Con Senators hoisted by their own petards

... in which Conservative Senators harangue Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand for answers that he is no longer able to deliver because the Con's Fair Elections Act removed Elections Canada's Commissioner from Elections Canada and placed him under the aegis of the Public Prosecutors Office where Mayrand is not privy to its investigations.

Elections Canada CEO Mayrand had barely begun giving the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs his report on the last federal election when the Chair interrupts and asks him to wrap it up because they have many questions - questions propelled, it is explained, by the particular interest of Senator Linda Frum. Oh goodie.

Con Senator Daniel Lang: "Registered third parties. Can you confirm that registered political parties are not allowed to accept money from foreign donors over the course of an election?"

Mayrand : You have to be a Canadian citizen.

Lang : We have now seen that third parties can do much more than political parties, such as raising money from foreign interests in the U.S. and elsewhere to influence public policy and elections in Canada. This past election, registered third parties like Dogwood Initiative and LeadNow have publicly admitted that they receive foreign moneys, run campaigns, even published pushpolls under your interpretation of the act as I understand it. All they can't do is advertise over a set amount during the writ. Can you tell me was it the intention of the Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court to allow third parties to actively campaign prior to and during elections?

Mayrand : Within certain limits and spending caps, third parties, provided they register if they spend more than $500, are allowed to do advertising during the campaign. That is specifically provided for in the legislation. 

Lang : So a registered third party during a political campaign, except for a restricted area, can accept foreign money to help run and be involved in a campaign?

Mayrand : They can.

Lang : It has come to my attention that there are a number of these third party registered organizations, who it would appear have been willfully circumventing the Elections Act or acting as a party to circumvent the Act. Can you tell us up to now how many complaints you have received from Canadians, or have you received complaints from Canadians or from political parties related to third party groups and third party advertising, and if so, how many are you actually investigating?

Mayrand : Complaints would have been directed to the Commissioner of Canada's Elections who is tasked with assuring compliance with those provisions, so I would not be aware of the type of complaints the Commissioner has received. 

Lang : So this wouldn't be discussed with you? Because it seems rather strange it wouldn't be. 

Mayrand : With the separation of the offices, we can no longer have those type of discussions so I am not aware of what type of feedback, comments, or complaints that the Commissioner would have received in this matter. 

Lang : What I don't understand is why you wouldn't be aware this type of thing was occurring. In your report you talk about investigations, you talk about contraventions of the Elections Act ...

Mayrand : These are files that were referred during the election by my office, matters brought to my attention mostly by Canadians during the election - allegations that could potentially be an offence - and in that case I can refer the matter to the Commissioner. But I have no sense what the Commissioner or how he will handle those files. He will handle them according to his own protocols, and I am not aware of complaints that are directly addressed to the Commissioner.

Lang : So when are you made aware?

Mayrand : Only if Canadians bring something to my attention, and if it actually raises a matter of potential offence to the Act, then I will refer it to the Commissioner. It's not a two-way communication process. 

Lang : So for the record you have no knowledge of what I just asked.

Mayrand : Not with respect to what is the Commissioner's.



I imagine that Senator Lang had forgotten all about how their party's 2006 Accountability Act removed Elections Canada's power to compel testimony and documents from witnesses, legislation which I'm guessing would be useful if, say, EC wanted to investigate the alleged registered third party election violations that have Senators Lang and Frum so up in arms. 

The senators also seem to have forgotten that, under the pretence of combatting non-existent voter fraud by electors, the Con's Fair Elections Act moved Elections top cop the Commissioner out of Elections Canada and into the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, so Mayrand isn't privy to its investigations and consequently can't answer or act on the Senators' questions.

Well played, guys.  

And so it went for an hour and forty minutes with the Conservative Senators led by Linda Frum and Daniel Lang badgering Mayrand for answers and opinions about LeadNow and Dogwood Institute expenses, as well as their funding received outside the writ period and therefore outside his jurisdiction. 

Senator Frum was particularly exercised about "an organization in the US that is against pipelines" providing funding to third parties in Canada to hold rallies and music concerts and tell people not to vote for Harper.  

