatever channels we want. Why should an anglophone Canadian pay for 3 or 4 French stations to be piped directly into his home? Why should a good God fearing Christian need to pay for stations that promote Muslim or Jewish religious beliefs? Why should a piano lesson taking uber geek be forced to pay for not one, not two, but three sports stations that he/she will never watch? It simply does not make sense.
The only thing that DOES make sense is A La Carte station ordering. If I had to pay $2 or so per station, I would likely have a $40 to $50 a month cable bill.
When I blogged about altering the party funding formula a couple of weeks ago, I garnered a bit of interest but not quite the wave I would have liked to see. Well it seems that I am not the only one who feels that regional parties should be marginalized.
U of T Professor Andrew Stark had a piece in the Globe and Mail today that is worth reading which also addressed regional parties like the Bloc Quebecois.
Of note, their is a Bill passing through the system now that would give Ontario and a few Western Provinces more seats while holding Quebec to 75. This would go a long way towards taking away some of the strength that the Bloc have but ultimately party funding is the way I think this issue needs to be addressed.
