Dean Del Mastro - Stephen Harper's Parliamentary Secretary, Ethics Committee appointee, and elections fraud pointman for the Cons in the HoC - shown here in cuffs as he went off to the big house today in shackles in a real life perp walk. He was convicted eight months ago on four counts of Elections Canada charges and trying to cover it up. "Why, Mr. Speaker, why?" he wailed in the HoC two years ago before resigning the Con caucus to keep his pension intact. Sentenced today to a month in prison plus four months house arrest and eighteen months probation, he will probably be out again tomorrow on appeal of both his sentence and conviction. "I'm prepared to do whatever is necessary to stand for the truth," he explained to reporters today.
Senator Don "U So Hot" Meredith - Harper Senate appointee, one-time failed Con Party candidate, family values guy and ordained Pentecostal Minister - is all about the youth...
"A passionate champion of youth empowerment, in 2002, he co-founded the Greater Toronto Faith Alliance Centre where he continues to serve as volunteer Executive Director to engage, encourage and empower marginalized youth ..."
"One of my major Senate visionary objectives is to encourage development of national strategies for overcoming the alienation of our young people and preparing them for significant family, community and leadership roles. Much of my work in Toronto, as a business person, community advocate and pastor has focused on initiatives involving youth and I hope my Senate work will be a means to encourage leadership in this area across Canada."
Saanich Gulf Islands in 2008 is widely perceived by many to be "ground zero for election fraud in Canada", as Elizabeth May puts it. Not only did the perps successfully pull it off but Elections Canada's botched investigation demonstrated it could be done in future elections with impunity. The scam comes in two parts. (Wet coasters may want to skip this bit.) 1)Robocalls Environmentalist and SGI Lib candidate Briony Penn lost in the 2008 election when robocalls from the US spoofed the NDP campaign number and encouraged SGI voters to vote for the NDP candidate who had very publicly dropped out 3 weeks earlier but too late to have his name removed from the ballot. Some 3700 voted for him and Con MP/TarSands Minister Gary Lunn bested Penn by a 2,625 vote margin. The alternative theory is that pissed off NDP voters voted for their candidate anyway to spite the Liberals who outed him for inappropriate skinny dipping and body painting behavior 12 years earlier in 1996, causing him to drop out of the race.
“The Liberal Party did that,” the director of communications for the Liberals B.C. campaign Brad Zubyk said, though he denied deserving credit himself. “It's all public domain. Quite frankly, we don't apologize for it. None of this is particularly hard to find.”
Either way, Elections Canada closed their investigation after failing to determine whether anyone "had actually been influenced in their vote because of the purported telephone call", andbecause "evidence of the actual source of the calls and the person or persons who made them would be required." Same reasons EC gave for concluding their election fraud investigation in 2011. 2) Third party advertisers. Your previously unheard-of go-to people when a campaign has maxed out their allowable EC spending limit and there's a need for a last minute proxy ad buy in local papers and radio before Election Day, after which they vanish in a puff of smoke til next election. Of the 50 odd third-party groups registered with Elections Canada in 308ridings across Canada in 2008, five were registered in Saanich-Gulf Islands. The first four on the list below all shared the same financial agent and registered under the law firm address and phone number of Bruce Hallsor - former Canadian Alliance Party candidate, Gary Lunn supporter, and Conservative riding association VP .
Economic Advisory Council of Saanich - Patricia Trottier, sole financial contributor, c/o Bruce Hallsor’s law office at 800-1070 Douglas St., Victoria
Before Andrew MacLeod at The Tyee added Citizens Against Higher Taxes to his list, there were only four on it. At that time Hallsor told him that while Dickinson of Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council :
"did some advertising in 2006 - the other three were new for this election."
Not that new.
In 2006in Victoria - the riding right next to SGI - crown prosecutor and Con MP-hopeful Robin Baird got some election advertising help from Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria. On their January 2006 Elections Canada Third Party Advertising Report, Common Sense Advocacy lists Donna Evans as financial agent and the address is once again ... wait for it ... Bruce Hallsor's law office. Donna Evans is married to Robert Evans, Gary Lunn's fundraising chair for Saanich-Gulf Islands electoral district association. Lunn's VP was Bruce Hallsor and his riding president was then-Environment Minister Jim Prentice's sister. MacLeod :
"Robert Evans is the vice-president of Community Marine Concepts, which is seeking a license from the province to occupy 2.63 hectares of Victoria Harbour with a marina for 80-foot to 120-foot yachts. The company is working on the proposal with Alberta-based WAM Development Group. Getting the license requires approvals from various provincial and federal agencies ... Hallsor has registered to lobby on behalf of WAM."
Application of transport regulations related to use of the Victoria Harbour
G&M : "... when a minister gets lobbied by his own campaign manager, who is acting for his fundraiser, it certainly looks bad. " Likewise, when local opponents to the mega-marina ask the riding president's brother, the Environment Minister, for an environmental assessment and are refused - also not good. In 2006 Bruce Hallsor formed the BC Conservative Club ; by 2009 he was also the BC Liberal constituency association president for Victoria – Beacon Hill. In a treatise I can no longer find online, Hallser argued that federal conservatives should vote for BC Liberals. It's a small, small, small LibCon world out here in BC. A lot of it is about money. I reckon the 'ground zero' elections shenanigans event horizon goes back further than most of us can remember. Thursday Update : Deep Climate : Conservative Democracy Deficit on Vancouver Island A very thorough and detailed look that I had read four years ago and forgotten about. .
