Sleazy sales tactics dominate Wildrose Party's registration drive

For this plan to succeed, however, we need you -- personally -- to commit two hours over the next three weeks. Will you? If yes, we'll explain exactly how you can help the Wildrose Party get this done.

Please tell us by email (info@wildroseparty.ca) if you think the Wildrose Party is worth two hours of your own time.

The above paragraphs come from the latest edition of the Wildrose Weekly. I first blogged about this passage here.

I found this passage annoying the first time I read it, but couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what it was about it that bothered me. I have just figured it out.

This passage is a perfect example of a manipulative sales tactic called the commitment question. It is one of the ways used to get people to do things or buy things that they would not ordinarily be interested in. It is a manipulative psychological technique; the idea behind it is that once you get a person to say "yes" to your initial request, it is far more difficult for them to back out when you expound on what you are asking them to do. The target of this technique is more hesitant to decline to participate because it makes them feel as if they are welching on a previously made commitment.

Analyze the structure of the passage I have reproduced. The Wildrose Party is first getting its members to agree to a commitment of 2 hours, then it will provide the details to its members as to what they are being asked to do. The commitment is made when the email is sent in, but there is no way a member can know what they are committing to.

If the details of the plan amount to an activity the Wildrose member is not comfortable with - such as aggressively soliciting signatures at a seniors' residence - they then face a dilemma. They either have to back out of the commitment to donate time to the party, or they can hold their nose and unwillingly go through with whatever unsavoury action the Wildrose Executive has dreamed up.

It would be a better practice and more ethical if the Wildrose Executive gave the members details of the "new plan" up front, so that they can decide if they wish to partake in the process or not. As such, I hereby call on Link Byfield and the rest of the Wildrose Executive to (i) abandon this "commitment question" approach, (ii) publish the full details of the new plan referenced in the most recent Wildrose Weekly, and (iii) stop these attempts at duping the membership.

The Wildrose Party admits its registration drive is a bust

The latest edition of the Wildrose Weekly is out. It confirms the accuracy of the prediction I made in my August 28 post, namely, that the Wildrosers have not gathered the signatures necessary to register the party:

Action breeds success

Media attention is good, says president James, but by itself is worth little. "A party has to be more than a news story, and more than a private discussion group. A party is a network of effective volunteers in which everyone helps a little. No volunteers, no party. It's as simple as that."

August has ended finding us well short of the 7,000 signatures we need to register as a party. If this is not solved now it will become a serious problem.

Without provincial registration, we can do nothing. We can't issue tax receipts or identify our candidates on the ballot.

Sounds serious, but wait:

... we ... have a new plan. Now that we know exactly how much work is involved, and the fastest way to gather signatures, we can organize it so that nobody has to give it more than a couple hours.

For this plan to succeed, however, we need you -- personally -- to commit two hours over the next three weeks. Will you? If yes, we'll explain exactly how you can help the Wildrose Party get this done.

Please tell us by email (info@wildroseparty.ca) if you think the Wildrose Party is worth two hours of your own time.

I wonder if this "new plan" will be any better than the comedy of errors the Wildrose brain trust has orchestrated to date. For those who haven't been following, I'll review some of the registration tactics that have come to light so far (after all, this stuff never gets old):

• First, the Wildrosers tried to recruit Alberta Alliance members to their cause by emailing them a donation solicitation email, and asking that they join the Wildrose Party. That plan backfired when Alliance President Randy Thorsteinson got ahold of the email and informed the AA membership that the Wildrosers had gotten their email addresses from a confidential list that had been misappropriated by one or more of the former Alliance politicos whose names appeared on the email.
• Then, on August 28, the Wildrose Party sent out an email to their own members asking them to start sneaking into apartment buildings and going door to door soliciting signatures using an aggressive, high pressure, sales script (while denying that this approach amounted to soliciting).

For the sake of the Wildrose members who answer this latest plea for help, I hope the "new plan" is more ethical and efficacious than either of these boneheaded approaches.

Just so you are aware, the last provincial party to successfully complete a registration petition was the Alberta Alliance in 2002. I understand that Randy Thorsteinson approached that task by hiring a marketing firm to go out and get the necessary signatures. He obtained over 10,000 signatures that way.

