Maybe it's just me and my 'sunny ways' but throughout most of my life I never saw a telephone phone book filled with names, addresses, and phone numbers as a data breach. In fact, the first thing most of did after receiving the yearly book was check to make sure the personal information it listed was correct. But now? A deadly conspiracy is afoot, I tell you. (It took personal time, effort, and money to remove this information from the public domain and gain an unlisted number... which it was why it was called 'unlisted'. And there was nary a scandal in sight.)
My, how times have changed. Now the risk to safety for this unacceptable breach cannot be overstated and the culprits held to account for their dark motives. Think of the thousands in some form of witness protection who kept their name and stayed determined to exercise their franchise under it, confident that select electoral officers can access this information with no risk but anyone familiar with a phone book casts a long and threatening shadow.
The phonebook analogy is facile and misleading. The fact that people could choose to have their names unlisted in the old phonebooks is *NOT* a minor detail: it was a key security feature for a lot of people. The voter registry is also a higher quality source of data than phonebooks or commercially-available consumer data because the data is regularly updated and verified by government agencies (such as annual tax returns.)
The claim also ignores the fact that the security issues have changed markedly over the past decade due to the rise of information technology. Yes, scammers *could* open a phone book in the past to get a name and address and use them for criminal activity. It took more effort, though: you had to physically look up the data, and applying for credit or forging an identity required more paper and in-person interactions that made it more difficult. A computer database is easier to exploit, easier to exploit at scale, and easier to exploit from *anywhere*. Further, the proliferation of online services means that information can more easily be used for scams.
You could argue that scammers could get similar information without the voter database, and you'd be right: this is why people working in cybersecurity are appalled at how careless people are with their personal data online. Security is always evolving because crime is always evolving. A Kryptonite bike lock that provided great protection 30 years ago is junk in an age where criminals have learned to pick the locks and have access to cordless grinders.
The attempt to downplay the severity of this leak with BS phonebook analogies does not speak well for the separatist cause. Either they don't understand the problem, or they don't care. Neither suggests that they should be trusted with a government.
My point is that if this were as big a problem as many assume it is (aimed as it is in attacking the 'separatists'), then I think the correct response is to alter the process and make it more secure rather than vilify those who used the information (a practice I suspect is far more common than many may suspect or even realized by those dedicated to discrediting the motives for separation... hence the phone book analogy to show the actual information has been historically public with some exceptions). The amount of information bought and sold about anyone from interacting in this digital world might shock us to realize just how little privacy anyone actually has from the data centres that collect it. Name, address, and phone number is a very thin surface on this deep issue but made out in this case to be the center not for good reasons but very much targeted partisan political benefit.
You're making a circular argument: the fact that separatist groups were able to breach the security as evidence that the data wasn't really that sensitive because the separatist groups were able to breach the security. Should there have been more security? Obviously. However, it's hard to deal with bad actors like the Republican Party people who gave unauthorized access to others. You can make it harder to do what they did, but ultimately making such data available to anybody introduces a vulnerability.
Yes, I can see how one might read the issue this way. But (like 'carbon footprint') passing security on to the individual for a system that is so vulnerable I think is a foolish approach if security is really the issue. I don't think it is. This is why the utter lack of demands to tighten up the security of the system as a whole compared with vilifying those who have used it in this one case (and as far as I know only this case has been raised but not many, many others) I think demonstrates the high level of political partisanship in play here. And as an audience to what could also be read as a politicized morality play I think benefits from a bit more critical read to reduce the gullibility factor so many Canadian 'patriots' seem determined to exhibit at every opportunity.
All the other political parties followed the rules. Right now the issue is that one particular party broke them, and the immediate problem is corralling the horse that escaped the barn rather than picking out a better lock. And if this is a partisan issue, it's because one particular party broke the rules, and another one appears to have hobbled the rules.
This is a genuine question as I’ve thought about some of the points you raise as well: if having our private voter contact info available online is safe enough, why do we use pseudonyms or nicknames to comment here, and why don’t we include the neighborhood where we live in our monikers, to help contextualize our comments? For me the online environment is different than a physical phone book in terms of who has access and how quickly, but I’m curious how you are thinking about that question if you are willing to share?
I think because people have become so used to hiding behind pseudonyms to flame and troll that they fear any revelation of their identity. Similarly “doxxing” is considered a crime by law enforcement. So they extend this fear to any revelation of their identity even in innocent contexts like the white pages (do they still exist?)
Good point(s). The online aspect is a consideration that could be much better handled using, let's say, designated passwords to gain access only by those authorized to do so. Believe me, I understand the need for privacy and implement a personal amount that I think is necessary in my case.
But it's this notion of what used to be basic public information (I think, but I could be wrong) to now be some earth shattering exposure that I question. Yes, it's certainly an issue, but is it really this big of an issue considering its place in scope of the amount of online information I can freely and with little effort gain about others through various social media... much of it on offer by people revealing private information? Or is the lack of proper oversight (and accountability) in this one case being used to blow this WAY out of proportion for the political ammunition it offers, targeting as it does only one side of those on this the binary question and painting this side as if part of an evil conspiracy?
Has nothing similar by any other political entity ever been done in Canada? (I sincerely believe so having worked multiple elections in various positions of authority in different provinces and encountering all kinds of political information questionably sourced). We sure wouldn't know anything about any of that when journalism writ large has devolved into regularly producing narratives built around motivated reasoning promoting personal political beliefs and policy positions. I suspect this case falls much more into that category than a truly terrible breach of privacy on personal and private information... especially compared to and contrasted with ongoing and repeating government, banking, health, library, municipal, educational, and consumer breaches. In other words, maybe we need to get a better grip on the scope and scale of what it is we're really talking about here with this example.
Thank you for responding in good faith. Interesting questions. A friend was interviewing for work with Canadian census, got all the way through multiple rounds and then was asked if they had room to store 30 boxes at their home, i.e. all that info was being stored in plain old boxes in a private citizen's home for the duration of the contract. So I wonder how secure our info is on an average day in any case. I have more questions than answers.
I get your point but if rules were broken, and even a handful of people are exposed to harm due to their information being made public against their will, it's good to see those who broke those rules being held to account.