She then brought up Harper v. Canada, the 2004 Supreme Court challenge launched by Stephen Harper as head of the National Citizens Coalition. He sought to strike down Canada Elections Act's legal spending limits on third party advertising during elections. Harper lost that case and Canada was spared much of what became Citizens United five years later in the US. 

I'm not sure in Senator Frum's party shoes that I would have brought that one up.


This week the Liberals repealed much of the Fair Elections Act but media reports that it is dead are somewhat exaggerated. The Liberals have yet to return to Elections Canada either their former independence or their investigative powers taken away under Harper. 

And finally, several Conservative senators pressed Mayrand to agree that given the 2015 Federal Election had the highest voter turnout in years, that it must mean the Fair Elections Act had done its job. 

Words fail me ...
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5th Electoral Reform Committee meeting - JP Kingsley

in which the Conservatives only want to talk referendum and the Liberals mostly want to talk about online voting, which we aren't getting for the 2019 federal election, in part because the Liberals have not rolled back Fair Elections Act provisions that prevent Elections Canada from pilot testing it.

JP Kingsley gives his personal suggestion for a new combination electoral system - urban MMP and rural FPtP - and the CPC MPs launch the dismissive phrase "consultations in cafeterias" to refer to any discussions with Canadians about electoral reform that isn't a referendum.

Since May 2010, Kingsley, former Elections Canada CEO from 1990 - 2007, has been Chair of the Executive Advisory Committee of Dominion Voting, a Canadian company selling electronic voting machines and tabulators. In May 2010, Dominion bought the infamous Diebold Election Systems from Election Systems & Software. 
From 2007-2009, Kingsley was President & CEO of the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which "provides assistance and support for elections in new and emerging democracies" in 135 countries including Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Nicaragua, and Yemen.

Lest you think his position at Dominion Voting inclines Kingsley toward online voting for the next federal election, it does not. In a presumed response to Lib Ruby Sahota's comparison to online banking and Sherry Romanado's comment in the previous meeting that :

"I can order pizza online. On the day of the vote, it may be raining, I might be busy. Online voting gives me an option"

Kingsley, who thinks online voting is eventually inevitable and even necessary to engage the young and "differently abled" and voters not in their riding, said in his excellent opening remarks to the committee:

"Online voting. The analogy with online banking and purchasing I heard this morning is flawed. Banks hedge the risk from the person - a margin of error is acceptable against which they hedge. What margin of error is acceptable in elections?" 

The ERRE committee has not yet posted July minutes or transcripts so here's some notes on the Kingsley Q&A meantime : 

CPC Scott Reid : Referendum. He begins by quoting KIngsley from June : "You can only hold a referendum on a constitutional matter. Changing the electoral system is not a constitutional matter." Did you mean the Referendum Act would need to be changed to hold a referendum?
Kingsley : Yes, that's what I meant.
Reid : In 1992 you held a referendum 4 months after passing Referendum Act. Could you do it in 4 months again because Mayrand says he would need 6 months?
Kingsley : Easier then. Defers to Mayrand's 6 months.

NDP David Christopherson : Unlike Mayrand who is still in office, you can give opinions. Why should we move from comfort zone of FPtP to "something that more accurately describes the will of the people"?
Kingsley : "I can't think of a country that went with FPtP when installing a democracy because of its known difficulties. If you do not come out with a new system, then the people complaining about the system in place now will have to live with it."

Bloc Luc Theriault : More equitable state funding for small parties would address vote inequality.
Kingsley : We should return to previous system of $2 per vote per party annually, even if at $1.50 not $2. 
Theriault : Funding means smaller parties can make themselves heard in between election campaigns. 
Kingsley : My suggestion : Given size of Canada, remote vast rural ridings would keep FPtP to elect 40 to 60MPs. For urban ares, group 4 -5 current ridings and voters would choose their 4 or 5 MPs based on the vote. Everyone would vote for one candidate or one party. The party would be chosen by the new riding association from the grouped-together 4 or 5 ridings. To achieve gender parity in say 5 available seats, there would be 3 men and 3 women coordinated alternating man-woman-man-woman. Voters would vote for one man or one party - they would only have one vote. If 60% of people vote for Party A, they get 3 seats or 60%.