Perhaps the Wildrose Party Board should have done the same with its funds, rather than use them up putting the Executive Director and Operations Manager on the payroll.

Just a thought.

Wildrose Party policy proposals appear on Free Dominion

It is a rather unorthodox way for a political party to make an announcement, but a post appeared on Free Dominion this morning entitled "Wildrose Party of Alberta Policy Proposals".

I have no idea whether this is an official list from the Party or not, although I suspect that it is. For what it is worth, here are the proposals, in a slightly more readable form.

My initial reaction is that the Alberta Alliance must be delighted. The Wildrosers are exposing themselves as being even less knowledgeable and capable than the AAP.

Having said this, and given my commitment to fairness, I remind you that these are proposals only. The final policy document won't be known until after the Wildrose convention set for late October.

Every party has its share of constitutional illiterates, cranks, and screwballs - and the policy process at Wildrose has obviously been hijacked by same. Nevertheless, until the policy document is finalized, I will forbear from giving it the thorough debunking that - by all indications - it so clearly deserves.

Update 09/04/2007: The proposed policies are now up at the Wildrose Party website.

Wildrose Party Executive loses three

While reviewing the Wildrose Party website for some sign as to where they are at with their registration petition, I couldn't help but notice that Gordon Stamp, Don Weisbeck, and Don Gebauer are no longer listed as being on the Executive. According to a Wildrose Party media release dated June 26, 2007, the roster of the original Executive Committee read as follows:

Officers:

• Rob James, president (Calgary)
• Link Byfield, executive director (Morinville)
• Sharon Maclise, vice-president membership (Edmonton)
• Gordon Lang, vice-president fundraising (Calgary)
• Gordon Stamp, vice-president policy (Edmonton)
• Don Weisback [sic], vice-president communications (Brooks)
• Eleanor Maroes, treasurer (Edmonton)
• Marilyn Burns, secretary (Edmonton)

Southern Directors:

• Don Gebauer (Calgary)
• John Hilton-O'Brien (Calgary)
• Rosemary Craig (Calgary)

Northern Directors:

• Faye Engler (St. Albert)
• Phil Gamache (Edmonton)
• Daniel Johnson (Edmonton)

The present Executive can be found here.

I can find no explanation on the website as to why over 20% of the executive is gone in such a short time frame, and why no replacements have been named.

The current list:

Officers:

• Rob James, president (Calgary)
• Link Byfield, executive director (Morinville)
• Sharon Maclise, vice-president membership (Edmonton)
• Gordon Lang, vice-president fundraising (Calgary)
• Gordon Stamp, vice-president policy (Edmonton)
• Don Weisback [sic], vice-president communications (Brooks)
• Eleanor Maroes, treasurer (Edmonton)
• Marilyn Burns, secretary (Edmonton)

Southern Directors:

• Don Gebauer (Calgary)
• John Hilton-O'Brien (Calgary)
• Rosemary Craig (Calgary)

Northern Directors:

• Faye Engler (St. Albert)
• Phil Gamache (Edmonton)
• Daniel Johnson (Edmonton)

Update 08/30/2007: It appears that the Wildrosers have moved the listing of their shrinking Executive to a secure part of the website where it is not viewable by the public:



You can see how it looked earlier this morning at the following places:

• Google cache of the page (usually good for 60 days or so)
• Screen capture hosted on Imageshack

Update 09/01/2007: Apparently you can still view the executive list if you are not referred to the Wildrose Party site from this blog. I guess they set up a referral block (or an IP block), just for me.

This of course proves that the Wildrosers are reading this site. Cool.

Wildrose Party stuck in a rut?

I notice that the Alberta Spectator has a post up entitled Wildrose Party moving ahead. In his post, Werner Patels reproduces a rather desperate sounding email from the Wildrose Party:

Albertans are in a remarkable political mood

An astonishing poll this week from Cameron Strategy in Calgary shows that undecided voters are now the largest group in Alberta (37%).