What I do find interesting is that this is a scandal where the powers that be have seemingly decided that it's acceptable to hold those responsible to some kind of account, or at least let it hurt their cause and movement. We face multi-million and even billion dollar misappropriation scandals at alarming regularity - most commonly involving the federal Liberals but also at the provincial level too - and the reaction isn't what I have seen so far here. We see laws made that endanger the public and activist judges release dangerous people into society, creating just as much if not more of a threat to individuals as this kind of data breach, and there is nothing done.
Again, it's good to see a reaction to - something - but I think this also serves as a test as to what kind of scandals are still allowed to be scandals.
I generally agree, but isn't it interesting to note how demands for accountability and media support for it seems (to me, at least) strangely focused on anyone who dares to question the ideological purity and motives of those in positions of public authority?
Phone listings still exist. They mostly became useless because cellphones were unlisted by default. I’m not sure why cellphones were unlisted, but given it lines up with the time when telemarketing began expanding substantially, I suspect that’s probably why. Call display and whatnot became a thing around that time as well and was adopted en masse for that reason. People don’t want telemarketers having their information. People don’t want scam artists having their information either.
Two other points are that phone books were not readily available internationally back in the days you reference which is highly relevant to the telescams and telemarketing. Unlisted numbers weren’t hard to get if you wanted one and became more common than you seem to think as people wanted to avoid telemarketing calls in the transition away from landlines to cellphones.
Finally, even back then some people got unlisted numbers for safety reasons and just glossing over their exposure like its not a big deal and the equivalent of a phone book being released seems like a pretty poor comparison even if I ignore all the technological developments since the 80s.
The form of the information is the key point. Assembling a list of people from a phone book was a task so onerous that the effort was not worth the benefit. That is not the case with a database of names. In minutes, even seconds, one can slice and dice the data in many different ways.
In addition to the above, though, the data were supposed to be for the use of political parties and Elections Alberta. Does it not bother you that the party in question had no problem breaking that agreement in handing the data to a third party?
I think there's an element - albeit an unsupervised/irresponsible one - of leveling the playing field going on here, so to speak. Again, I think the process needs better security and accountability, but since when was anything governmental accountable to anyone for anything? In other words, sometimes leveling is not a virtue.
I didn’t have my address listed in the phone book and didn’t list my first name either. I went to great care as the online versions came out to ensure my information didn’t get out there. But the thing is, the phone book didn’t mosh many things that the voter registration did. So it’s like comparing apples and oranges and a defense of this as like oh the privacy doesn’t matter in this case says more about disrespect for people’s privacy than anything else.
If someone gets killed due to their address being made public are you going to be singing the same tune? If someone shows up on your door and threatens your family will you still feel the same? I’m assuming not.
I'm not making a comparison; I'm making an analogy. The analogy doesn't mean the breach is minor or irrelevant; it means the scope of the breach, although troubling when it is supposed to not happen, is not nearly as large as it is made out to be. To contrast this scope of this data security breach by comparison, I offer my own experience (which is not insignificant) that discovered not just these basics but much more personal information, medical and government collected information, personal preferences, relationships, assets, habits, (way beyond simply my name, address, and phone number) and quite in depth in all kinds of ways on over 100 different data brokers... that I know of. And I am very careful. Yet this has occurred even under personal yet strict privacy rules I follow.
Sure such a breach is a problem that needs correcting. And of course it can have consequences that are serious. But overall I think it's much more a political event using the breach as cover to advance widespread condemnation of 'separatists' rather than some kind of vital security issue in search of a meaningful and effective solution.
I 99% agree. Historically public prosecutors and judges were unlisted pro bono for good reason, the rest of us had to pay. The rules were broken, but the harm is not clear in a society that is big on transparency.
I got to listen to the podcast on the commute after posting. There are a larger number of people effected by this than I first thought. Domestic abuse victims for example. So there is more harm than I had realized. And the people who were given the data would have committed to protect those vulnerable people. So the broken rules were not trivial.
That's just a flat-out false assertion. The information breach originated with the Republican Party of Alberta. That's because they were granted access to the information, despite being a decidedly a fringe party without the "imprimatur o the regime." Then they didn't follow the rules for protecting the privacy of the information, and used it in ways that weren't allowed. You ignore the very real risks and harms resulting from that abuse, and instead construct a whiny, self-pitying narrative to excuse it.
Why? This is a Westminster parliamentary democracy. We elect representatives to a legislature to make decisions. That's the process, and it's a system that's worked well for hundreds of years. Want to vote to secede? Vote for a party with an explicitly separatist platform. Referenda are a foreign import into our system of government, and every time we bring one in, it screws things up.
I agree with this. Separatist parties haven’t succeeded at getting themselves elected when running on a separatist platform. So people aren’t really all that excited to separate - its not like we have a Bloc Québécois equivalent who is looking to form government. That would actually be the most honest way to poll all voters. Run candidates and see who wins.
Mandates come from the people, or at least, they should.
Referendums are a constructive way to seek the will of the people on a very narrow topic, in a way general elections do not.
If, for example, our current federal government were to use their majority to suddenly decide on our behalf that we should join the EU - placing Canada under an entirely different order of government, and wiping out (or overwriting) almost our entire legal system.
...would you be okay with them just doing this WITHOUT consulting the people?
I strongly lean towards the trustee model outlined in Burke's speech to the Electors of Bristol. I've seen a lot of referenda in my lifetime - the questions are rarely clear-cut; the campaigns tend to be filled with questionable claims and dubious information; the voters themselves are often basing their decision on that bad information or *no* information, and haven't necessarily thought through the implications. Voters are often better served through representatives who have the depth of background needed to understand all of it.
That said, the trustee model is not a blank cheque to do whatever when you're elected: Burke emphasized that the representative is still a representative of the electors. Constant communication is necessary. They're no more entitled to vote for secession after a campaign with no discussion of that opportunity than somebody who receives power of attorney over another's estate is entitled to freely spend money on hookers and blow. Former BC premier Gordon Campbell was essentially forced from office for bringing in the HST shortly after winning another majority government precisely because he'd never even hinted at that.
Not only had Campbell not hinted that he would bring in the HST he had explicitly said that he would not do so which made it even worse. A shame since I support the HST but he completely poisoned the well on bringing it in.
Mandates come from the people, but the reason we use representative democracy is that there is no conceivable reality in which even a slim majority of Albertans have the time to learn about all the dimensions of any particular issue. Much less take the time to learn about that. We pay people to do that, after voting for the ones we feel best represent us.
