Agency to launch PR campaign to counter allegations of bias
In the wake of the in-and-out affair that has pitted Elections Canada against the Conservative party, the agency has identified “trust” as one of three “strategic priorities” for a revamped communications plan, the Ottawa Citizen reports. According to a tender that went out earlier this week, EC will spend up to $100,000 over the next year to reach out to “election stakeholders” — from candidates and party workers to campaign volunteers. Although the still raging legal battle over the agency’s decision to reject some Conservative candidates’ 2006 election advertising expense claims isn’t mentioned in the notice, the Citizen points out that the tender identifies much of the documentation related to political financing—handbooks, fact sheets and manuals—as a specific area to be “assessed”, and also notes the challenge of communicating “complex concepts to people with different sophistication levels”. The Conservatives have complained that the 2006 handbook was “misleading.”