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OTTAWA — Lest we forget, politicking evidently never stops, even on Remembrance Day.

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The Liberal party, flush from the Oct. 19 election victory, used the solemn occasion Wednesday to continue trying to accumulate information on potential supporters and donors.

The governing party issued an email from new Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr, which encouraged readers to add their names to an online message of thanks to members of the Armed Forces and veterans “for their service and sacrifice.”

Such email solicitations, known as data mining, are commonly employed by political parties to glean names, email addresses and postal codes which are added to data banks used to identify supporters and financial contributors.

NDP veterans affairs critic Irene Mathyssen was dumbfounded that the Liberals would use veterans for partisan ends.

“To utilize this emotional day in such a cynical way makes me very sad,” she said in an interview.

“It is something that is, I think, beneath the dignity of any government … (Veterans) are individuals and they matter. Their health and what happens to them matters and to conduct a

mining expedition, I’m speechless, I’m very, very distressed by that.”