The Stelmach Conservatives have dropped to 32%. That's down from 54% in January. Liberals, NDP, Greens and Alliance are all stalled. Highest place are the Liberals, unchanged at 16%. The Alberta Alliance remains at 5%, down from 9% in 2004 election.

This poll does not bode well for anyone -- except the Wildrose Party.

An "undecided" response above 20% is considered high -- politically, it means things might change. Thirty-seven percent is virtually unheard of. It means there's a huge political vacuum which no existing party has been able to fill.

"Now is the time," says Wildrose president Rob James of Calgary. "Now is the time for our members to spread the message that the party Albertans want is on the way."

Spreading the message is easy.

It starts with signatures to register the party. Go down your street, into your office, or through a nearby apartment building, and gather signatures to register the party with Elections Alberta. (Apartment blocks are easy and very fast. Just ask any resident to let you in, and go from door to door. Remember, you are collecting signatures for a government form, not selling or soliciting.)

Follow the easy tips below.

1. Download a form from the Wildrose Party Web site
http://www.wildroseparty.ca/main/pdf/Registration_Petition.pdf.
(Or click on "petition form" in the Web site's left margin.)

2. Door to door signature gathering

You: Hi. (BIG smile) Are you an eligible Alberta voter? (This is the only question that you need answered – if this is yes, it starts the conversation on a positive note. If the reply is no, it allows you to say "thanks, have a nice day" and move along right away.)

Prospect: Yes.

You: We are in the process of registering a new Alberta political party. The Electoral Office requires 6000 Alberta elector signatures to complete this registration. Your signature does not commit you to anything and you are not endorsing anything. You are just helping us to complete this requirement. Do you mind helping us out? It will only take a second of your time.

You: (After they have signed): Just in case you want to know more about the new party here is their website address (have it on a slip of paper). They have a really nice website.

Thanks very much. Have a great day.

It's important not to give them an opportunity to use the word “No”, and not to engage in lengthy discussion. If you notice, they only have that chance once, after “help us out”, but all you have to do is move to the next friendly, encouraging line really quickly. For example, if they say, "Why do we need another party?" just say, "We're just getting the party registered. Democracy is about choice, right?"

Try it on your friends and ask them how easy it is for them to say “No” to this approach.

Unless you know the person personally, little purpose is served in political discussion. If they are genuinely interested in the party, they will visit the Web site. Your purpose is to gather signatures, not sell party memberships to strangers.

What a farce! The Wildrosers' registration drive has degenerated into something resembling a sleazy, door to door, vacuum cleaner sales pitch.

One has to question why such tactics are necessary, given that Wildrose Party President Rob James was quoted in a July 7 National Post article saying that the Wildrose Party had been greeted by an "overwhelming positive response":

"We're getting overwhelming positive response to this," reports Rob James, president of the Wild Rose party. "We're hearing from all over the province, both rural and urban, from people in the PC party," disgruntled, he says, by a party seen as ruled by elites and neglectful of its grassroots.

The Progressive Conservatives recently had a leadership vote, in which well over 100,000 Albertans took out a membership in the PC Party and voted. If the Wildrose Party was making such "overwhelming" inroads amongst PC members, they would easily have obtained the 6,004 signatures necessary for their petition by now.

I also found this interesting:

Apartment blocks are easy and very fast. Just ask any resident to let you in, and go from door to door. Remember, you are collecting signatures for a government form, not selling or soliciting.

Seems like soliciting to me. They are breaching apartment security, knocking on the tenants' doors without an invite, and then soliciting signatures after giving a sales spiel.

Furthermore, I note that at no time in the example dialog contained in the email, do the Wildrosers admit to being "conservative" or "right wing". In fact, the email warns against wasting time with "political discussion". Part of the propaganda surrounding the creation of this party is the idea that there is a vast pool of non-voting Albertans out there who are staying away from the polls because there isn't a true right wing party to vote for. If this is so, why not state up front what the Wildrose Party is all about?

So, I see things rather differently than Werner Patels. In fact, based on the tactics they have been adopting lately, it appears to me that the Wildrose Party is going to miss their own self-imposed deadline of August 30, 2007 to submit their petition. That deadline was set out in the July 7 edition of the Wildrose Weekly:

We want to submit our 7,000 names to Elections Alberta by August 30, so we can be a duly registered party in good time for our founding Wildrose Party General Assembly October 26/27 at the Palace Banquet hall in south Edmonton.

