Why I can't support Scarborough-Agincourt candidate Harry Tsai (Part 2)

Part 1 Part 3 (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Here's a nice interview of three main candidates, and what they each stand for.

This post is the second in a series on why I can't support Taiwanese-Canadian candidate Harry Tsai, representing the Conservative Party of Canada in a Liberal stronghold against incumbent Jim Karygiannis. I am happy to see our community members stepping up to politics, but (1) I am unimpressed with a campaign closed to public opinion and a campaign video only available in Mandarin, and (2) I am disappointed with the "ethnic vote" targeting of the Conservatives. I discuss three more issues below:


3) The campaign website is filled with general messages from Harper and the Conservative Party, with no discussion on local issues.  

If you're going to run on a campaign to better represent our riding, you've got to discuss some local issues. But these local concerns are not discussed anywhere on his website, instead featuring the same statements that the Conservative party have been releasing. Here's a quick breakdown of each subpage:

i) "Home": On the 20th of April, I see a post titled "Passover 2011 Greetings from the Prime Minister", a message from Harper to the Jewish community from April 18th. No mention of Harry Tsai or Scarborough-Agincourt, odd for the home page of an election candidate. There is, however, a media panel featuring five pictures in rotation. A majority of them are generic conservative party ads: a picture of Flaherty discussing the economy, one of Harper on taxcuts, and a third picture of Dion, Layton, and Duceppe, on the issue of an Ignatieff coalition. Two of them are pictures of Harry Tsai, linking to the media articles featuring photos taken at campaign rallies and support galas, but both links say nothing about specific issues (here's ALL the text on both pages):

Brings Senior Cares to Scarborough-Agincourt
At a rally held at the Formosa Evergreen Senior Citizens Center on Friday (April 15, 2011), Tsai received warm support and reception from community leaders and members living across GTA. Supporters cheered “Get elected! Get elected” and “Send Harry to Ottawa” during the event in the hope that Tsai would make history and become the first Taiwanese-Canadian to participate in Canadian politics at the legislative level.

Tsai’s father, Tsai Ching and wife, Theresa also took part in the rally.

It is about time that Taiwanese-Canadians start participating in Canada’s politics, his father said.

Ontario Chinese for Conservative Party Gala

Attended Ontario Chinese for Conservative Party Campaign Gala organized by the Federation of Ontario Traditional Chinese Medicine Association. Great crowd!! Great support!!

Not much is said about policy or local concerns. Even with the title "Brings senior cares to Scarborough-Agincourt", there was no talk on the page about what these senior cares were, and what was being done about them. But this is just the home page, so let's not judge for sparse content and move on.

ii) the "about" page: A brief summary of past achievements, accompanied with a picture of Tsai and Harper. Besides resume-like points, there are a list of three phrases: "enhance youth development", "take care of elders" and "promote multiculturalism". Out of all the pages, this is arguably the closest Harry Tsai gets to addressing local issues. Yet, there are no details or plans given - these points are more like general concerns to the party, if not all of Canada, instead of specific community issues.

iii) "News Updates": Here's a picture. How many of these points deal with local issues? How many of these are the same statements from the Conservative Party of Canada? The first two posts link to what I mentioned above on the Home page. Otherwise, everything else is just another federal campaign ad. I have no idea what Harry Tsai is offering, specific to Scarborough-Agincourt.

iv) "Riding": A map of Scarborough-Agincourt with a link to Elections Canada.

v) "Events": A list of upcoming meet-the-candidates events and the dates of the advance polls and election. 

vi) "Media": The first half are a few photo albums of campaign events. The second half embeds six videos (well, I guess he can embed them), including the previously mentioned (in part 1) videos of Harry Tsai's Mandarin campaign clip and a few minutes at one of his rallies. There are also two Harper ads, and two ads by other Conservative candidates of visible minorities endorsing the Harper Conservatives.

vii) "Contact": A simple form page, along with an address and number. I've also noticed that there's no email address. While the form takes care of getting messages through, removing email as a channel of communication is not something I see very often.

Of these seven pages, I do not know much about Harry Tsai and what he stands for, other than his backing of the values set out by the Conservative Party of Canada. This does not set him apart from Jim Karygiannis, who, at the very least, features some local issues and personally written messages (well, at least by his office, instead of only linking to the main party's website). With no local issues brought up on his campaign site with less than two weeks until the election, I see little backing for his claim of "bringing Scarborough-Agincourt back to Ottawa".

4) The campaign website is riddled with typos and mistakes.

This issue is a bit of a pet peeve for me - a bit hypocritical too as I'm sure you've found some mistakes in my writing by this point. But I expect better from a campaign site - there has to be someone editing the posts that are made on your website. If you can't manage to keep mistakes out of a few short posts, how can I trust you to maintain good habits in writing letters and parliamentary documents? How much time will you dedicate to representing Scarborough-Agincourt? The following are just a few examples I noticed on a quick skim of the website and media links:

"He serves many people including new immigrants, youth, seniors, different ethnic group."

"...Tsai received warm support and reception from community leaders and members living across GTA."

"- Actively involved in raising funds to support disasters."

"2011-03-27 PM Ralley"

Also keep in mind that there aren't that many words on the campaign site to start with. Yes, this is a minor issue, but once again, it's a bothersome one for me, and definitely a turn off when it comes to choosing a candidate to support.

5) Placing your ~$2.00 in better hands

The last issue I want to bring up is a rather important one: strategic voting. I suppose this is a necessary evil of any election with a first-past-the-post system, and I will keep this short because I don't want to discuss all the possible scenarios. I'll say this: there is little doubt that Karygiannis will be re-elected, whether or not you like him. Scarborough-Agincourt is not considered by any party, or news site, to be a battleground riding, and I've gotten this notion from Harry Tsai supporters as well. 

If a winner has essentially been decided already, your vote comes down to a donation to a political party, a value slightly higher than $2.00 (it's $1.75 of 2003 dollars adjusted for inflation). Here, I'd suggest reading up a bit more on each party's platforms before voting, instead of casting your support behind a fellow community member when you're actually supporting the party they're running for. Remember, these per-vote subsidies don't go to your candidate - they go to their party. 

Think before you vote. 

If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions you want to offer, feel free to contact me. There's a comment box below, an anonymous form on the left side bar, and you can always throw me an email at ay.savethetigers@gmail.com.

An Update/Follow Up from the Harry Tsai Campaign