Ah, election time! Doesn’t matter if it’s federal, provincial, municipal, or school council president, it brings out the best and the worst in us. On the bigger stage, the story in Canada to watch right now is the Alberta Referendum on separation speculation. Families and friends have split, A province stands divided. A country awaits the results.

Here, in rurban Caledon, the current municipal elections have brought on similar divisions between the country mouse and the city mouse visions for the future of our Town. One faction, carrying on the previous Strong Mayor’s policies, favours a developer influenced agenda. The other faction favours a constituent influenced agenda. Voters are on the sword’s edge.

Enter Brigette Loquercio and her Third Party “Setting The Record Straight” flyers on past Council voting habits. These flyers are a classic example of a propaganda technique called “cherry picking” where information can be truthful but misleading.

For example, it could be a fact that a politician voted to keep a petrochemical processing plant out an area zoned for business development. The mention of that fact would make it look like the politician had voted in the public interest. it may also be a fact that that same politician worked behind the scenes to help the owner of that petrochemical plant get approval permits through an Ontario Land Tribunal decision. That fact would be conveniently left out of the report card.

That is cherry picking the facts. You only advertise the sweet cherries and you bury the rotten ones.

In the last municipal election this same propaganda technique by a third party advertiser was used very effectively against the Jennifer Innis mayoralty campaign. That simple little blue “Report Card” was the subject of a news article in Brampton’s The Pointer titled “How a council report card helped sway an election.” That report card helped get Annette Groves elected Strong Mayor. 

As a previous third party advertiser indicated to me, all of this factual council voting information is available on public record. All of it. And without all of it you really can’t tell if the bowl of cherries is rotten or not.

That being said, this year’s high gloss, full colour very expensive “report cards” directly smear the voting records of past Council members who voted against the Strong Mayor’s policies. They especially target mayoralty candidate Christina Early. These third party ads put out by Brigette Loquercio  are being delivered door to door. Yes, as the  flyers state, “The Caledon Community Deserves the Truth” and I couldn’t agree more. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the way, if anyone sees Terry Groves passing out Third Party Advertising as he did in 2022, please remind him gently that as a campaign manager for current municipal candidates, he is not allowed to distribute flyers on behalf of Third Party Advertisers. Terry is no longer allowed on my property. And misleading cherry picked fact flyers by a third party advertiser are not allowed on my porch.

In contrast, the very informative cherry-picked fact sheet on Municipal voting records published by Democracy Caledon appeared in my mailbox a few days later like an antidote to the misleading information spread by the Brigette Loquercio Third Party Advertising Team. The scales are balanced once again.

There is a lot of money behind the Russo Teams push to elect the remnants of the “Gang of Five” and their new acolytes to complete their Strong Mayor’s agenda. I’m looking forward to the campaign financial audits. We are especially curious about the audit of the private non-profit charity, Caledon Community Inc, that houses the $1.5 million of the privately fund raised monies under the guise of two Mayor’s Galas that were not  sanctioned by the Town.

I have renewed hope that democracy in Caledon is protected, that I am mistaken in my wild speculations, and that third party advertisers who push propaganda will see the error of their ways. Peace in our time. The way I see it.

Skid Crease, Caledon