The Times Colonist had a story today about candidates complaining that their mailings were not going to every household because people are allowed to opt out of junk mail - the 1984ish euphemistic term Canada Post uses is unaddressed admail. The proper English language term for it is junk mail.
Oak Bay candidates Nils Jensen and Tara Ney in Oak Bay were mentioned in the article. I do not think they did themselves any favours by complaining. The people who opt out of junk mail tend to me active in the community and have a passion for a better world. Complaining about bot being allowed to spam people with junk mail is hardly going to make them want to vote for you.
I am glad people can opt out of junk mail, I did so at my old house and have not done so at the new one. There is no reason why someone should expect to be able to send me stuff I did not ask for.
The candidate complaints annoy me further because they are not making use of the resources they have. If you are running in Oak Bay, it is not a huge task to knock on all the doors and deliver your material in person. I note that Nils Jensen, a guy I like and would vote for, has made no effort to make his campaign available online. It is 2008, not 1958. We are online now and look for our information online.
Using junk mail to get your message out is also a waste of resources. Almost all of the paper is thrown out without anyone reading it. Based on industry standard, of the potential 8000 households in Oak Bay only about 100 to 200 people will read the material.
I would like to see the Federal Government ban junk mail. I would also like to see them create a no deliver list - no one is allowed to deliver anything non addressed to an address for any reason. I would also like to see the do not call list be changed to a list where only numbers of people that have opted in are allowed to be called. We are intelligent people and we know hoe to find the information we want online, let us do it.
2 comments:
Excellent points Bernard!
As an Oak Bay candidate and one who has had to deliver all of his campaign literature the old fashioned way, by hand, I have little sympathy for these two, even if I do like Nils as well.
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