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Brian Gallant and Karine Lavoie aren't the only ones getting engaged.

The New Brunswick Liberal party is using the news of the premier's impending marriage to "engage" with voters by gathering their email addresses.

But it's not to invite them to the wedding. It's to send them pro-Liberal messages.

The party is asking people to use a form on the Liberal website to "join us in congratulating" the premier on getting engaged to Lavoie.

The form doesn't work unless the well-wishers submit their email address, and Liberal party president Joel Reed acknowledged Thursday it's so the party can send them Liberal promotional material in the future.

"It's probably evident that if you submit your email address voluntarily to a political party, we're going to assume that you're interested in our activities and try to stay in touch with you," Reed said.

Reed said "all parties" place a lot of importance on gathering email addresses.

He noted that Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau have both used "these sorts of outreach tools quite effectively and extensively. Gathering information is now vital to everyone's campaign strategy."

Reed also said most visitors to the Liberal website "are most likely supporters, or at least interested in the party. A very significant proportion would be existing members, and this allows us a quick and convenient way to update their contact information."

The web page includes a photo of Gallant lifting Lavoie off the ground in an apple orchard, the same photo he tweeted on March 13 when he revealed the couple was engaged. There's no date yet for the wedding.

The request doesn't break any rules, and it doesn't use any government funding.

Liberal party president Joel Reed said all political parties place a lot of importance on gathering email addresses. (LinkedIn)

The page also has a link to the party's privacy policy, which clearly says an email address can be used "to communicate with you about the New Brunswick Liberal Party and its activities, as well as to provide you with news and information."

Reed said people who submit engagement congratulations can also unsubscribe from the Liberal emails once they start getting them.

He said the premier's office wasn't involved in the decision to solicit the congratulations and emails but said Gallant was probably asked for permission.

A few hours after the New Brunswick Liberal party tweeted a link to the congratulations page, Gallant used his own Twitter account to thank people who had sent their best wishes. He didn't link to the Liberal web page.

Author Susan Delacourt says Gallant is "following in the path of many other political leaders who do this."

In 2014, the president of the federal Liberal party went online to ask for congratulatory messages for Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie on the birth of their third child messages that required the senders' email addresses.

And then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper invited visitors to the Conservative party website to wish his wife Laureen a happy mother's day in 2013, while submitting their email addresses and postal codes.

"It's all about the same thing. It's about collecting email addresses, which are way more valuable to political parties than membership fees," said Delacourt, the author of Shopping for Votes, a book about how political parties have adopted retail marketing technique.

"Once you've got an email address, you've got a foot in the door to their lives," she said.

Journalist Susan Delacourt believes Canadians' relationship with their politicians has changed since the consumer boom of the 1950s. Consumers have wants, she says. Citizens have needs - a theme she explores in her book Shopping For Votes. (Adam Scotti)

Delacourt said parties are especially interested in engaging with voters with only a passing interest in politics, because they're easier to sway with direct, targeted messages.

"Often email and Facebook and all those places are where politicians are finding people," she said.

Reed said he didn't have any numbers on how many people have used the web page.

Delacourt said people who wish Gallant and Lavoie a lifetime of happiness are likely to receive a lifetime of emails from the Liberals, including requests for donations, notices of what Gallant is doing as premier, and information on his election platform next year.

"Data is now the way people win elections, and email addresses are the way they collect that data," she said.

And despite Reed's assertion that recipients will be able to unsubscribe to the emails, Delacourt said "it takes a lot to get off" party email lists once you're on them.

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Premier's engagement used by Liberals to woo email addresses - CBC.ca

The spring session of the B.C. legislature ended Thursday with the Liberal government failing to pass its own bill to require more frequent reporting of political donations.

The Election Amendment Act, which was introduced Monday, died on the order paper as MLAs left town to prepare for the May9 election campaign.

It was the only piece of government legislation that failed to pass after a session dominated by questions about Liberal fundraising tactics.

Premier Christy Clark had promised the bill in response to persistent criticism of her partys cash-for-access dinners in which donors pay thousands to dine with her and her ministers.

Government house leader Mike de Jong said Thursday that the Liberals had hoped to pass the bill, but were unwilling to use a closure motion to end debate and force a vote.

It was our intention, but we werent going to impose closure, thats for sure, he said, adding: I think, generally speaking, these issues, these statutes, bills deserve to be debated.

Besides, he said the Liberals already practise what the bill would have required by releasing lists of donors every few weeks. Every party can do this if they wish to. We are.