In fact, I will go on record now and officially make this prediction.

An email to the Wildrose Party

The silence has been deafening since the email scandal became public back on August 21, so I just fired off a quick note to the Wildrose Party asking for a response to Randy Thorsteinson's allegations:

The Watcher (wildrosereport@gmail.com)

Possible breach of confidentiality through usage of Alberta Alliance membership list

The Watcher (wildrosereport@gmail.com) Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 11:21 AM

To: The Wildrose Party of Alberta (info@wildroseparty.ca)

I am the blogger who writes The Wildrose Report. I would like to draw your attention to my August 22nd post entitled Scandal engulfs the Wildrose Party. You will note in that post that I have reproduced an email sent by Randy Thorsteinson to the membership of the Alberta Alliance on August 21, 2007. In that email, he is quoted as follows:

I have been inundated with messages from outraged members of the Alberta Alliance over an e-mail that they received from Eleanor Maroes, Marilyn Burns and Phil Gamache earlier today. I would like to state categorically that all three of them left the Alberta Alliance Party several months ago to join a rival political party. Their e-mail was unauthorized and done totally without our knowledge. In fact, they deliberately tried to hide their actions from the Alberta Alliance. Additionally, they purposefully hid their current roles on the rival political party Executive as Treasurer, Secretary and Northern Director.

I apologize that they sent you the e-mail, rest assured they did not get your e-mail address from the Alberta Alliance Party but rather from former candidates. It appears the rival party has been given your e-mail address from either Marilyn Burns or Eleanor Maroes. Each received a confidential Alliance membership list during the Alliance leadership election in 2005. Both Marilyn Burns and Eleanor Maroes were given a membership list under strict conditions of confidentiality and by divulging this list they broke their personal word to respect the confidential nature of the list. You have a right to your privacy and I am absolutely sick that these three people have betrayed that right. Unfortunately I don't know what other information they have shared with the rival party.

As you can see, there is a specific allegation from Mr. Thorsteinson that one or more members of the Wildrose Party executive has improperly breached a confidence with respect to an Alberta Alliance membership list that they obtained while members of the Alberta Alliance back in 2005.

I have yet to read any comment from the Wildrose Party on this very serious allegation. Can you please advise when, if ever, the Wildrose Party plans on issuing a response to Mr. Thorsteinson's allegations (which have been in the public domain for 5 days now).

--
Regards,

The Watcher

I will post any response that I receive.

Scandal engulfs the Wildrose Party

Well, it was bound to happen. The era of friendly public relations between the Wildrose Party and Alberta Alliance Party has come to a crashing end.

For those of you who have not heard, the membership of the Alberta Alliance recently received a recruitment and donation solicitation email from the Wildrose Party. The email was signed by three high profile defectors from the Alberta Alliance - (i) former Interim Leader Eleanor Maroes, (ii) former VP Communications Marilyn Burns, and (iii) former Edmonton Region President Phil Gamache. Here is the full text of said email (sent August 21, 2007):

We are sending you this letter to suggest you check out the website:

http://www.wildroseparty.ca/

I know you are as concerned as we are at how out of control our Conservative government is and has been for several years. As Ralph admitted – they had no plan beyond eliminating the provincial deficit and debt. It seems the Stelmach government also has no plan to manage the province’s resources, environment, infrastructure or social needs. A lack of affordable housing has created huge social problems and the government seems unable to take the necessary steps to solve the crisis.

The Wildrose Party has the backing of many previous Conservative members and donors. 200,000 Conservative members stayed home and did not vote in the last election. In the recent by-elections none of the parties gained in percentage of votes and the Alberta Alliance slipped in it’s support.

We believe the Wildrose Party is catching on with a large number of those 200,000 who stayed home in the last election. Our membership is climbing steadily and donations are sufficient for us to have hired a full time Executive Director and an Operations Manager.

Please check out our website and read our brochure (on the website). Should you decide to buy a membership and/or support us with a donation, you can do so directly from the website using your credit card.

