Con MP Brad Butt, who sits on the PROC Committee reviewing the Cons new Fair Elections Act, alleged in the HoC on Feb 6 that he had personally witnessed evidence of vouching voter fraud in his riding.
Today as the G&M informs us :
Conservative MP backtracks on claims he personally witnessed voter fraud
Or as Butt put it himself on Twitter this morning: "I misspoke during debate and corrected the record."
But he made that allegation in the House not once that day, as the G&M reports, but twice.
He had an hour to think over his first misspeak before he stood up and repeated it again.
You can watch him here on Hansard by clicking on "View the video" at the timestamp next to his name under "Explore by Members". Hansard does not give an exact translation of his remarks, so with the aid of their handy video option, I've corrected it in blue.
Conservative MP backtracks on claims he personally witnessed voter fraud
Or as Butt put it himself on Twitter this morning: "I misspoke during debate and corrected the record."
But he made that allegation in the House not once that day, as the G&M reports, but twice.
He had an hour to think over his first misspeak before he stood up and repeated it again.
You can watch him here on Hansard by clicking on "View the video" at the timestamp next to his name under "Explore by Members". Hansard does not give an exact translation of his remarks, so with the aid of their handy video option, I've corrected it in blue.
Feb 6 2014 @16:19 : Brad Butt, Mississauga-Streetsville :
"Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a bit about this vouching system again. I know the minister represents an urban city. I am from a semi-urban area of Mississauga, where there are many high-rise apartment buildings. So one of the things that I have seen - On mail delivery day when the voter cards are delivered to community mailboxes in apartment buildings, we often find that many of them are discarded in the garbage can or the blue box. I have actually witnessed other people coming in, picking up the voter cards, going back to the campaign office of whatever candidate they support and handing out these voter cards to other individuals, who then walk into voting stations with a friendswho then vouches for them with no ID.
Does the minister not believe this kind of thing will get cleaned up properly with this bill?"
Not content with making up this allegation once, he enlarges on it again an hour later @17:19
"I think my friend from York South-Weston will appreciate this because, just like the riding I represent, he has a lots of apartment buildings in his riding as well.Other Con members of the Procedures and House Affairs Committee [6 Cons, 3 NDPers, and a Lib] reviewing the Fair Elections Act alongside Butt include Con Chair Joe Preston and Con MP Scott Reid, plus :I will relate to him something I have actually seen. Here's what I've seen. I've actually seen this on the ground. On the mail delivery day when voter cards areputin those mailboxes, residents come home, pick them out of their boxes, and throw them in the garbage can. And I have seen campaign workers follow up after that, pick up a dozen of themafterward, and walk out. Now why are they doing that, Mr Speaker? They are doing it so they can hand those cards to other people, who will then be vouched for at a voting booth and vote illegally. That is going to stop."
Con MP Ted Opitz, the most recent member of Perps for donating $9,000 to his nomination campaign and thereby being cited by Elections Canada for exceeding his allowed expenses by nearly $7,000. Opitz' campaign manager also allegedly shut down a poll and frightened away seniors trying to vote during the last federal election. - which he won by 26 votes. This same campaign manager was recruited by Nick Kouvalis of Campaign Research to work on Rob Ford's election campaign in 2010.
Con MP Tom Lukiwski, whose riding was the occasion of deceptive push-poll robocalls he blamed on Steve's director of political operations, Jenni Byrne
Con MP Blake Richards - fined $14,400 by the CRTC for two anonymous robocall campaigns in 2012
Gosh, I wonder if any of these committee members are carrying a grudge about elections law.
Making up the minority voices on the PROC committee are Lib MP Liberal Kevin Lamoureux, and NDPers Craig Scott, Dave Christopherson, and Alexandra Latendresse.
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Update : Arggghhh.
Election act changes could muzzle report on probe into robocalls, lawyer warns
According to James Sprague, senior general counsel at Elections Canada until 2006 :
"the bill tabled by the government earlier this month actually may prevent Marc Mayrand, the chief electoral officer, from reporting to Parliament on the results of an investigation into allegations of dirty calls across the country.
The new act would forbid the Commissioner of Canada Elections, Yves Cote — who is in charge of investigating election crime — from disclosing “any information relating to an investigation that comes to their knowledge in the exercise of their powers.”
Sprague says that means Canadians may never learn what investigators uncover about fraudulent and deceptive telephone calls in the past election.
...the act will prevent the commissioner from discussing investigations with Elections Canada, so Mayrand will not be able to report on the investigators’ work. Instead, the director of public prosecutions will include information about the commissioner’s work in an annual report to the justice minister, but, Sprague says “that report cannot set out the details of any investigation.”Just read the whole thing, keeping in mind the makeup of the committee studying it.
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