Moldy Peaches

Is Calgary growing at such a clip that it now includes Richmond, BC? Not likely, so why is Calgary West Conservative MP Rob Anders sending mail to that riding? This just one of a few questions that voters are left to ponder.

Anders has sent out a householder - fully paid for by Canadian taxpayers - asking their views on same sex-marriage, crystal meth and crime. The survey bears a masked man with a gun on the front, under the question: "Are you concerned about the impact of the Crystal Meth epidemic in your community?"

The mailer concludes: "Tell Paul Martin to get tough on crime by filling out this questionnaire."

There are four survey questions:

- Do you like the way Paul Martin spends your taxes?

- Are the Liberals doing enough to fight crime?

- Do you support homosexual sex marriage?

- Do you think more should be spent on the military?

Regardless of a person views on same sex relations, it is not a criminal offence. What is even more amazing is that Anders refers to the same sex marriage question as "homosexual sex marriage". What does that entail? Is that a same sex marriage biggie sized?

This is not the first time Anders has caused a stir in federal politics for all the wrong reasons. The Nelson Mandela incident serves as an excellent example. In 2001, the Federal Government decided to give Mandela honorary Canadian citizenship, making him only the second foreigner to receive such an honour. Deepak Obhrai, the Conservative MP for Calgary East, announced that Mandela was "Not only...an international symbol of resistance to prejudice and injustice, but...also a symbol for peace and forgiveness."

Nelson Mandela is the man widely hailed for inspiring the peaceful collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa, under which whites and nonwhites were forcibly separated from one another, and a white minority ruled over the oppressed majority of the population. Elected deputy National President of the African National Congress in 1952, he advocated non-violent resistance to the apartheid regime. However, the regime viewed him as a threat, and after the military massacred peaceful demonstrators at Sharpeville in 1960, the ANC launched the MK, a paramilitary wing to fight the oppressive regime. Although the MK only attacked symbolic targets under Mandela's watch, Mandela was arrested, and spent 27 years in jail. In 1991, he was elected President of South Africa, and continues to serve as an eloquent statesman, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Rob Anders disagreed, calling Mandela, "a communist and a terrorist," decrying Mandela as "the politically correct Left-lib poster boy of today", and predicting that he would be forgotten in 30 years.

"Would you want to live in Johannesburg today?" he asked, implying that South Africans, 75% of whom were stripped of their rights for half of a century, would have been better off under the apartheid regime.

Mandela, famous for his willingness to reconcile with his oppressors, apparently then attempted to phone Anders to smooth things out, but Anders refused to take his call.

Rob Anders has to be the worst MP in all of Canada. Even Conservative pundits have little use for the man. Don Martin wrote this about Anders in 2002 - "In a Commons loaded with lightweights, Calgary West's MP almost defies gravity." The Calgary Herald, January 13, 2002. p. A9.