Another reason to fight the Fair Elections Act

Duff Conacher, Founder of Democracy Watch, on the Fair Elections Act. 
Democracy Watch has a list of "10 really unfair measures in the so-called 'Fair Elections Act' " and a letter you can send to federal leaders here. C'mon, guys, surely we can do better than just 36,000 letters.  

The Cons' contention that the universally negative response to their Bill C-23 is uninformed and hysterical took a big hit today when former AG Sheila Fraser weighed in : 

Ex-watchdog Sheila Fraser slams bill as attack on democracy

'It's just astounding to me,' former auditor-general says of Tories' proposed election law overhaul

"Elections are the base of our democracy and if we do not have truly a fair electoral process and one that can be managed well by a truly independent body, it really is an attack on our democracy..."

Ok, on to my point ...

Fraser has a similar list of complaints to Conacher and also mentions another shortcoming I haven't seen much discussed - that the chief electoral officer will now have to seek prior Treasury Board approval to enter into contracts with people with specialized or technical knowledge.

In June 2011, EC investigator Alan Mathews was looking for Pierre Poutine among VOIPs and proxy servers - a field he knew nothing about. As he said in his ITO : "I relied upon [Simon] Rowland, a subject matter expert in the area of call center systems, telemessaging and telecom product development and network engineering." 

That subject matter expert was the one who provided this analysis : 

"So it's not just what was reported so far -- that the Poutine account and Prescott account were accessed by the same IP within 4 minutes of each other during the middle of this night. It's also that on three separate occasions, someone with both the Prescott and Poutine account passwords used the same browser window to log into both accounts."

I'm guessing if Elections Canada had had to go cap in hand to Tony Gazebo at the Treasury Board for permission to hire that guy and his "specialized or technical knowledge", it never would have been approved and we never would have heard anything about it.

‘Pierre Poutine’ robocalls case: Prescott has given evidence about Michael Sona, Ken Morgan 

and it ain't pretty but catch the explosive end of the McMaher piece :

A national investigation into allegations of dirty political calls has been under way for more than a year. Elections Canada had planned to wrap up that investigation by March 31. On Thursday, spokeswoman Diane Benson declined to say whether it is ongoing.

That report has been postponed until after the 2015 election because of the introduction of the Conservatives’ election bill.
The agency would not say when if ever it will report on the national robocalls investigation.

Friday 11am update : This morning the above McMaher story was changed in the two slightly different versions previously posted at NaPo and canada.com. and is only slightly less explosive.
The NaPo one, listing only Maher, now currently reads :

A national investigation into allegations of dirty political calls has been under way for more than a year. Elections Canada had planned to wrap up that investigation by March 31. On Thursday, spokeswoman Diane Benson declined to say whether it is ongoing.

The agency was expected to include information about that investigation in a “compliance and enforcement mechanisms” report to Parliament this spring.

Benson said the agency has decided not to report until after the next election.
“In light of the government’s announcement in the fall that it would introduce comprehensive legislative reform, Elections Canada decided to postpone the general enforcement report until after the next general election,” she said. “This was necessary not only to focus our attention and resources on the announced reform, but also of the difficulty of engaging stakeholders simultaneously on a parallel initiative.”

while the McMaher one on canada.com goes : 

An Elections Canada report on “compliance and enforcement mechanisms” that was scheduled for this spring has been postponed until after the 2015 election because of the introduction of the Conservatives’ election bill.

That report had been expected to include information on the national robocalls investigation. On Thursday, a spokesman for the agency would not say when any report on that investigation would be released.

 

with thanks to Salamander in comments for the updated version.

As deBeauxOs says : It's #Harper's Fraudulent Voting Reform Act, another #CON!

Friday update :From yesterday: Trapped in a Whirlpool : Parliamentary Civil Disobedience. 

To the Opposition : Go big or go home, stand up for Canadians or be judged harshly by history.

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The Treasury Board President of Gazebos and Funny Funneling

Steve was evidently so pleased with ShamWow Tony Clement's ability to put one over on Auditor General Sheila Fraser by leaving no paper trail of the funneling of $50M of our tax dollars through his own riding office - money purportedly intended for G8 border security - that right after the election Steve made him the boss of all our money - President of the Treasury Board - responsible for ethics, transparency, accountability, and the financial and administrative management of government.

Collateral damage : the compromising of public servants from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Industry Canada, and Infrastructure Canada who may or may not have helped him do it. Now we'll never know. Certainly they denied their involvement to Sheila Fraser but they were there at the meetings with ShamWow Tony, the mayor, and the manager of the Deerhurst Resort when - as Minister of Pork, Gazebos, and Funny Funneling - Clement recommended 33 local projects to then Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Accountability John Baird, who approved 32 of them.

According to the new AG John Wiersema, apparently having a majority means never having to say you're sorry.