It is obvious the Stelmach government will be vulnerable in the next election and we all need to support the party we believe most likely to challenge that government on the ground in the next election. We believe that party is the Wildrose Party of Alberta.

Eleanor Maroes
Former Interim Leader
Alberta Alliance Party

Marilyn Burns
Former candidate for Leader
Former VP Communications
Alberta Alliance Party

Phil Gamache
Former Edmonton Region President
Alberta Alliance Party

This email was quickly denounced by Alberta Alliance President Randy Thorsteinson in a second email to AAP members:

I have been inundated with messages from outraged members of the Alberta Alliance over an e-mail that they received from Eleanor Maroes, Marilyn Burns and Phil Gamache earlier today. I would like to state categorically that all three of them left the Alberta Alliance Party several months ago to join a rival political party. Their e-mail was unauthorized and done totally without our knowledge. In fact, they deliberately tried to hide their actions from the Alberta Alliance. Additionally, they purposefully hid their current roles on the rival political party Executive as Treasurer, Secretary and Northern Director.

I apologize that they sent you the e-mail, rest assured they did not get your e-mail address from the Alberta Alliance Party but rather from former candidates. It appears the rival party has been given your e-mail address from either Marilyn Burns or Eleanor Maroes. Each received a confidential Alliance membership list during the Alliance leadership election in 2005. Both Marilyn Burns and Eleanor Maroes were given a membership list under strict conditions of confidentiality and by divulging this list they broke their personal word to respect the confidential nature of the list. You have a right to your privacy and I am absolutely sick that these three people have betrayed that right. Unfortunately I don’t know what other information they have shared with the rival party.

Once again I apologize that they have given your information to a rival political party. I thought that they would honour their commitment to respect your privacy, but unfortunately they won’t.

I will do everything I can to remedy this situation.

Best Regards,

Randy Thorsteinson

I retrieved the text of these emails from the discussion forum at Project Alberta. Given that this story may develop some legs and go on for a bit, I have included all links in my public Furl bookmarks for ease of reference.

There are a few points about this developing scandal that should be mentioned:

1. I think this shows that the Wildrose registration petition is in a bit of trouble. The Wildrose Party has imposed a deadline on itself of August 30, 2007 to obtain the 6004 signatures necessary to register the party. The Wildrosers are likely finding out that there simply isn't a very large market for the sorts of strident views Albertans associate with the founding members of this party. Since few mainstream Albertans are signing up, they have little choice but to cannibalize the membership lists of the other small right wing rump parties.
2. Randy Thorsteinson indicates that both "Marilyn Burns and Eleanor Maroes were given a membership list under strict conditions of confidentiality and by divulging this list they broke their personal word to respect the confidential nature of the list." Assuming that this is correct, the sending of this email could result in professional ramifications for one or both of them. Marilyn Burns is a lawyer, and Eleanor Maroes is an accountant. As such, both are subject to a professional code of ethics. If either is found to have misused information they received in confidence, their respective professional bodies may have something to say about it. For their sake, I hope they are not involved in something this stupid. I note that the email would not appear to be digitally signed by them (their names are typed in), and may have gone out without either of them knowing it.
3. If the Wildrose Party forms a government, they will have access to all kinds of confidential information on every Albertan: health records, financial information, educational records, and so forth. The privacy of such information is protected by law, but, if the Wildrosers are willing to violate confidentiality agreements to advance themselves as a party, why would anyone expect them to show any more deference for the privacy laws designed to protect people from government snooping?
4. Randy Thorsteinson should deal with this publicly, not privately. He should make a public demand that the three signatories to the email be removed from the executive pending a full investigation. He should publicly release any confidentiality agreement that exists, and get the media asking questions about this. The public will be supportive of any effort to get answers, but, in order for them to be supportive, they have to know what is going on. I don't see anything on the Alliance website about this, nor is there anything in the media. Get it together.

I don't think we've heard the last of this. It will be interesting to see how the Wildrose Party handles this challenge. Like most political parties, they talk critically about the ethics of other parties, and about how they will be different and beyond reproach. From their website:

People are sick of politicians promising things and then not doing them.