We don't often get to see into the minds of cross border American conservative political operatives working in Canada. Here is one such snapshot, but first ...
CBC reported today on "CIMS-to-Go" or C2G, a new mobile app for the Cons Constituent Information Management System that allows party canvassers to collect and sort voter information faster than ever before - smiley face, frowny face - while keeping close tabs on candidates' and canvassers' efficiency.
Someone in the Cons IT dept, who is presumably right now clearing out their desk, blabbed to CBC that some Con ridings are "approved" to use it while others have to pay $2500.
"The app comes with a script to follow, to make sure canvassers know what to say at the door."
CBC then went to Georganne Burke, who they describe as "a former regional organizer and community relations manager for the Conservatives", for more info. Ms. Burke has been using the newly released C2G app in her work for an unnamed "local Conservative campaign for the upcoming election".
Last September, The Daily Caller, a conservative Washington DC news and opinion website founded by Tucker Carlson and former adviser to Dick Cheney Neil Patel, explained what Burke was doing in Washington :
"Burke, a 45 year veteran of grassroots campaigning, was in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 3 [2014] to help train conservatives on effective efforts to expand the reach for their ideas. Her credentials include being part of the team that eventually brought about a conservative majority government in Canada by effective outreach to minorities, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper."
Dual citizen Burke, who has worked as a special assistant to Tony Clement and Tim Hudak and "as a political organizer for the Conservatives starting in 2004", describes herself in the interview :
"In my heart I will probably always be an American first and foremost. I'm a Yankee at heart and will be my while life. I'm truly an American."
She is very concerned about the "politics of division that is practiced on the left" in Canada - dividing people into various ethnic groups - and offers this advice about "connecting with the various cultural communities in the US" :
"Why I actually came down here is because we've done this experiment successfully in Canada. It took us eleven years of hard work and I came down to tell people that this is a long game we have to play here, that this is not something that happens overnight ... It's about marketing ... You have to get out and create relationships with people that you want to be your customers."
"Getting more votes from Jews and specific ethnic groups ..."
"Conservative community relations manager Georganne Burke told Conservatives that outreach calls on them to work beyond their traditional base, even if it means "to look outside your normal comfort zone."
Ms. Burke urged Conservative candidates and organizers to break down each riding's ethnic and religious composition, and directly target potential voters.
She said that Conservatives should use all available opportunities to "build the database" of ethnic voters, by renting or buying lists of names from third parties and by attending events where they can gather business cards and guest lists."
TheRed Chamber of Sober Second Expense Accounts passed the anti-terrorism Bill C-51 by 44 votes to 28 yesterday. Below find those 44 Con Senators who voted YEA - along with their contact info/bios/pix - because I don't think these fine folks are well enough known to Canadians. You'll note some of them will still be in the Senate 30 years from now. All but three were appointed by Harper - two were appointed by Mulroney and one by Paul Martin. A full seven out of the 30 Harper's Perps with Perks are senators.
Name&contact info - Party affiliation - Appointed by - Province - Term of office
Damn good tune. Yeah, it came out two months ago - keep posting it till everyone knows the words.
Then we need to pick a day for a national sing-along - I suggest the day the writ drops - with people right across Canada posting themselves with their own Heave Steve signs - just like the folks in the vid - to some central site for possible re-mix including everyone if Lon Borgerson agrees to it. Cross-party participation. So who's up for organizing this?
Lon Borgerson, NDP candidate for Prince Albert, and friends... 26,830 views, coming up on 500 "likes".
Well, the ship of state is sinking and the seas are getting rough
The captain's drunk with power and we have had enough
He's cutting all our rations, pulling tricks out of his sleeve
Only one thing we can do, we've got to heave Steve
Heave Steve! Make him walk the plank
Heave Steve! He's gonna break the bank
Heave Steve! We'll have ourselves to thank
If we all join together and just Heave Steve!
The temperature is rising and the weather's no fun
The glaciers are melting and there's water on the run
We're burning up the oil when we've got the wind and sun
And with Stevie at the helm, nothing's being done
CHORUS
There's pirates down on Bay Street hiding treasure from us all
There's pirates getting richer while we all take the fall
There's pirates in the wheelhouse making robocalls
There's pirates in the statehouse helping Stevie run it all
CHORUS
And the ships don't get our grain cause they're waiting for the rail
And the economic action plan has built another jail
And Duffy's on the poop-deck, and seniors wait to no avail
Cause Stevie and his buddies won't deliver mail
CHORUS
So if you want a good voyage and a fair and equal boat
And you want all your mates to live long and stay afloat
You don't really need a sea, an ocean, or a moat
To throw Stevie overboard you just need to vote
