Angry in the Great White North

Let's recall Joan Beatty's story.

Here is a woman who, by all accounts, was successful in her choice of a political career in the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan.  Indeed, the former provincial cabinet minister had recently won re-election, though her party is now in opposition.  Then the Devil, played by Liberal Ralph Goodale, tempts her.  He will give her a federal riding, no nomination contest required, and a shot at a seat, which ought to be easy to win, what with Beatty being a very well known local aboriginal woman.  After that, when the Liberals win an election, no doubt Beatty would be short-listed for a cabinet seat in Ottawa.

We all know what happened next.  Joan Beatty sells her political soul to the Liberal Party.  Then almost immediately, everything falls apart.  The very act of giving her the nomination turns local Liberals against her in large numbers.  In the by-election in Desenthe-Missinippi-Churchill, Beatty is handily defeated by Rob Clarke, the Conservative candidate, who came by his nomination by working for it.

So much for the promise of a shortcut to real power at the federal level.

What does the Devil do after Beatty fails to secure the seat in the by-election?  He cuts Joan Beatty loose.  Beatty is not allowed to retain her nomination, but must fight for it against the man she displaced, David Orchard.  Having already proven herself unable to win an election in the riding, it is no surprise that local Liberals pick David Orchard to be the candidate.

Where does that leave Joan Beatty?  She can't go back to the provincial NDP, having burned that bridge.  The federal Liberals seem to be done with her.  The Conservatives?  That's a funny thought...uh, no. 

Frankly, Joan Beatty is likely finished as a player in politics, at least for the time being.  She might remain parked with the Liberals in some way.

That seems to be the case.  How can you tell?

Because she has lost her name.

If you visit www.joanbeatty.ca as I did, you will not find her closing remarks, thanking the local Liberals who supported her or describing the next steps in her career (perhaps a return to her roots in journalism).  Or even just a placeholder page, saying Joan Beatty would be back one day with a new site where you can learn about her work (with no reference to her political career as she retools her life). 

That is what I expected to find.

Instead, joanbeatty.ca is immediately redirected to the federal Liberal Party website.  This is being with a 302 redirect, which would have to be set up by the site administrator making adjustments the .htaccess file on an Apache-based server.  On other servers, like those running Windows IIS, there are corresponding changes, also made by the administrator.  The point is that setting up a redirect, especially one that applies to all pages in a website and not just the root, is technical work done by experts.

It is not something Joan Beatty would have done herself.  She would have had someone else do it.  It is also possible that someone else did it without consulting her at all.

Oh, sorry you lost.  But the contract has to be fulfilled.  You don't get your seat, but we still get whatever value there is in your name.  From now on, if anyone should call out your name in the address bar of a browser, the Liberal Party will answer, and we will raise donations for our benefit.  You no longer exist.

Ouch.  See what I mean?  It's like her online soul has been taken away and put in the Devil's trophy case.

Did the Liberals buy joanbeatty.ca in the first place?  If they did, Joan Beatty was a fool to let any third-party have ownership of a domain with her name. 

Maybe Joan Beatty doesn't even know that this has happened.  Her former website administrator, a Liberal Party employee, was told to set up the redirection after Beatty lost the nomination fight.  That's just speculation, of course.

Or perhaps Joan Beatty still thinks she has a role in the Liberal Party and is willingly allowing the redirection to take place.  I'm curious to know how long that will last.  Perhaps her job now is to make tea for David Orchard.  But despite what Robert Thibault thinks is the proper role for a woman in a political party, Joan Beatty might still end up leaving politics altogether.  I think there is a fair chance of that happening (or else why not use her website to continue logging her political work for the Liberals).  Should that happen, are the Liberals going to relinquish the redirection of the joanbeatty.ca domain?

Or will the Liberal Party keep joanbeatty.ca and maintain the redirection, on the off chance that Joan Beatty returns to some level of popularity or notoriety in the future, and so continue to feed off traffic generated by people search for Joan Beatty's home online?

In the stories, the consequences suffered from dealing with the Devil never fade away.

Addendum: Whoever handled the redirection mishandled the renaming that takes place.  Yesterday, if you tried to visit an inner page of Joan Beatty's website, like http://www.joanbeatty.ca/brochure.pdf, the string manipulation was mangled, and the name was turned into http://www.liberal.cabrochure.pdf.  That didn't go anywhere -- not to the original page on Joan Beatty's site nor to the Liberal Party website. 

Today, the URL is not being re-configured.  But nothing is served when you visit http://www.joanbeatty.ca/brochure.pdf.  No redirection.  No data.  Nothing.

The root joanbeatty.ca continues to be redirected to liberal.ca though.

All traffic going to inner pages is being lost.