When you live in glass houses, you shouldn't throw stones.

The Wildrose Party has some 'splaining to do, and some people to fire. It should make for fascinating viewing.

I have to put Link on hold ... for now

Thanks for your ongoing interest in this site. Unfortunately, my clinical dissection of Link Byfield's specious reasoning behind the formation of the Wildrose Party is still on the drawing board.

This pony has been a little too occupied with other matters, so I've got to put this blog out to pasture for a few more days.

I have set up a RSS feed for those of you who wish to be automatically notified of posts made to this site. Simply click the link on the right, and you should be taken to a page where you can select your reader and subscribe. If you want an even better option, take a look beneath "My Recent Posts" on the right hand side of this page. That link allows you to subscribe to my "Treason Trilogy" blended feed, which will keep you up to date not only on the anti-Alberta machinations of Wildrose, but on how the Alberta Alliance and Alberta Liberal Party continue to betray the public interest as well.

Cheerio.

Hi everybody!

Werner Patels has managed to find this blog, and the traffic is flowing nicely. I was actually hoping to have a few more posts up on the Wildrose Party before listing this on the blogrolls, but Werner is just a little too thorough, and noticed the link in my profile.

My first substantive post will be on the mental gymnastics Link Byfield has gone through in order to justify his involvement in this venture. At the risk of spoiling the ending, his justification is complete crap.

That post won't be up until late next week, so I hope to see you back at that point.

Oh, and Werner, as far as my political affiliation goes, I am non-partisan.

Definitely not a Tory.

Confidential tips by email

I have opened an email account for confidential tips. If you look at the sidebar on the right-hand side of this page, you will find the confidential tips email link under the "About Me" heading.

Information and confidential tips are the lifeblood of any media, and I hope some of you will provide me with information that you think is important for the public to know about. The following represents the policies I will administer with respect to any information you provide to me:

• The information will only be published if it pertains to the Wildrose Party of Alberta.
• Your confidentiality will be respected. No information that may serve to identify you will be published by me.
• Your email address will be kept completely confidential. It will not be shared with anybody.
• I will not publish anything that is defamatory.

I think that covers it, but if you have any recommendations on how this feature can be improved, I would be glad to hear from you.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A new political party is organizing in the province of Alberta. The Wildrose Party of Alberta was announced by a founding group of members after a meeting that took place on June 23, 2007, in Red Deer. The roster of attendees clearly shows that the Wildrose Party is largely made up of a breakaway faction of former Alberta Alliance politicians, executives, and members. These former Alliance politicos have been joined by some other right wing public figures, including Link Byfield. Throw in a couple of cranks and screwballs, and the founding members picture is complete.

According to their website, the Wildrosers have adopted three inaugural objectives:

1. We'll reduce the massive outflow of Alberta dollars to the federal system by standing up to Ottawa and Quebec

Albertans lose billions every year to other provinces through federal taxation. Ottawa uses our money to buy votes in eastern Canada. This is bad for Alberta and bad for for national unity.

The biggest government cost in Alberta is the amount Ottawa takes out of our province in taxes and doesn't return in spending. It works out to over $10,000 per Alberta household per year.

There are a number of legal ways to cut this back to a more sensible level, but the other parties don't have the political backbone to stand up to Ottawa.

2. We'll make sure that provincial policy reflects the values and priorities of ordinary Albertans

Politicians everywhere like to buy votes by funding special interest groups.

We'll focus on the things that benefit everyone, like roads, schools, law and order, and saving for the future.

Without better spending priorities, Alberta will soon be back in a deficit position.

3. We've written it into our party constitution that our MLAs will do what they promised

If they don't, they can be kicked out of the party. People are sick of politicians promising things and then not doing them.

This blog also has three objectives: (i) to critique the policies and public positions of the Wildrose Party, (ii) to uncover and publish the truth behind the Wildrose Party's public facade, and (iii) to investigate and inform Albertans about the true nature and background of the people involved in Wildrose.

In other words, this blog will be the Wildrose version of (i) the Good, (ii) the Bad, and (iii) the Ugly.

The Wildrose Report is hereby at your service. Enjoy.