Mike Lake is going to "astro-turf" support

The parliamentary secretary to truth-challenged Industry Minister Tony Clement has decided that hearing from, what is now becoming, an endless list of organizations opposing Harper's ditching of the census long-form questionnaire would, well, make things a tad uncomfortable.

So he's going to call his own witnesses to committee.

The Conservatives are proposing a new tack in the debate over the government’s decision to make Canada’s long form census a voluntary exercise.

Faced with a list of groups that so far tilts heavily toward the “bad idea” camp, Tory MPs say they will be calling individuals as committee witnesses to speak out in favour of the government’s plans.

“I think it’s appropriate to have individual Canadians appear,” said Edmonton-area Conservative MP Mike Lake, the parliamentary secretary to Industry Minister Tony Clement. “They’re the ones that are getting asked the questions and being forced under threat of fines and jail time to answer them, so absolutely it’s appropriate for individual Canadians to appear before committee.”

And once again, another Harperite reaches for the hyperbole of "jail time", something which no resident of this country has ever endured with respect to the census. Ever.

“There are over 200 groups that have protested against what the government is doing,” Liberal MP Marc Garneau said. “Obviously the Conservatives are trying to stall and they don’t have that many witnesses to begin with.”

The Tories said the opposition was proposing a timeline that was not realistic. They suggested instead that meetings be called a couple of weeks from now to allow witnesses enough time to prepare what they want to say.

Opposition MPs counter that groups opposed to the government move are chomping at the bit to speak before a committee. All three opposition parties accuse the Tories of stalling because they are struggling to find groups that will speak out in their favour.

Not so, Mr. Lake counters. There will be groups on their side – as well as individual citizens.

Groups? He means Reform think-tanks. Individual citizens?

“In terms of discussions that I’ve had with my constituents, Canadians across the country are split on this issue and certainly there are a lot of Canadians – I’m not going to get into what the witness list might look like exactly – but there are Canadians from coast to coast who want to comment on it,” he said.

Oh? Well unless it's a list selected from a random pile of telephone books by blindfolded Chimpanzees with highlighters we can all pretty much guess where the "individuals" will be coming from.

More at Scott's, POGGE, M.J.'s and Shiner's.