The campaign for 2022 Vancouver mayoral hopeful Ken Sim is in damage control mode due to a piece of direct mail they've been sending out to Vancouverites.
Misleading, dishonest, deceptive, manipulative, gross, and unethical are all adjectives that Vancouver voters are using on Twitter to describe a piece of mail that has the words "IMPORTANT CIVIC ELECTION INFORMATION" emblazoned in red ink on the envelope.
Many of them point out the fact that, no, there's no important election information contained in the letter inside that very official-looking envelope.
Disguised to look like a piece of critically important information from a voting body like Elections BC, it is, in fact, a simple introduction to the former NPA candidate who lost to Kennedy Stewart by a mere 957 votes in the 2018 civic election.
It was sent out by Sim's new party, A Better City Vancouver, and ends in a plea for the reader to give money to them so that they may "build a more affordable, livable, and safer city for everyone."
To add insult to injury, whoever is running the party's account has decided to reply to many of the angry responses to a tweet sent out by CBC Radio host Stephen Quinn in which he says "it contains zero important election information."
One Twitter user says they "recycled [the letter] immediately" after they received it, and the @ABetterCityVan account thanks them for doing the right thing and being environmentally conscious.
Another user demands an apology for the deceptive solicitation for cash, to which the account responds, "We’re not going to apologize for doing everything we can to engage an electorate that has a lower than 45% voter turnout rate."
In Sim's defense, who doesn't think that tricking people into reading a plea for cash isn't IMPORTANT (all caps) when it's them doing it? Who among us has not resorted to a bait and switch to make a fast buck, at a critical time when we are looking to gain trust, then tried to pretend that all we were doing was trying to save democracy and encourage a healthier voter turnout?
Perhaps most of us. Oh well.
Remember to vote on October 15th, 2022.
Oh, and watch this space as Vancouver's Stupidest Politics Column (launched during the 2018 election) returns.