Hill Times . Toronto Star . Pogge. 
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Wednesday Update : Hill Times again.
Seems the municipal leaders in Tony's select gazebo-vetting committee awarded their own projects $41.4-million of the $50-million total. Municipalities not on the committee got to share the $2.5-million remainder.
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The G8 ShamWow Legacy Porkbarreling Fund

Of the $83-million Border Infrastructure Fund for "investments in infrastructure to reduce border congestion" approved by parliament in 2009 for the G8 summit, $50-million of it was somehow diverted into ShamWow Tony Clement's riding, 300 kilometres away from the border.

The Harper government had "misinformed" Parliament about the fund, said outgoing Auditor General Sheila Fraser in her G8 draft report in April, a word since expunged from the final report under the new acting AG.
It was simply the most efficient way to get funding to Tony's riding for the G8 leaders to spend 48 hours in, Steve explained last week.

However, many of the 32 projects jointly chosen by ShamWow Tony, the mayor of Huntsville, and the manager of the Deerhurst Resort were nowhere near the G8 site either :

— $274,000 on public toilets 20 kilometres from the summit site in Huntsville.

— $100,000 on a gazebo an hour's drive away.

— $1.1 million for sidewalk and tree upgrades 100 kilometres away.

— $194,000 for a park 100 kilometres away.

— $745,000 on downtown improvements for three towns nearly 70 kilometres away.

$1.8M in public funds was also spent upgrading the watermains and repaving the driveway to the 760-acre Deerhurst Resort : That's How You get a Road Done, while an additional amount went to installing an 8 km wire fence around the resort for G8 security.

All of which must have been good selling points when it was put on the market two weeks after the summit.
"We picked it up for $26-million," said new owner and Israeli entrepreneur Gil Blutrich of Skyline International Development, after noting the previous owners spent $40-million upgrading the resort for the summit.

Meanwhile, wearing his other hat as Treasury Board president, ShamWowTony is in charge of cutting $4-billion per year in federal spending. On Monday 92 federal auditor positions across Canada were eliminated and the department of Audit Services Canada was scrapped entirely. The reason given was that the auditing done by these government watchdogs in charge of ensuring taxpayers’ dollars are properly spent could be done more cheaply by a private sector company, should the government decide to, you know, hire one.

The RCMP are apparently considering whether to launch an investigation into what acting Auditor General John Wiersema called a "very unusual and troubling" complete absence of documentation for the Border Infrastructure Fund Greasing ShamWowTony's Riding Fund. Sure they are.
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Steve's G8 Slush Fund

[updated below]

When the G8 leaders stayed for one night at the Deerhurst Resort as part of the G8/G20 $1.2-billion bunfest, their one-night stay probably didn't afford them the opportunity to fully appreciate all the benefits of the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Slush Fund spent in Industry Minister Tony Clement's riding.

"32 projects that received funding, many of which appear to have no connection to the needs of the G8 summit, chosen by Industry Minister Tony Clement, the mayor of Hunstville, and the general manager of Deerhurst Resort"

And "reducing congestion" at the border by putting up gazebos 50k away is a neat trick

The (Jan. 13th) draft report says that in November 2009, the government tabled supplementary spending estimates which requested $83 million for a Border Infrastructure Fund aimed at reducing congestion at border crossings. But the government did not reveal that it intended to devote $50 million of that money to a G8 legacy fund, even though Huntsville is nowhere near the Canada-U.S. border.

Also ... Auditor general Sheila Fraser is not pleased the Cons misquoted her about the G8 slush fund the day Parliament dissolved last month. Their dissenting opinion to the committee report to the House read :

All witnesses brought forwarded testimony demonstrating strong endorsement of the government's unprecedented transparency to summit costs. [lols]

The Auditor General, Sheila Fraser commented in this regard the following: "We found that the processes and controls around that were very good, and that the monies were spent as they were intended to be spent."

Well actually :

Fraser said the quote had nothing to do with the summits. Instead, the Conservatives falsely recycled an old comment she made on security spending by a previous Liberal government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks a decade ago. (emphasis mine)

Ouch.

Oh well, at least we still have all those nice Economic Action Plan signs.

Tuesday Update : More shenanigans. It would seem the dissenting Con report from the committee hearings into the G8/20 bunfest expenses that misquoted AG Sheila Fraser also managed to misquote Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page as well :

"The document suggests Mr. Page gave security costs for the summits a passing grade after they were held, when in fact the quotation the Conservatives attribute to him was plucked from a report on government estimates he prepared before the meetings."

Yeah. Steve the Economist wants this election to be all about the economy and the Cons' supposed record for solid fiscal management. Yet their best rebuttal to a committee report critical of that record at the G8/20 is to appropriate a ten year old positive assessment that was actually about the Libs and a quote the PBO issued before the summits even began. .