I just hired a company to cut down a large oak branch in my backyard that was growing over a fence and power line. Before that, a representative came over to look at the tree and give me an estimate, and he said the branch didn't need to come down urgently but he'd do it. I didn't take the time to learn all the details of tree removal and cost out exactly what it would cost him to do the work. I chose the company and to get it cut down and then I let them do what they know, at a price that seemed reasonable enough. I didn't create a chart of each little branch and twig and whether I wanted it removed; and I didn't nickel and dime a local tradesman over his every cost and action. Because that would be ridiculous.
Another foreign import into our system has been Indigenous reconciliation which turned into consideration then consultation then permission then de facto veto power, then actual court-ordered veto power. Now apparently Indigenous groups can veto government actions, programs, and any law they don't agree with. See this week's Alberta court decision to invalidate the separation petition. Look at the mess with UNDRIP in British Columbia. Every branch of government (judicial, executive, legislative) seems to be throwing more gasoline onto the fire.
Lists are the most important resource that a bonafide political party is permitted by law to use with clear legal guidance in the pursuit of an electoral commitment. The Republican party of Alberta, which most of us have never heard of, clearly did not read or fully grasp the rules of engagement vis a vis said list and gave it to the Centurion project to use however they wished.
Canadians have a damned good reason to be outraged at this. Both organizations should have the full weight of the law thrown at them. This isn't about asking the government to investigate its about prosecuting. Unless the Smith government in its legislative fiddling has neutered Elections Alberta to such an extent that they are helpless even beyond the apparent inability to launch an investigation into a reported breach. Danielle Smith is actually beginning to appear like her support for this absurd separatist movement is for real, at this time, with Canada's economic future at stake. This type of Conservative party pandering to the lunatic fringe is bad politics bleeding into policy and its damaging to our country.
Your first paragraph is accurate. The second? Not so much.
The 'lunatic fringe' seems to include close to a majority (but still a minority) of those under the age of 30 and significantly more males than females. Isn't that interesting? I'm not sure either your outrage or language is in this context justified or as helpful as you may believe. Nor does it address the political issue fairly (completely my opinion but for reasons). I know it's a task to reconsider a firmly held position but when one confuses harm with benefit (in the sense of asking yourself does either your outrage or language help or hinder achieving your end results), I think there is good cause to revisit and reapply critical review one's opinions when one's stated reasons for it as if a benefit are actually and demonstrably undermining exactly that. By calling so many people lunatics and fringe, you undermine and (I think) reverse who is causing what damage to the country.
In that vein, I make this comment not because you are not entitled to your opinion for what you consider good reasons (you certainly are and I appreciate your effort making it) but because I think you do not see the damage that opinions similar to your own are empowering by promoting the rise of separatism held by the next generation. Even in my own family, I hear younger people point to expressed opinions like yours and say, "See? They don't get it and they dismiss our concerns about the reality in which we live. They need a wake up call." That's the danger so many nationalists really don't seem to get, that in the opinion of a significant portion of the population living the consequences of such opinions in policies and governance that they are very much part of the problem when they assume they are very much part of the solution.
I disagree with this. While the Gen Z is more conservative, the Gen Z I know are not pro-separation. It’s a niche of people, largely with magical thinking about how separatism will work - and who doesn’t have agreement even within their movement with some believing « everything is planned and in place for day 1 » and others believing that it will take 10 years before anything would change so plans aren’t needed right now.
I'm not sure if it's much of a difference between 'fringe' and 'niche'. Neither term seems particularly accurate when, "More than two-in-five Albertans aged 18-to-34 (42%, +15) support Alberta becoming a country independent from Canada." (Research Company poll, January 2026)
Your contrary beliefs notwithstanding, the use of such inaccurate language has the effect of telling these people in particular that their numbers make their concerns trivial. Oh my. I think that's not smart. I think that's dangerous and could easily stimulate enough centrist voters to mark their ballots in favour not as a meaningful request for some kind of separation but as a handy way to put the fear of god back into those who presume that their concerns from so few must be fringe and niche in spite of compelling evidence from reality to the contrary.
This is not a generational issue. Alberta has had some legitimate grievances with the federal government. Several actions are being taken now to rectify that for Alberta and for the country. I am a patriotic Canadian. Sunny ways are absurd under the current circumstances. My goal is not to be helpful. I simply have an opinion I wanted to express about the most serious privacy breach in Canadian history. Spare me your lecture.
My 'lecture' was not intended solely for you; it was to show that many who claim to be patriotic Canadian are making the legitimacy of the separatists' point for them. I don't think is wise.
How many names on the pro-referendum list were just pulled from the List of Electors? If there's even one, that throws the entire list out the window. Lawsuits against the perpetrators could go on for years and bankrupt the entire operation.
You beat me to the correction. I suspect that the culprit was the autocorrect function.
Your definition of the term “ringer” is also the one I use for “sandbagger”.
There is also a term called “dead ringer “ to refer to someone who looks just like someone else. Back when the science of determining death was in its infancy people were sometimes buried alive after a premature death diagnosis. To prevent this a bell was attached by a string to the buried person’s hand. If he or she woke up they could pull the string and ring the bell to be disinterred.
Messing with election integrity. How GOP of them. It seems this, and misogyny, are now the gathering points of modern conservatism, as they sure don't stand for any form of fiscal responsibility or equal rights.
Alberta's separatists may find themselves like Premier Eby and his DRIPA act: good intentions run wildly beyond intentions. Eby meant a symbolic reconciliation gesture, for which he expected plaudits. The AB separatists expect benefits from the feds, the same as Quebec has achieved. What'll they do if they get 51%? Who will tell them how to set up a country? Where will they find an army (not CAF dropouts)? Wil Lloydminster SK residents benefit from cheaper AB gas?
Anybody here still think partisan politics and elections are the best alternative for a democracy?
Think of all the problems of electoral politics (like this one) that would disappear.
This is a good example of why I support sortition as the only viable alternative. Using random (after some judicious filtering e.g. age, comprehension, education?) as a means of selecting parliamentary representatives is the way to restore real deliberation and stop the continuing insanity of doing the same thing to select representatives while expecting a different result.
Is that supposed to make us feel better somehow? UCP supporters data is stolen, so there's no need to investigate? Makes me wonder what is trying to be hidden.
Alberta has allowed our politics to be highjacked by LARPer’s and grifters. David Parker is a complete joke of a political operator. Playing stupid games and engaging in small beer self aggrandizement. Well you know how the saying goes about those who play stupid games..
