McMaher and CBC's Terry Milewski report on this week's release of internal emails between an alarmed Elections Canada and a stonewalling Con Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton.
Turns out EC officials' were reporting on a robocall "scam" in a "dozen ridings" across "at least 6 provinces", starting three days before the last election.
Four months later Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand was still publicly referring to them as "crank calls".
Milewski :
"Ever since the scandal broke, the Conservative line has been it was just a rogue operation in one riding, in Guelph of course, and that otherwise they ran a clean and ethical campaign. So no systematic campaign by the central party as a whole - that's the point of their position."However ...
"Elections Canada kept track of the complainants' caller ID of the people who phoned in saying : hey I'm getting these crazy calls - what's going on?
Check your caller ID - what's the number? Where did these calls come from?
And they called those numbers -the whole list of them all over the country, different area codes, all over - and guess what? The same voice was on the voicemail of all of them which said : " Thank you for calling the Conservative Party."
So all of that suggests that this was not one rogue operation in Guelph but it was a wider scheme to suppress votes."
Uh oh. Time for a new Con defence position :
No evidence anyone failed to vote due to misleading calls, say the 6 Con MPs facing a separate legal challenge to their respective election victories
The Cons have apparently given up claiming innocence in election fraud and are now just going with "no harm, no foul"- an illegal move ignored by the ref because in his opinion it didn't change the outcome of the play.
After stating that it's just too darn difficult to investigate voter interference by foreigners because they're foreigners, the Commissioner concluded :
"No complaint to this office provided a basis to believe that any elector was actually induced or affected in their voting behavior due to the activity complained of. It is the Commissioner's view that ... it is not in the public interest to pursue this further."No harm, no foul ever, apparently, in the case of foreign interference.
RoboCon Pilot Project Flashback : Environmentalist Briony Penn lost the 2008 election when taped robocalls advised Saanich Gulf Islanders on the eve of the election to vote for a candidate who had very publicly dropped out 3 weeks earlier. Seems 3700 voters did just that, likely throwing the election to Con MP Gary Lunn who consequently won by a 2,625 vote margin.
Ok, some harm there for sure, huh? Definitely a foul.
Wait for it ...
Elections Canada stated it had "…found no one who had actually been influenced in their vote because of the purported telephone call, nor was he [the Elections Canada representative] able to identify the source or the person or persons who actually made the calls."
Penn :
Our riding association and the citizens’ groups continued to push Elections Canada for over a year. My last personal email inquiry elicited this response in March of 2010: "In this case, this Office examined thoroughly the complaints received and advised the complainants that there is no evidence that the Canada Elections Act has been contravened."No harm, no foul, another big dollup of we-couldn't-figure-it-out-so-screw-it, and hence no mention of it in the Elections Canada 2008 report.
Democracy Watch would like to know what happened in 3,000 other rulings EC has made over the last 15 years and they have a letter and petition calling for "a law to stop false election robocalls and strengthen election law enforcement".
As Pogge says : only 56000 signatures? That's the best we can do?
Go.
.
12 comments:
Hey, you're back. Good to see ya!
Missed you kicking butt.
Canada is a cesspool of corruption, being governed by a tyrant.
Dictators have no morals nor ethics, what-so-ever. Harper and his so called Conservatives, lie, deceive, are corrupt, thieve, use dirty tactics, dirty politics, control, and they cheat to win.
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini all did the very same as Harper. All dictators, have the same typo personalities. Control is the key, for all of them. The media is absolutely number one, to grab control of. Their dastardly deeds, must not get out to the masses. Their dirt is done behind closed doors. They all had degenerates, to do their dirty work for them.
Harper has Gordon Campbell a drunk. Boessenkool another drunk, and a groper. Bruce Carson, a many times convicted criminal. Wenzel and Parker two Americans, directly participated, in 14 Conservative campaigns. Harper campaigned over a Calgary radio station, right on election day. That too, is election fraud.
Harper is no different than, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, China and other leaders like them. You can't get rid of that scum. We would have to be prepared, for an armed revolution, as other country's people are having to do. Canadians are far too complacent to fight like that.
Welcome back, Alison!
I have no idea why the opposition parties haven't been consistently outraged by all of this. This dwarfs Adscam in comparison. Instead the politicians and media and public just accept the "we'll let EC do their job" line of thinking.
It's quite maddening to see it all unfold. Robocon, Dean Del Mastro's weak memory regarding a $10,000 check; Peter Penashue being supposedly mad as hell about what took place during his own campaign without his knowledge; potential ghost signatures on checks for a Montreal riding; repeat offenses of the in-and-out scandal.
And Elections Canada doing its best impression of Inspector Clouseau.
Alison, so glad your back! Beijing York regarding your comment lack of outrage by the parties. Here is something to think about and I do believe Scott Andrews (Liberal) has hit then nail on the head. Here is what he asked: "Mr. Speaker, on the question of robocalls the new parliamentary secretary is finding himself getting sucked into the same ethical hole as his predecessor. His company, 3D Contact Inc., made big bucks making robocalls for the Conservatives, securing some 96 contracts and 49 grand in the 2008 election, and none of those robocalls had address tag lines as required by the CRTC.
When will the government take the issue seriously and reveal to Canadians all the information it has on the robocall scam, or will we get another robocall answer from Pierre Poutine?"
Pierre is partnered with Jenni Bryne, both have access to the CIMS list, why is EC not demanding it?
As far as Dean del Mastro goes he refuses to testify without immunity. So corrupt they don't care. I believe it will only be the media to bring them down.
Toe
Oops sorry, forgot the link to Andrews question re: Pierre Poilivre's 3D company which does polling/robocalls/and got the contracts.
http://openparliament.ca/debates/2012/11/21/scott-andrews-2/
Toe
Yay! So good to see you back, Alison. We need you.
My heart soars like a hawk. Crosspost, pretty please? :)
Oh, Alison! I cannot tell you how fucking happy I am to see you back at Creekside! Thank you for this and all the great work you've done!
*hugs*
The waterbaby is splashing about happily! She knew Alison wouldn't let the robo-bastards keep her off the keyboard.
Huzzah!
Woo-hoo, what a happy day this is so far! Alison back, Ford out, and maybe Calgary Centre will surprise us!
Thanks all for the welcome back although I'm not sure how often I'll be back. Kept obsessively reading about election fraud so figured I may as well be blogging it from time to time.
HollyStick : Ooh, an alternate trifecta to the one Steve was proposing just over a year ago.
Waterbaby : I was pretty discouraged by EC's ruling on foreign interference in Canadian elections but just couldn't quite give up apparently.
Hugs back at ya, B and Fern Hill.
Dawg : Will give it a shot if I can remember how.
Toe's link
Pierre and Jenni not be an item now but they were back then.
Interesting company - 3D Contact, founded by Poilievre and the now attourney general of Alberta Jonathan Denis. Pierre and AB AG out of it now but Canadian lawyer/US Republican Gerry Chipeur and a Denis still listed as two of 3 directors.
Michel : EC is still getting over the days of bringing someone in for a confidential little chat and eliciting a promise they won't screw up again - as are we all to some degree, huh?
We need to push them - what alternatives are there after all?
BY : Opps have been on this but Pat Martin's experience was probably a tad dampening. As for the promedia, it was once explained to me that this is McMaher and Milewski's beat so don't expect other papers to try to keep up.
Up to us to keep the pressure on.
Meadowlark, Gloria, whoever : Still with the repeater Stalin Mussolini Hitler stuff? We get it.
Look, you obviously feel passionately about this - go do some research and come up with something concrete happening now already.
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