Uncle George on line two?

It was not off to a seamless start to the Tory campaign in Manitoba this week. The Conservatives are giving Manitoba residents a break from those annoying campaign phone calls, while they try to work out a few bugs.

It seems that when Conservative phone rooms started calling Manitobans, a glitch in the phone systems registered the calls as coming from an unknown number at the US Senate! It seems that the problems originate from the Canadian Call centre, which is making phone calls on behalf of the Conservative party.

Conservative staffers were quick to advise that all election calls are being made by Canadians, right here in Canada. There's no outsourcing in the Conservative phone campaign in any form. No American operators are standing by to make a call.

Still Manitobans may wish to listen closely next time a Conservative call comes in, maybe ask a few questions of the caller in order to be sure. Things like the name of the football team in Winnipeg, the former hockey team that moved to the States and of course a famous intersection in downtown Winnipeg, a wrong answer should give one cause to surrender any valuable Canadian information!