Opponents, however, said the Liberals never had any intention of passing their bill or any of the private members bills to ban corporate and union donations.

Thats how committed they are to election finance reform, said NDP Leader John Horgan.

They were so committed that they left it until the last minute to table a bill that was dead on arrival and theyre not even going to bother to pass it. So that speaks volumes.

Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver called the Liberal bill a cynical ploy to give the appearance of taking action, while doing nothing.

It was a ploy designed solely to try to get British Columbians to believe that theyre taking steps to deal with big money, he said. Its a talking point, but there was no intention that this was ever going to pass. Frankly, the bill doesnt do anything, anyway.

Horgan said he expects fundraising to be a major issue during the campaign because voters have serious concerns about the influence of big money on provincial politics.

They see donors to the B.C. Liberal Party getting government contracts, he said. They have a problem with that. The B.C. Liberals have been doing deals with the same people that have been giving them money for the past 16 years.

But de Jong said the public is more interested in jobs and the economy than the fundraising debate that dominated the legislative session.

Actually, the economy, job prospects, thats all people are talking about, he said.

Its easy over here to become preoccupied with the discussion that takes place back and forth.

lkines@timescolonist.com

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BC Liberals fail to pass their political donations bill - Times Colonist

Published 8:03 a.m. ET March 16, 2017 | Updated 24 hours ago

In todays turbulent political climate, its more important than ever that you stay on top of the issues of the day and become engaged in those you care about. Toward that end, we present Stay Informed, Get Engaged." Wochit | Randy Bergmann

The more hysterical liberals become about Russia, the more your antennae should go up.

Their selective misgivings with Russia are just like their selective alarm with (our ally) Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the nationalist Chinese government, and (our ally) Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South Vietnam.

As explained in lavish detail in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, liberals instinctively lunge toward treason.

They say Putin is a thug and a bully who kills journalists. Liberals never used to mind Russian leaders killing journalists. Nor millions of scientists, writers, Christians, Jews, kulaks, Ukrainians and the entire 1980 Soviet Olympic hockey team.

Have you guys heard of the Evil Empire? Now Democrats are hypersensitive to a Russian leaders flaws?

Liberals were cool with the show trials, the alliance with Hitler, the gulags, the forced starvations, the shooting down of American planes and goose-stepping through Eastern Europe.

But that was when the Russian leader was Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev not the beast Putin!

Back then, liberals were spying for Stalin (Julius Rosenbergs code name: Liberal), the U.S. president was calling the bloodthirsty dictator Uncle Joe, and The New York Times was covering up Stalins infamous crimes. In the storied history of fake news, the Times Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his false reports denying the Ukrainian famine, in which more than 7 million people were deliberately starved to death.

As far as the Times is concerned, those were Russias halcyon days!

Back when Russia was actually threatening America with nuclear annihilation, Jimmy Carter warned Americans about their inordinate fear of communism. Sting sang that the Russians love their children, too.

But now liberals are hopping mad with Putin. They could never forgive Russia for giving up communism.

To add insult to injury, Putin embraced the Russian Orthodox Church! This was deeply offensive to fiercely Christophobic liberals.

Russias descent into insanity and madness was clear when Putin refused to allow LGBTQ marches through Red Square. For having the same position on gays as Obama did, circa 2008, Russkies were walking on the fighting side of liberals!

Trumps election victory was the capstone of the lefts rage with Putin. To explain the inexplicable, Putin was made the center of liberals axis of evil, the mastermind of a malevolent plot to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

Thats how liberals became born-again John Birchers, seeing Russians under every bed. Now, no fear of Russia is inordinate. The Russians do not love their children, too.

We really could have used some of this fighting spirit about 50 years ago when the Soviet Union sought total world domination and Stalins spies were crawling through the U.S. government. But back then, liberals were blackening the names of Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and Sen. Joe McCarthy. (Later proved 100 percent correct by the top-secret Venona Project.)

Russias loss of the lefts esteem happened very quickly. As recently as 2008, The New York Times editorial page was demanding that Obama signal to the Russians that he wants better relations, and complaining of the alarming deterioration of Russian-American relations under Bush.

It was considered the height of statesmanship when Obama was caught on a hot-mic in 2012, telling Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility. I understand you.

To hoots of laughter at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said: You dont call Russia our number one enemy not Al-Qaida, Russia unless youre still stuck in a Cold War mind warp.

MSNBCs Rachel Maddow couldnt contain her hilarity over the GOP offering an extra bonus of threatening Russia.

But today, Democrats (and two especially showboating Republicans) are horrified that Trump wants to get along with Russia.

