The Canadian Press reports that federal privacy commissioner has quietly dropped her investigation into complaints that Prime Minister Stephen Harper mailed unsolicited Rosh Hashanah greetings, saying she has no jurisdiction over the matter because political parties fall outside Canada's two privacy laws.
Privacy Commissioner Drops Rosh Hashanah Card Investigation
March 6, 2008
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Law Bytes
Episode 238: David Fraser on Why Bill C-2's Lawful Access Powers May Put Canadians' Digital Security At Risk
byMichael Geist

June 30, 2025
Michael Geist
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Double standards
Great to see that our political parties can send us spam and violate our privacy to get re-elected and have no consequences.
The issue to me isn’t so much about spam, but rather simply the fact that the government has a database that indicates the religious affiliation of the people.
How did the gov’t collect this list of Jewish names? What other religions do they collect names on?
_Am
it’s not the government, it’s the Conservative Party … did they distribute all the Jewish names in canada to the other parties, so that they could send Rosh Hashanah cards too? or did they use private information about citizens to their own political advantage?
Give me a break. the information is easily gathered by door-to-door canvassing by looking for a mezuzah on the door post. Hardly private information – and not completely accurate (some people never take them down; some never put them up). I’d rather get the PM’s Rosh Hashana card in September than a watered down ‘happy holidays’ in December.
“Give me a break. the information is easily gathered by door-to-door canvassing by looking for a mezuzah on the door post.”
Yeesh. I find this idea even creepier.