Harper under fire for tossing Londoners out of Tory rally

[Very_Boring_Name]

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an apology Monday to a local teen who claims she was turfed from Harper’s London rally over her Facebook picture with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Mounting criticisms of Conservative campaign restrictions flared up over incidents at the rally involving Awish Aslam and another Londoner, Ali Aref Hamadi.

== == ==

Aslam, a 19-year-old University of Western Ontario student, said she wept after being booted out of the rally. “I’ve never voted in a federal election before,” she said. “We just repeated we were only there to listen.”

Aslam and a friend registered online to attend Harper’s Sunday rally — part of the restrictions the Conservatives place on such events.

Aslam said her friend’s dad is a card-carrying Tory who showed them how to sign up online.

About 30 minutes after arriving and signing in, with thundersticks in hand, the two girls were asked by a man to follow him out of the rally, Aslam said. Though confused, they complied.

In a back room, Aslam said he ripped off their name tags, tore them up and ordered them out.

“We were confused. He said, ‘We know you guys have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook,’ ” Aslam said. “He said . . . ‘You are no longer welcome here.’ ”

Aslam and her friend both attended last week’s Liberal rally in London, where they managed to snag a picture with Ignatieff that both posted as their Facebook profile pictures.

Aslam is assuming the Conservatives checked her name, from her registration, on Facebook. Though her account is locked down, the profile picture can be found easily.

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full story: http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/04/04/17875211.html

[Posteritatis]

1. An apology for it making the news, maybe...

Though I admit I'm a little surprised that there'd be at least two non-conservatives in that city.

[iverglas]

2. now now, that's my home town ;)

I worked on the winning NDP campaign in a 1969 byelection there, and during the 1970s the excellent NDPer Jane Bigelow was mayor!

Before the NDP took my home riding, it was represented by an utterly useless Liberal, Charlie Turner.

But yes, overall, I don't disagree with the assessment. I got outa town as soon as I could, when I was 16. ;)

[Very_Boring_Name]

3. London is pretty left wing

It's completely anecdotal from my own experience, but they seem to be very progressive. I know that federally nearly every riding in london is liberal or NDP. The fact that its a university town with the progressive youth probably contributes to this.

[Posteritatis]

4. Aside from the ridings, that's basically the complete opposite of my experience

I haven't seen a more conservative campus than Western while I was attending the place, and I live near a seminary right now. I'd see NDP voters who would still regret that we didn't completely exterminate the First Nations population, for instance, and the graduate student body there defines itself in terms of its homophobia nowadays.

It's a very tolerant place if one is straight, white and Christian or Jewish, but while I was in town I noticed astonishing hostility towards just about any other group, which has only gotten worse in the last few years.

[iverglas]

5. Western

That's exactly why I split when I was 16! Ran away to Waterloo to go to university. ;)

London and some burg in Alberta are the whitest/anglo-est in Canada, per the last census.

I went to the late years of public school in London North, where I very much did not live. Shelley Matthews Peterson was in my grade, but not my class. Her older and younger sisters were in the advanced classes I was in; if the fact that her father was rich and later president of the Ontario PC party, and they lived in North London, wasn't enough to get her into those classes (it's the way most other members got in), imagine how stupid *she* was.

I'm sure you must have actually met the NDP voters you talk about, but they don't reflect my experience of the breed there. I worked on the campaign for ... can't remember his name, he was a United Church minster, in 1969. That riding was later held by Dave Winninger, who I also went to school (or the Unitarian youth group or something) with, and the description doesn't fit him either.

You must be familiar with "East of Adelaide". I come from way east of Adelaide. Labour/working-class history was damned trendy at Western a decade or two ago. No longer?

http://www.atticbooks.ca/mainflor/localhis.html

East of Adelaide: Photographs of
commercial, industrial and working-class
urban Ontario: 1905-1930
Alan Noon
A popular history about the working-class
district of East London, Ontario in the early
years of the twentieth century.

There are pictures of the women workers at the brand new hygienic McCormicks candy factory on Dundas East that I'm sure my great-aunt is in somewhere.



http://www.lib.uwo.ca/programs/companyinformationcanada/ccc-mccormicks.htm


A black man got on the bus my mum and little brother were riding on back in the 50s. My mum recalls him as in business suit and white shirt, and distinctly unamused when my 2-yr-old brother stood up and excitedly said "mummmy mummy look at the chocolate man!" Not as unamused as my mother, who mentally stuffed my brother under the seat. We sure weren't reared to make racial distinctions; we just didn't know there were any, at that age!

There was always a lot more to London than London North, London North just didn't agree. But it was not a destination for immigrant groups before the last few decades, largely because of its economy, I'd imagine -- academia, the insurance industry, no manufacturing base.

[tuvor]

6. Harper's employing people to troll Facebook on his behalf??

That's a nasty case of paranoia he's got there.

I'm having trouble believing it's not somehow taxpayer-funded.

[CHIMO]

7. Harper’s closed-door campaign marches woman out of rally in London

VICTORIAVILLE, QUE.— Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has long been known for martial discipline, but his campaign may have crossed the line when someone frog-marched a young woman out of a rally in London, Ont., Sunday.

Yet it is becoming a pattern. Last Thursday an advocate for homeless veterans was turned away when he attempted to attend a campaign event where Harper was speaking in Halifax. This, after several unsuccessful attempts by Jim Lowther to contact the Tory leader about the plight of once-proud Canadian soldiers now living on the streets.

Lowther later joined both Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton on campaign podiums as they announced their promises to provide better benefits to vets.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/969309--harper-s-closed-door-campaign-marches-woman-out-of-rally-in-london?bn=1

I'm lost. Whose in charge?