It is a crusade that may speak to the heart of internal divisions wracking the Canadian Alliance. Bears, a Calgary e-business consultant, has created a furor within the party with his aggressive lobby to rescue the besieged leadership of Stockwell Day. You can look at the Ottawa press gallery as being the Goliath and our little grassrootsforday.ca site as being the David. We are organizing, we are mobilizing and we will continue until Mr. Day is at 24 Sussex. Just who or what is mobilizing in cyberspace is impossible to gauge.
Bears has a reputation within the party as coming to politics because of religious conviction.
He knows Day personally from his time as a lobbyist for crime victims but happily concedes he has no particular status or role in party. While Bears cites the Internet as the vehicle for Day's political redemption, others within the Alliance claim he's wrongfully employing party membership lists to reach supporters and identify troublemakers alike. Deborah Grey, the plain-spoken Alliance doyen, delivered a sharp rebuke this week when Grassroots for Day supporters attended her constituency town hall in Edmonton. Grey, who resigned her post as Alliance deputy leader over Day's stewardship, is not alone in her criticism. Ken Kalopsis, chairman of the party's national council, said more than 1,300 complaints have been lodged about Grassroots for Day's direct entreaties to party members using an automated dialling system that can place thousands of calls a day.