Websites redirect to anti-Harper site
Last Updated: Monday, December 12, 2005 | 11:53 AM ET
CBC News
Instead, that traffic is being redirected to a site critical of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.
Last week, police departments in several Canadian cities were expressing surprise that websites with addresses similar to theirs were taking web surfers straight to the NDP website. The web addresses included:
- www.reginapolice.ca,
- www.saskatoonpolice.ca,
- www.edmontonpolice.ca,
- www.winnipegpolice.ca
- www.windsorpolice.ca.
The domain names are similar, but not identical, to the real web addresses used by police in those cities.
David Bedford, a Burnaby, B.C., businessman and self-described NDP supporter, owns the look-alike web addresses and it was his idea to reroute the traffic to the NDP website (www.ndp.ca).
Bedford said he wanted to help the NDP and planned to keep it up until the Jan. 23 election.
An NDP spokesperson said Friday the party didn't have the power to make Bedford stop, but hadn't ask him to halt, either.
However, spokespersons of several police departments indicated they weren't pleased.
On Sunday, the extra web traffic to the NDP site ended.
Instead, people putting www.windsorpolice.ca and the other URLs into their browsers are redirected to one of Bedford's own websites – one that targets Harper and "religious extremists."
"If you vote for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, you would be voting for religious extremists with a hidden agenda," the website says.
