According to the New Democratic Party of Canada, a person named Karim Baboolal lives in my apartment. Where this piece of intell comes from I have no idea, because my wife and I have searched for Karim and are unable to find him anywhere on the premises. It's a pretty big apartment, but with two children and thirteen years together we've accumulated a lot of possessions, and unless Karim is hiding in a box of old magazines or in with our Christmas decorations, the guy just isn't here.

Karim Baboolal actually appears to be a former resident of this apartment. When we moved here more than 14 months ago, we would get the odd piece of his mail, on which I would mark "moved" and slip it into a Canada Post box. I think he was an engineer, because for a while we were receiving a trade magazine, along with investment information and solicitations from the NDP. As time passed, each of these ceased, save for the NDP, who every month or two pop off a letter to Karim. I assume they are solicitations; although I've never opened one of these envelopes, they have the feel of a desperate grab by a desperate party. I'm not sure why they keep coming. If the party has any expectation that I will take over Karim's position on their supply line, this is a dream they'll never wake up from. I have only once voted NDP, and that was a strategic move to block another candidate which proved to be a purely useless exercise. I have met some NDPers and for the most part they've been decent, although the smug certainty of their own moral superiority gets to you after a while. And Jack Layton is as bad an example of the breed as can be found, and his wife doesn't help. I would give money to the Bloc before Jack Layton would see a penny.

But the really annoying part of this is that I (and you, if you're Canadian) am probably paying for these letters to Karim Baboolal with my tax dollars. I'm not sure how public financing of political parties works, but I'm pretty certain there are a lot of mailings that can be done on our dime. Every letter they send is processed twice, to Karim and back from me, and in addition to the cost of a stamp, this occupies the time of several postal workers in each direction. It's been almost 15 months and I have returned more than half a dozen of these letters, and the NDP still doesn't get it. I'm beginning to think the next envelope will need to be returned with a cover letter explaining what the tree-hugging vegetarian recyclers at the party office simply aren't catching on to. Time to break out the crayons.

My level of distress over this has increased recently, because I'm beginning to think the NDP is telling others that Karim lives here. Just last week, we received letters from two different insurance companies directed to Karim. Neither of these had written previously, making me wonder why they bothered to start now. My wife has concluded that Karim probably left the country and these are simply notices related to nonpayment. But that is simply too reasonable for me. I prefer to blame Jack Layton.

If you're still out there, Karim, let me know and I'll hold your mail until you can come pick it up. Either that, or give me a forwarding address. Because Jack Layton needs you. There's going to be an election soon, and he clearly wants to make sure you don't forget about him. And I need you to vote for Jack so he can continue to be a do-nothing little fish in Ottawa instead of joining with his piranha cronies to screw up our big pond.