I find myself in a strange position of liking Danielle Smith in the main - I frankly sympathize with her position, I’m sure she is conflicted on Canada at times as an Albertan. It’s a common sediment, and she likely understands and sympathizes with it. But, enough is enough now. She has allowed the inmates to now run the asylum. These “separatist” leaders aren’t serious people. Nor is their cause. They are not acting in good faith. Yet she seems to have made the error in judgement (which is a theme if we’re being objective) to take them at both. And now the jesters think they can be King.
Well Premier Smith, it might just be the time for a red wedding. David Parker screwed up, and he screwed up big. A serious operator would’ve known better, should have. Instead he was sloppy, arrogant and frivolous. Take him out (metaphorically of course), and make an example. Don’t hold back, drop the hammer on the parties that let this list leak. Encourage a full investigation and a class action lawsuit and bring them low.
Then tell our separatist friends to go back validate each and every one of those signatures. Then they can have their referendum. We’ll see if they get it done… and who’s left standing.
Democracy is being undermined at the federal and provincial levels. It seems the authoritarian impulse possesses all parties once they wield power. Conservative, Liberal, NDP, provincial and federal, they all do the same thing - soft but steady corruption and erosion of institutional checks and balances.
It would seem the authoritarian impulse is universal among our political class.
This is what happens in a political system based on party politics where voters, in their "wisdom", decide that it makes sense to keep rewarding one of those parties with what amounts to permanent "one party status".
You know, like it is in China...
Yes, the "Republican Party of Alberta" is allegedly culpable here. However, the various news reports about members of the premier's office having been "in the loop" or aware of the leaked data before news of it became widely known raises some very thorny questions.
For me, it strongly suggests that at least some in the UCP are corrupt, in the most fundamental sense of the word. They deserve to have their a55e5 handed to them in the next election. In fact, I'm hoping that Albertans in their hundreds-of-thousands come out and call for Danielle Smith's resignation.
I know it will be an exercise in futility, but doing so would make a point about the kinds of political shenanigans that have been her stock in trade.
More to the point, every member of the UCP, whether elected legislators or political activists, will be circling the wagons to protect themselves.
Not good for Alberta at all, as Rob Breakenridge has observed here.
I dropped my UCP membership when Smith started flirting with separatists. I’m strongly reconsidering my prior decision to never vote ndp. Not because I like or trust them, but because at present it’s one of the few ways I can actually send a message to Danielle Smith
I agree with this. I’m still hoping the Tories can pull themselves together to form a compelling alternative. I detest the idea of voting NDP, I just can’t vote UCP in the current environment.
Breakenridge, have you read Bill 14? I read relevant sections and Jen Gerson's information and after that, it's obvious to me and probably pretty well everyone that someone dropped the ball. After getting the info on March 31, the civil service decided not to use the legislated expectation that they'd exercise reasonable discernment. At their salary levels, the public can expect some discernment ability. And cry me a river - a civil service that does not get it's finding request? There's no news there.
I am very glad the RCMP is involved in finding out how the voters list migrated from the Republican Party to Centurion. That's just wrong. What you and journalists miss is that the number of new eyes on that list is likely low due to overlap between the volunteers and workers at the Republican Party, who already could access the list, and those at Centurion.
Using Jason Kenney's data as an example is really bad taste and frankly should be actionable. If it is actionable, the rest of us can then launch legal action against the many tasteless people who bring our names up in circles we are not part of. Many people are no doubt waiting for that day. Even if Kenney gets nowhere with a lawsuit, public approbation can do it's job.
And a note - the NDP knew about the voters list situation and chose not to tell either Elections or the public. Were they out of touch with the media and the public? Did the NDP even grasp the seriousness of the situation. Did they expect there is little effective result due to the overlap in people between the two groups? Are they using the media to avoid public attention to their own lapse? What?
Nenshi has stated there were representatives of UCP government present when this information was presented. If premier states she knew nothing about voters list publication, it was because these people neglected to tell her.
Seeing information in a meeting does not mean that the attendees at the meeting were told where the information came from. The fact that Nenshi did not mention that relevant context was potentially misleading and is troubling.
Kenney was a politician for decades and many politically involved people are likely to have his contact information. Seeing it would not necessarily result in questions being asked.
And would many people know that? We need to let the RCMP do their work, and find out more. If the source wasn't mentioned does that mean that Centurion knew they should not have the list and was hiding it? Are Nenshi's comments opportunistic or does he know something he is not mentioning? And so on.
When Quark software was introduced to print media about 4 decades ago, at the time its word processing component with spelling and grammar check was seriously inferior to Microsoft Word. However, because Quark "automated" column and page layout, the word processing portion was taken on by most newspapers of the day. Looking back, that's when actual proofreading disappeared and quality (spelling accuracy and proper grammar) of content went downhill.
"Registered political parties can legally access this list, but not other groups. " I would like to join the deeply concerned group on this issue but I am unable to square the above sentence from the article with the level of concern expressed in the article. It sounds like a virtual phone book readily available to a select group of citizens fell into the hands of a non-select group of citizens. It appears that the only difference between the groups is that the non-select group holds views that are somewhat controversial.
The people who have broken the rules and abused the process don't get to call the shots on whether everybody else has to ignore their transgressions. Your cause has been incapable of electing a single explicitly separatist MLA, although apparently you've managed to get a bunch of Manchurian separatists in the UCP caucus. Run an election campaign with an explicitly separatist platform and you'll get your vote. If you can't win, it means you don't have the support you claim and can't prevail without torqued rules.
Maybe it's just me and my 'sunny ways' but throughout most of my life I never saw a telephone phone book filled with names, addresses, and phone numbers as a data breach. In fact, the first thing most of did after receiving the yearly book was check to make sure the personal information it listed was correct. But now? A deadly conspiracy is afoot, I tell you. (It took personal time, effort, and money to remove this information from the public domain and gain an unlisted number... which it was why it was called 'unlisted'. And there was nary a scandal in sight.)
My, how times have changed. Now the risk to safety for this unacceptable breach cannot be overstated and the culprits held to account for their dark motives. Think of the thousands in some form of witness protection who kept their name and stayed determined to exercise their franchise under it, confident that select electoral officers can access this information with no risk but anyone familiar with a phone book casts a long and threatening shadow.
