Kate Schwass - Simcoe Reformer
Wednesday August 23, 2006
The red background, the same menu, the same photos.
But take a closer look.
“It’s going to look as if she set it up herself,” Gary McHale said from his Toronto area home yesterday. “It’s going to be hilarious, and she’s not going to like it.”
McHale bought the website address www.WakeUpDianeFinley.com on Friday and has already posted a few pictures and text, with a note saying the site is still under construction. A tag line at the bottom of the satirical website says, “If it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.”
On the website, McHale calls Finley the next “candidate for the PCLiberal Party of Canada for Haldimand-Norfolk.” One photo shows her as a puppet with her puppeteer as Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty. There is also a fake note from Finley on the website, signed with “love and kisses” from the Haldimand-Norfolk MP.
McHale said it is set up to look like Finley’s own website (www.dianefinley.ca) which he says makes a statement about her own political tendencies.
“It’s outright red . . . When she creates a website the way she did and she wears a red suit for a photo, that’s making a strong statement,” he said, noting other Ontario Conservative MPs have blue, not red, as their backdrop colour. “In politics, nothing is a fluke.”
He added the goal of the Wake Up Diane Finley website is “either she decides she is obligated to represent the residents in her constituency, and I mean really represent them, or she should resign.”
The problem is that Finley isn’t answering to her constituents about the native occupation at Douglas Creek Estates in Caledonia, McHale said, adding residents are getting frustrated.
“People started sending things in to me and I thought, I need to make a new website,” McHale said.
McHale also runs the website Caledonia Wake Up Call (www.caledoniawakeupcall.com) about the native occupation at Douglas Creek Estates and people are taking notice. Last week alone there were more than 13,500 hits on the website with the average person reading four stories before leaving. On Monday when the Reformer talked to him, 60 people were online at 2:45 p.m. and the IP addresses included some from Queen’s Park and the House of Commons.
“When you can get so many different people from the House of Commons on the website, it’s clear they’re realizing it’s an issue,” he said.
Lisa Murray in Finley’s Ottawa office said Finley is currently on vacation and “we haven’t spoken about this yet.” She said there was no further comment on the website or its content at this time.
Finley has been spoofed on the Caledonia Wake Up Call website as well where people who have written in to the website have called her a “Red Tory” and there is a “Not Wanted” poster asking for Finley to return her pay and resign.
The website CitizensofCaledonia.ca also offered residents lawn signs that read “Has anyone seen Diane Finley? Leadership?”
McHale, who said he is a Conservative, acknowledged this newest project could get him into some hot water.
“This one really puts me in the realm of being sued,” he said, but added because it’s clearly a satirical site, he thinks he would win if he was taken to court. “There’s no way someone’s going to look at this and say it’s her site. They might do a double-take, though.”
McHale added he hopes the website will help bring change.
“I hope we can get the federal politicians to wake-up and we need to start with Diane Finley,” he said.