Compare and contrast

It's great to see the Star reporting on the latest invasion of the Cons' Pod People. But there's another interesting new piece of information from the story which nicely highlights the relative priorities of the NDP's MPs compared to those of the Cons.

Remember that when Con MP John Duncan received an e-mail which wasn't intended for him, the result was his party surrepetitously dialling into and then leaking a private telephone call for political gain.

In contrast, the Star reveals that when NDP MP Linda Duncan received an e-mail which wasn't intended for her, the result was...the newfound knowledge being used to help her constituents:

In Edmonton-Strathcona, the only Alberta riding the Conservatives do not hold, local Tory candidate Ryan Hastman has participated in at least five government announcements over the past few months, while the local NDP MP, Linda Duncan, says she has been excluded from all of them. Hastman boasts of his participation in pictures on his Facebook page.

Duncan, who calls the "whole process offensive," says it becomes doubly irritating when a Conservative candidate claims credit for funds she helped to get for the community, as the duly elected MP.

"What I find reprehensible about all this is that they just can't seem to accept the fact that Edmonton-Strathcona voters elected me, not a Conservative," Duncan said.

Hastman was on hand, posing for pictures with Labour Minister Rona Ambrose, when the Conservatives gave a $14.8 million cheque to the GO community sports centre in Edmonton in September, for example.

Duncan had worked with the centre to get the application into the government before the deadline elapsed earlier in the year – and says she only found out about that deadline because someone accidentally sent her an email directed to the Alberta Conservative caucus.

Now, there's plenty of reason for concern about how the Cons themselves apparently tried to keep the funding deadlines to themselves. (And it's probably worth some followup as to whether that might help to explain the glaring gap between stimulus funding for Con-held ridings and that for the rest of the country.)

But Linda Duncan's response also highlights the fact that there are indeed MPs to be found whose main focus is working to serve their constituents rather than taking credit for what others are doing. And the fact that Duncan's main challenger has that set of priorities exactly backwards should give Edmonton-Strathcona voters ample reason to keep Duncan in Parliament.

Update: And lest I forget, you too can help out the cause.