The phonebook analogy is facile and misleading. The fact that people could choose to have their names unlisted in the old phonebooks is *NOT* a minor detail: it was a key security feature for a lot of people. The voter registry is also a higher quality source of data than phonebooks or commercially-available consumer data because the data is regularly updated and verified by government agencies (such as annual tax returns.)
The claim also ignores the fact that the security issues have changed markedly over the past decade due to the rise of information technology. Yes, scammers *could* open a phone book in the past to get a name and address and use them for criminal activity. It took more effort, though: you had to physically look up the data, and applying for credit or forging an identity required more paper and in-person interactions that made it more difficult. A computer database is easier to exploit, easier to exploit at scale, and easier to exploit from *anywhere*. Further, the proliferation of online services means that information can more easily be used for scams.
You could argue that scammers could get similar information without the voter database, and you'd be right: this is why people working in cybersecurity are appalled at how careless people are with their personal data online. Security is always evolving because crime is always evolving. A Kryptonite bike lock that provided great protection 30 years ago is junk in an age where criminals have learned to pick the locks and have access to cordless grinders.
The attempt to downplay the severity of this leak with BS phonebook analogies does not speak well for the separatist cause. Either they don't understand the problem, or they don't care. Neither suggests that they should be trusted with a government.
My point is that if this were as big a problem as many assume it is (aimed as it is in attacking the 'separatists'), then I think the correct response is to alter the process and make it more secure rather than vilify those who used the information (a practice I suspect is far more common than many may suspect or even realized by those dedicated to discrediting the motives for separation... hence the phone book analogy to show the actual information has been historically public with some exceptions). The amount of information bought and sold about anyone from interacting in this digital world might shock us to realize just how little privacy anyone actually has from the data centres that collect it. Name, address, and phone number is a very thin surface on this deep issue but made out in this case to be the center not for good reasons but very much targeted partisan political benefit.
You're making a circular argument: the fact that separatist groups were able to breach the security as evidence that the data wasn't really that sensitive because the separatist groups were able to breach the security. Should there have been more security? Obviously. However, it's hard to deal with bad actors like the Republican Party people who gave unauthorized access to others. You can make it harder to do what they did, but ultimately making such data available to anybody introduces a vulnerability.
Yes, I can see how one might read the issue this way. But (like 'carbon footprint') passing security on to the individual for a system that is so vulnerable I think is a foolish approach if security is really the issue. I don't think it is. This is why the utter lack of demands to tighten up the security of the system as a whole compared with vilifying those who have used it in this one case (and as far as I know only this case has been raised but not many, many others) I think demonstrates the high level of political partisanship in play here. And as an audience to what could also be read as a politicized morality play I think benefits from a bit more critical read to reduce the gullibility factor so many Canadian 'patriots' seem determined to exhibit at every opportunity.
All the other political parties followed the rules. Right now the issue is that one particular party broke them, and the immediate problem is corralling the horse that escaped the barn rather than picking out a better lock. And if this is a partisan issue, it's because one particular party broke the rules, and another one appears to have hobbled the rules.
This is a genuine question as I’ve thought about some of the points you raise as well: if having our private voter contact info available online is safe enough, why do we use pseudonyms or nicknames to comment here, and why don’t we include the neighborhood where we live in our monikers, to help contextualize our comments? For me the online environment is different than a physical phone book in terms of who has access and how quickly, but I’m curious how you are thinking about that question if you are willing to share?
I think because people have become so used to hiding behind pseudonyms to flame and troll that they fear any revelation of their identity. Similarly “doxxing” is considered a crime by law enforcement. So they extend this fear to any revelation of their identity even in innocent contexts like the white pages (do they still exist?)
Good point(s). The online aspect is a consideration that could be much better handled using, let's say, designated passwords to gain access only by those authorized to do so. Believe me, I understand the need for privacy and implement a personal amount that I think is necessary in my case.
But it's this notion of what used to be basic public information (I think, but I could be wrong) to now be some earth shattering exposure that I question. Yes, it's certainly an issue, but is it really this big of an issue considering its place in scope of the amount of online information I can freely and with little effort gain about others through various social media... much of it on offer by people revealing private information? Or is the lack of proper oversight (and accountability) in this one case being used to blow this WAY out of proportion for the political ammunition it offers, targeting as it does only one side of those on this the binary question and painting this side as if part of an evil conspiracy?
Has nothing similar by any other political entity ever been done in Canada? (I sincerely believe so having worked multiple elections in various positions of authority in different provinces and encountering all kinds of political information questionably sourced). We sure wouldn't know anything about any of that when journalism writ large has devolved into regularly producing narratives built around motivated reasoning promoting personal political beliefs and policy positions. I suspect this case falls much more into that category than a truly terrible breach of privacy on personal and private information... especially compared to and contrasted with ongoing and repeating government, banking, health, library, municipal, educational, and consumer breaches. In other words, maybe we need to get a better grip on the scope and scale of what it is we're really talking about here with this example.
Thank you for responding in good faith. Interesting questions. A friend was interviewing for work with Canadian census, got all the way through multiple rounds and then was asked if they had room to store 30 boxes at their home, i.e. all that info was being stored in plain old boxes in a private citizen's home for the duration of the contract. So I wonder how secure our info is on an average day in any case. I have more questions than answers.
I think in the phone book era one could be unlisted.
Yes, and you could also have only your initials listed and not your address. And that was as simple as making a phone call.
I said that.
Now it is said twice
I get your point but if rules were broken, and even a handful of people are exposed to harm due to their information being made public against their will, it's good to see those who broke those rules being held to account.
What I do find interesting is that this is a scandal where the powers that be have seemingly decided that it's acceptable to hold those responsible to some kind of account, or at least let it hurt their cause and movement. We face multi-million and even billion dollar misappropriation scandals at alarming regularity - most commonly involving the federal Liberals but also at the provincial level too - and the reaction isn't what I have seen so far here. We see laws made that endanger the public and activist judges release dangerous people into society, creating just as much if not more of a threat to individuals as this kind of data breach, and there is nothing done.
Again, it's good to see a reaction to - something - but I think this also serves as a test as to what kind of scandals are still allowed to be scandals.
I generally agree, but isn't it interesting to note how demands for accountability and media support for it seems (to me, at least) strangely focused on anyone who dares to question the ideological purity and motives of those in positions of public authority?
Yah, funny that...
