HST protest and the new digital age
Yesterday I received an email from a co-worker that originated from the Ontario realtors association. The email proclaimed all the bad things the HST would bring for those who wanted to buy a house. It was obviously a biased email–BTW, I am still researching the HST, and don’t have a final answer on what I think of it yet–but what made it so interesting was how easy they made it for someone to write a letter to their MPP.
Letters to MPPs do work in that they show that the public is interested enough to voice their complaints directly. This can be effective because it usually takes some effort to write something up and send it. But this new method of making it very easy for people will have new consequences. I did not see the site they had set up (unfortunately deleted the email) but can imagine that it would not have cost them too much in this age of ready-made web templates. If this works, look for more email/web/form campaigns going forward. I firmly believe that you can not stop the march of new technology, but I do believe people need to be aware of how certain groups will be able to use it.