When the same people who hailed Stalin as a beloved American ally are happy to threaten Putin with thermonuclear war, we may deduce that the lefts newfound Russia-phobia has some seditious objective.

Historically, liberals show their manliness by demanding war with our friends and allies, while methodically undermining Americas ability to fight the wars its already in.

The No. 1 enemy of Western civilization today isnt non-communist Russia. Its Islam.

And who is a key ally in that fight? Russia has been dealing with these troublesome Muslims for centuries. It was Russian officials who tried in vain to warn our blind, incompetent government about the Boston Marathon bombers.

The lefts hysteria about Russia isnt just an attempt to delegitimize Trump. Its the usual Christophobic fifth column rooting for the Islamization of the West.

Ann Coulter is a syndicated columnist.

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COULTER: Liberals singing different tune on Russia - Asbury Park Press

More and more liberal Americans are embracing socialism. Unfortunately, it seems many of them arent aware of the realities that citizens in countries like Venezuela face. Filmmaker Ami Horowitz spoke with Americans who call socialism great. Then, he traveled to Venezuela to speak with men and women actually living in the horrific environment that socialist policies have created.

In this video, we meet Venezuelan citizens who struggle to find enough food each day and live in the middle of spiking crime and violence. As one woman told him, Most of the time we are starvingwe cannot find food, we cannot find milkwe cannot find basic things like sugar.

Another woman, who was pregnant, described standing in line all night for food to come away with only a can of milk. Other people described the extreme dichotomy between rich and poor in the country, talking about those in government have all the power and money. The video also showcases an epidemic of violence. The country has less than one-tenth the population of the United States but three times the murder rate.

Near the end of the video, Horowitz asks the Venezuelans what they would say to Americans who want to bring socialism to the United States. The responses were telling, as they warned people not to invite chaos and hunger into their lives.

They would have to live what we are living so they can see for themselves that nothing is good, so they see this is a nightmare for us, a terror, said one woman.

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WATCH: Liberals Love Socialism But These Venezuelans Should ... - National Review

From MSNBCpoliticsshows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Partys base since Trumps victoryhas been Russia, often suffocatingattention forother issues.This fixation has persisted even though ithas no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatansare personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.

Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence.

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obamas former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clintons most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to cast doubt on allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all, he said, adding, Theres no little campfire, theres no little candle, theres no spark. And theres a lot of people looking for it.

Obamas former CIA chiefalso cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive dossier originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it.The dossier, he said, doesnt take you anywhere, I dont think.

Morells comments echo the categorical remarks by Obamas top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obamas DNI,he saw no evidenceto support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. We had no evidence of such collusion, Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obamas DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee charged with investigating these matters who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. Theres a tangible frustration over what one official called wildly inflated expectations surrounding the panels fledgling investigation, BuzzFeeds Ali Watkins wrote.

Moreover, several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesnt find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives. One member told Watkins: I dont think the conclusions are going to meet peoples expectations.

What makes all of this most significant is that officials like Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents; Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it exists. As even the law recognizes, statements thatotherwise lack credibility become more believable when they are ones madeagainst interest.

Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, which published the Steele dossier, published an article yesterday warningthat the Democratic bases expectation of a smoking gun is so strong that Twitter and cable news are full of the theories of what my colleague Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives the lefts new version of Glenn Beck, digital blackboards full of lines and arrows. Smith added: It is also a simple fact that while news of Russian actions on Trumps behalf is clear, hard details of coordination between his aides and Putins havent emerged. And Smithscore warning is this:

Trumps critics last year were horrified at the rise of fake news and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

And those of us covering the story and the stew of real information, fantasy, and now forgery around it need to continue to report and think clearly about what we know and what we dont, and to resist the sugar high that comes with telling people exactly what they want to hear.

For so long, Democrats demonized and smearedanyone trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all Kremlin agents and Putin lovers. Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report using the language of treason to announce the existence of a Fifth Column in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew Sullivans notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the war on terror composed an anti-American Fifth Column), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly announced: Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.

But with serious doubts and fears now emerging about what the Democratic base has been led to believebyself-interested carnival barkers and partisan hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the excesses of this story. With so many people now doing this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little, too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been deliberately cultivated around these issues for months. Many Democratshave reached the classic stage of deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions, where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently needed. Thats trueprimarily so that conspiracies no longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

Its certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the Trump presidency, its vital that everything be done now to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged stable of media, online, and party leaders hasdecisively fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials are now desperately trying to warn.

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Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion - The Intercept