Phone listings still exist. They mostly became useless because cellphones were unlisted by default. I’m not sure why cellphones were unlisted, but given it lines up with the time when telemarketing began expanding substantially, I suspect that’s probably why. Call display and whatnot became a thing around that time as well and was adopted en masse for that reason. People don’t want telemarketers having their information. People don’t want scam artists having their information either.
Two other points are that phone books were not readily available internationally back in the days you reference which is highly relevant to the telescams and telemarketing. Unlisted numbers weren’t hard to get if you wanted one and became more common than you seem to think as people wanted to avoid telemarketing calls in the transition away from landlines to cellphones.
Finally, even back then some people got unlisted numbers for safety reasons and just glossing over their exposure like its not a big deal and the equivalent of a phone book being released seems like a pretty poor comparison even if I ignore all the technological developments since the 80s.
The form of the information is the key point. Assembling a list of people from a phone book was a task so onerous that the effort was not worth the benefit. That is not the case with a database of names. In minutes, even seconds, one can slice and dice the data in many different ways.
In addition to the above, though, the data were supposed to be for the use of political parties and Elections Alberta. Does it not bother you that the party in question had no problem breaking that agreement in handing the data to a third party?
I think there's an element - albeit an unsupervised/irresponsible one - of leveling the playing field going on here, so to speak. Again, I think the process needs better security and accountability, but since when was anything governmental accountable to anyone for anything? In other words, sometimes leveling is not a virtue.
I didn’t have my address listed in the phone book and didn’t list my first name either. I went to great care as the online versions came out to ensure my information didn’t get out there. But the thing is, the phone book didn’t mosh many things that the voter registration did. So it’s like comparing apples and oranges and a defense of this as like oh the privacy doesn’t matter in this case says more about disrespect for people’s privacy than anything else.
If someone gets killed due to their address being made public are you going to be singing the same tune? If someone shows up on your door and threatens your family will you still feel the same? I’m assuming not.
I'm not making a comparison; I'm making an analogy. The analogy doesn't mean the breach is minor or irrelevant; it means the scope of the breach, although troubling when it is supposed to not happen, is not nearly as large as it is made out to be. To contrast this scope of this data security breach by comparison, I offer my own experience (which is not insignificant) that discovered not just these basics but much more personal information, medical and government collected information, personal preferences, relationships, assets, habits, (way beyond simply my name, address, and phone number) and quite in depth in all kinds of ways on over 100 different data brokers... that I know of. And I am very careful. Yet this has occurred even under personal yet strict privacy rules I follow.
Sure such a breach is a problem that needs correcting. And of course it can have consequences that are serious. But overall I think it's much more a political event using the breach as cover to advance widespread condemnation of 'separatists' rather than some kind of vital security issue in search of a meaningful and effective solution.
I 99% agree. Historically public prosecutors and judges were unlisted pro bono for good reason, the rest of us had to pay. The rules were broken, but the harm is not clear in a society that is big on transparency.
I got to listen to the podcast on the commute after posting. There are a larger number of people effected by this than I first thought. Domestic abuse victims for example. So there is more harm than I had realized. And the people who were given the data would have committed to protect those vulnerable people. So the broken rules were not trivial.
The data was always available to political organizations with the imprimatur of the regime.
All the huffing and puffing now is due to outrage that political organizations outside the regime aren't being given special favours.
It's the Freedom Convoy all over again: only regime sanctioned political activity or protest can be allowed.
That's just a flat-out false assertion. The information breach originated with the Republican Party of Alberta. That's because they were granted access to the information, despite being a decidedly a fringe party without the "imprimatur o the regime." Then they didn't follow the rules for protecting the privacy of the information, and used it in ways that weren't allowed. You ignore the very real risks and harms resulting from that abuse, and instead construct a whiny, self-pitying narrative to excuse it.
What's false? That the data was always available to political organizations with the imprimatur of the regime? I think not.
Or my claim about the actual reason for the outrage? Since proof about that depends on people's internal motivation, we must agree to disagree.
I notice that the name Stay Free Alberta doesn't appear once in this article.
ie: the organization who actually collected the 306K signatures seeking a referendum.
If you include the 450K signatures Lukaszuk collected, as many as 750K Albertans have signed petitions seeking a referendum on this subject.
The end result CANNOT be no referendum.
Why? This is a Westminster parliamentary democracy. We elect representatives to a legislature to make decisions. That's the process, and it's a system that's worked well for hundreds of years. Want to vote to secede? Vote for a party with an explicitly separatist platform. Referenda are a foreign import into our system of government, and every time we bring one in, it screws things up.
I agree with this. Separatist parties haven’t succeeded at getting themselves elected when running on a separatist platform. So people aren’t really all that excited to separate - its not like we have a Bloc Québécois equivalent who is looking to form government. That would actually be the most honest way to poll all voters. Run candidates and see who wins.
I strongly disagree.
Mandates come from the people, or at least, they should.
Referendums are a constructive way to seek the will of the people on a very narrow topic, in a way general elections do not.
If, for example, our current federal government were to use their majority to suddenly decide on our behalf that we should join the EU - placing Canada under an entirely different order of government, and wiping out (or overwriting) almost our entire legal system.
...would you be okay with them just doing this WITHOUT consulting the people?
I strongly lean towards the trustee model outlined in Burke's speech to the Electors of Bristol. I've seen a lot of referenda in my lifetime - the questions are rarely clear-cut; the campaigns tend to be filled with questionable claims and dubious information; the voters themselves are often basing their decision on that bad information or *no* information, and haven't necessarily thought through the implications. Voters are often better served through representatives who have the depth of background needed to understand all of it.
That said, the trustee model is not a blank cheque to do whatever when you're elected: Burke emphasized that the representative is still a representative of the electors. Constant communication is necessary. They're no more entitled to vote for secession after a campaign with no discussion of that opportunity than somebody who receives power of attorney over another's estate is entitled to freely spend money on hookers and blow. Former BC premier Gordon Campbell was essentially forced from office for bringing in the HST shortly after winning another majority government precisely because he'd never even hinted at that.
Not only had Campbell not hinted that he would bring in the HST he had explicitly said that he would not do so which made it even worse. A shame since I support the HST but he completely poisoned the well on bringing it in.
Mandates come from the people, but the reason we use representative democracy is that there is no conceivable reality in which even a slim majority of Albertans have the time to learn about all the dimensions of any particular issue. Much less take the time to learn about that. We pay people to do that, after voting for the ones we feel best represent us.
