Signs that the Red Green Coalition is Finally Dead

So what's the Joe Volpe campaign up to?

In the past, Volpe has been a paragon of questionable campaign tactics. When he ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 2006, Volpe endured embarrassing episodes in which the children of pharmaceutical company executives were donating to his campaign, and in which people who were sold Liberal Party memberships through his campaign turned out to be deceased.

Weeks into the 2011 campaign, Volpe complained to Elections Canada that people in his riding had been receiving phone calls from a number based in the US.

Nobody seems to know who is actually behind those calls. But what is the Volpe campaign up to? That turns out to be a much more interesting story.

According to a campaign staffer for Paul Baker, Green Party candidate in Volpe's riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, the Volpe campaign has been removing their literature from voters' mailboxes in the riding and disposing of them.

And it isn't as if this is something happening far away from Volpe's attention.

Photos taken show a Volpe volunteer approach the mailbox in question. What appears to be a Green Party leaflet can be seen sticking out of the mailbox.

In the next photo, the leaflet disappears.

It seems fair to wonder what happened to it...

In the final photo, the Green leaflet is now "magically" red.

Abracadabra! It seems Joe Volpe has some truly talented people campaigning with him.

The fact that Volpe himself can be seen in these photos seems to lay waste to any semblence of plausible deniability.

As for where these disappearing flyers are winding up? That's the best part:

It's not quite the kind of decorum that Canadians expect out of their politicians, that's for certain.

Joe Volpe owes his constituents -- and possibly Elections Canada -- an explanation for this kind of behaviour.