I just hired a company to cut down a large oak branch in my backyard that was growing over a fence and power line. Before that, a representative came over to look at the tree and give me an estimate, and he said the branch didn't need to come down urgently but he'd do it. I didn't take the time to learn all the details of tree removal and cost out exactly what it would cost him to do the work. I chose the company and to get it cut down and then I let them do what they know, at a price that seemed reasonable enough. I didn't create a chart of each little branch and twig and whether I wanted it removed; and I didn't nickel and dime a local tradesman over his every cost and action. Because that would be ridiculous.
Another foreign import into our system has been Indigenous reconciliation which turned into consideration then consultation then permission then de facto veto power, then actual court-ordered veto power. Now apparently Indigenous groups can veto government actions, programs, and any law they don't agree with. See this week's Alberta court decision to invalidate the separation petition. Look at the mess with UNDRIP in British Columbia. Every branch of government (judicial, executive, legislative) seems to be throwing more gasoline onto the fire.
Lists are the most important resource that a bonafide political party is permitted by law to use with clear legal guidance in the pursuit of an electoral commitment. The Republican party of Alberta, which most of us have never heard of, clearly did not read or fully grasp the rules of engagement vis a vis said list and gave it to the Centurion project to use however they wished.
Canadians have a damned good reason to be outraged at this. Both organizations should have the full weight of the law thrown at them. This isn't about asking the government to investigate its about prosecuting. Unless the Smith government in its legislative fiddling has neutered Elections Alberta to such an extent that they are helpless even beyond the apparent inability to launch an investigation into a reported breach. Danielle Smith is actually beginning to appear like her support for this absurd separatist movement is for real, at this time, with Canada's economic future at stake. This type of Conservative party pandering to the lunatic fringe is bad politics bleeding into policy and its damaging to our country.
Your first paragraph is accurate. The second? Not so much.
The 'lunatic fringe' seems to include close to a majority (but still a minority) of those under the age of 30 and significantly more males than females. Isn't that interesting? I'm not sure either your outrage or language is in this context justified or as helpful as you may believe. Nor does it address the political issue fairly (completely my opinion but for reasons). I know it's a task to reconsider a firmly held position but when one confuses harm with benefit (in the sense of asking yourself does either your outrage or language help or hinder achieving your end results), I think there is good cause to revisit and reapply critical review one's opinions when one's stated reasons for it as if a benefit are actually and demonstrably undermining exactly that. By calling so many people lunatics and fringe, you undermine and (I think) reverse who is causing what damage to the country.
In that vein, I make this comment not because you are not entitled to your opinion for what you consider good reasons (you certainly are and I appreciate your effort making it) but because I think you do not see the damage that opinions similar to your own are empowering by promoting the rise of separatism held by the next generation. Even in my own family, I hear younger people point to expressed opinions like yours and say, "See? They don't get it and they dismiss our concerns about the reality in which we live. They need a wake up call." That's the danger so many nationalists really don't seem to get, that in the opinion of a significant portion of the population living the consequences of such opinions in policies and governance that they are very much part of the problem when they assume they are very much part of the solution.
I disagree with this. While the Gen Z is more conservative, the Gen Z I know are not pro-separation. It’s a niche of people, largely with magical thinking about how separatism will work - and who doesn’t have agreement even within their movement with some believing « everything is planned and in place for day 1 » and others believing that it will take 10 years before anything would change so plans aren’t needed right now.
I'm not sure if it's much of a difference between 'fringe' and 'niche'. Neither term seems particularly accurate when, "More than two-in-five Albertans aged 18-to-34 (42%, +15) support Alberta becoming a country independent from Canada." (Research Company poll, January 2026)
Your contrary beliefs notwithstanding, the use of such inaccurate language has the effect of telling these people in particular that their numbers make their concerns trivial. Oh my. I think that's not smart. I think that's dangerous and could easily stimulate enough centrist voters to mark their ballots in favour not as a meaningful request for some kind of separation but as a handy way to put the fear of god back into those who presume that their concerns from so few must be fringe and niche in spite of compelling evidence from reality to the contrary.
This is not a generational issue. Alberta has had some legitimate grievances with the federal government. Several actions are being taken now to rectify that for Alberta and for the country. I am a patriotic Canadian. Sunny ways are absurd under the current circumstances. My goal is not to be helpful. I simply have an opinion I wanted to express about the most serious privacy breach in Canadian history. Spare me your lecture.
My 'lecture' was not intended solely for you; it was to show that many who claim to be patriotic Canadian are making the legitimacy of the separatists' point for them. I don't think is wise.
How many names on the pro-referendum list were just pulled from the List of Electors? If there's even one, that throws the entire list out the window. Lawsuits against the perpetrators could go on for years and bankrupt the entire operation.
Editorial note:
A ringer is usually referencing someone with superior skills entering a contest under false pretenses.
When someone, or a group of people, have been exposed to hardship in one way or another, they have, colloquially, been "put through the wringer".
You beat me to the correction. I suspect that the culprit was the autocorrect function.
Your definition of the term “ringer” is also the one I use for “sandbagger”.
There is also a term called “dead ringer “ to refer to someone who looks just like someone else. Back when the science of determining death was in its infancy people were sometimes buried alive after a premature death diagnosis. To prevent this a bell was attached by a string to the buried person’s hand. If he or she woke up they could pull the string and ring the bell to be disinterred.
Messing with election integrity. How GOP of them. It seems this, and misogyny, are now the gathering points of modern conservatism, as they sure don't stand for any form of fiscal responsibility or equal rights.
Alberta's separatists may find themselves like Premier Eby and his DRIPA act: good intentions run wildly beyond intentions. Eby meant a symbolic reconciliation gesture, for which he expected plaudits. The AB separatists expect benefits from the feds, the same as Quebec has achieved. What'll they do if they get 51%? Who will tell them how to set up a country? Where will they find an army (not CAF dropouts)? Wil Lloydminster SK residents benefit from cheaper AB gas?
I suspect they don't have a Plan B.
Anybody here still think partisan politics and elections are the best alternative for a democracy?
Think of all the problems of electoral politics (like this one) that would disappear.
This is a good example of why I support sortition as the only viable alternative. Using random (after some judicious filtering e.g. age, comprehension, education?) as a means of selecting parliamentary representatives is the way to restore real deliberation and stop the continuing insanity of doing the same thing to select representatives while expecting a different result.
You seem to forget all the UCP's data is on the list too!!! NDP !crats in Edmonton at work!!!
Is that supposed to make us feel better somehow? UCP supporters data is stolen, so there's no need to investigate? Makes me wonder what is trying to be hidden.
Alberta has allowed our politics to be highjacked by LARPer’s and grifters. David Parker is a complete joke of a political operator. Playing stupid games and engaging in small beer self aggrandizement. Well you know how the saying goes about those who play stupid games..
I find myself in a strange position of liking Danielle Smith in the main - I frankly sympathize with her position, I’m sure she is conflicted on Canada at times as an Albertan. It’s a common sediment, and she likely understands and sympathizes with it. But, enough is enough now. She has allowed the inmates to now run the asylum. These “separatist” leaders aren’t serious people. Nor is their cause. They are not acting in good faith. Yet she seems to have made the error in judgement (which is a theme if we’re being objective) to take them at both. And now the jesters think they can be King.
Well Premier Smith, it might just be the time for a red wedding. David Parker screwed up, and he screwed up big. A serious operator would’ve known better, should have. Instead he was sloppy, arrogant and frivolous. Take him out (metaphorically of course), and make an example. Don’t hold back, drop the hammer on the parties that let this list leak. Encourage a full investigation and a class action lawsuit and bring them low.
Then tell our separatist friends to go back validate each and every one of those signatures. Then they can have their referendum. We’ll see if they get it done… and who’s left standing.
Democracy is being undermined at the federal and provincial levels. It seems the authoritarian impulse possesses all parties once they wield power. Conservative, Liberal, NDP, provincial and federal, they all do the same thing - soft but steady corruption and erosion of institutional checks and balances.
It would seem the authoritarian impulse is universal among our political class.
Woe Canada.
This is what happens in a political system based on party politics where voters, in their "wisdom", decide that it makes sense to keep rewarding one of those parties with what amounts to permanent "one party status".
You know, like it is in China...
Yes, the "Republican Party of Alberta" is allegedly culpable here. However, the various news reports about members of the premier's office having been "in the loop" or aware of the leaked data before news of it became widely known raises some very thorny questions.
For me, it strongly suggests that at least some in the UCP are corrupt, in the most fundamental sense of the word. They deserve to have their a55e5 handed to them in the next election. In fact, I'm hoping that Albertans in their hundreds-of-thousands come out and call for Danielle Smith's resignation.
I know it will be an exercise in futility, but doing so would make a point about the kinds of political shenanigans that have been her stock in trade.
More to the point, every member of the UCP, whether elected legislators or political activists, will be circling the wagons to protect themselves.
Not good for Alberta at all, as Rob Breakenridge has observed here.
I dropped my UCP membership when Smith started flirting with separatists. I’m strongly reconsidering my prior decision to never vote ndp. Not because I like or trust them, but because at present it’s one of the few ways I can actually send a message to Danielle Smith
It would help if the Alberta NDP had a genuinely compelling leader...
I agree with this. I’m still hoping the Tories can pull themselves together to form a compelling alternative. I detest the idea of voting NDP, I just can’t vote UCP in the current environment.
Breakenridge, have you read Bill 14? I read relevant sections and Jen Gerson's information and after that, it's obvious to me and probably pretty well everyone that someone dropped the ball. After getting the info on March 31, the civil service decided not to use the legislated expectation that they'd exercise reasonable discernment. At their salary levels, the public can expect some discernment ability. And cry me a river - a civil service that does not get it's finding request? There's no news there.
I am very glad the RCMP is involved in finding out how the voters list migrated from the Republican Party to Centurion. That's just wrong. What you and journalists miss is that the number of new eyes on that list is likely low due to overlap between the volunteers and workers at the Republican Party, who already could access the list, and those at Centurion.
Using Jason Kenney's data as an example is really bad taste and frankly should be actionable. If it is actionable, the rest of us can then launch legal action against the many tasteless people who bring our names up in circles we are not part of. Many people are no doubt waiting for that day. Even if Kenney gets nowhere with a lawsuit, public approbation can do it's job.
And a note - the NDP knew about the voters list situation and chose not to tell either Elections or the public. Were they out of touch with the media and the public? Did the NDP even grasp the seriousness of the situation. Did they expect there is little effective result due to the overlap in people between the two groups? Are they using the media to avoid public attention to their own lapse? What?
Nenshi has stated there were representatives of UCP government present when this information was presented. If premier states she knew nothing about voters list publication, it was because these people neglected to tell her.
Seeing information in a meeting does not mean that the attendees at the meeting were told where the information came from. The fact that Nenshi did not mention that relevant context was potentially misleading and is troubling.
Kenney was a politician for decades and many politically involved people are likely to have his contact information. Seeing it would not necessarily result in questions being asked.
Kenney’s home address had not been made public prior to him being doxxed.
And would many people know that? We need to let the RCMP do their work, and find out more. If the source wasn't mentioned does that mean that Centurion knew they should not have the list and was hiding it? Are Nenshi's comments opportunistic or does he know something he is not mentioning? And so on.
When Quark software was introduced to print media about 4 decades ago, at the time its word processing component with spelling and grammar check was seriously inferior to Microsoft Word. However, because Quark "automated" column and page layout, the word processing portion was taken on by most newspapers of the day. Looking back, that's when actual proofreading disappeared and quality (spelling accuracy and proper grammar) of content went downhill.
"Registered political parties can legally access this list, but not other groups. " I would like to join the deeply concerned group on this issue but I am unable to square the above sentence from the article with the level of concern expressed in the article. It sounds like a virtual phone book readily available to a select group of citizens fell into the hands of a non-select group of citizens. It appears that the only difference between the groups is that the non-select group holds views that are somewhat controversial.
There will be no delay based on made-up illusions or flimsy unjustifiable pronouncements. The referendum will proceed as planned on 19 October.
The "Federati Unitas" do not have one single reason in support of Alberta staying in Canada that is acceptable to Alberta indepentists.
The people who have broken the rules and abused the process don't get to call the shots on whether everybody else has to ignore their transgressions. Your cause has been incapable of electing a single explicitly separatist MLA, although apparently you've managed to get a bunch of Manchurian separatists in the UCP caucus. Run an election campaign with an explicitly separatist platform and you'll get your vote. If you can't win, it means you don't have the support you claim and can't prevail without torqued rules.