Elizabeth May : Given distortions we experienced under FPtP, do you believe our democracy will be improved when we get rid of it? 
Kingsley : Democracy will be improved when committee has done its work, when we have best system or least worst system as Shakespeare would have said. The process itself is important.
May : Power of PMO is unique to Canadian system. 
Kingsley : Concentration of power under Pierre E Trudeau was to ensure unity of direction, that ministers would not go contrary to what party wanted. That machinery over time created more authority of Prime Minister. Not directly related to issue but feeds into it.
Holding any referendum vote would require rewriting the outdated law but it was a good act re free broadcasting time - 1 1/2 hour to both sides. 

Lib Sherry Romanado : Simplicity of ballot, link between elector and elected, parties should be national coast to coast. Please elaborate.
Kingsley : Some parties are under-represented so there's bodies missing in caucus. In Quebec, eastern Canada there are fewer Conservatives than should be there. It's at caucus that national decisions are made for the rest of Canada - proportional or mixed proportional would address that but no system will be perfect.
Romanado : How would coast-to-coast parties affect intraparty competition?
Kingsley : Open list, choosing among candidates within the same party- electors rank within the same party which one they prefer. If only 4 to be elected in that riding, I would bust my proverbial to be among 1st four. There will be temptations but party discipline will address that. 
Romanado : I had 7 candidates in my riding and I benefitted from FPTP - that's the reality - but now I represent them all. 
Kingsley : With my suggestion, [ridings with several MPs] , after election, electors could choose who among those 4 or 5 they choose to take their issue to.

CPC Girard Deltell : Referendum. What is more important in consulting Canadians - a referendum or "townhall consultations in a cafeteria"?

Lib Ruby Sahota : Using compulsory attendance [not compulsory voting], would a new electoral system increase voter turnout?
Kingsley : I don't believe in compulsory voting, rather compulsory attendance. However "I don't know if 50% attendance at the polls is sufficient to lend legitimacy to a government."
Sahota : Twitter question : How much higher is voter turnout in countries with proportional representation?
Kingsley : One study by Prof Blais (sp?) found about 7%. I may be wrong. Might be marginal.
Sahota : Simplicity of ballot to increase voter turnout.
Kingsley : Youth are not voting. 58% turnout in last election; 39% in one before. Failure to engage. If we are to keep voluntary attendance at polls, we must do better at getting across *why* to vote. They don'y watch tv; why do we still do tv?

NDP Alexandre Boulerice : Public education needed. People think they are voting for a PM.
Kingsley : Must listen to Canadians. Social networks will create snowball effect. Canadians capable of understanding what democracy is about. I don't endorse any particular system but whatever you come up with must maintain link between MP and community.

CPC Blake Richards : Your suggestion of two systems - one urban, one rural - why is that a good system? 
Kingsley : People in rural areas accustomed to link with elected MP; a proportional system represents more difficulty for them because geography. 

Lib John Aldag : How do independents fit in to any new system?
Kingsley : A problem internationally with some PR systems but not mixed member. Chances of being elected the same as they are right now - low.
Aldag : Online voting. Mayrand not seeing it for 2019. When then?
Kingsley : Both later and faster than we think. All-pervasive technology must asssure integrity of elector identification. Mayrand said not in 2019 because he needs permission from House and Senate to even think about it never mind test pilot it; used to be just from PROC.
Aldag : Do you have preferred approach for a pilot test for say people with disabilities? How can we phase it in?
Mayrand : Could not apply to all Canadians - too broad a test. Could try people with "differing abilities" or mobility issues or a few ridings. Could then check to see how well we performed.
Aldag : What margin of error is acceptable?
Kingsley : Canadians will say if we have online voting - must be 0% error.

End of first round questioning. Might get to second round later if there is any interest in this first round.
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The Curious Case of Michael Sona

These few lines at Radio Canada and Adam Donaldson's Guelph Politico Blog are the only mentions I have found anywhere that Michael Sona, convicted of aiding and abetting unknown perp(s) in an unsolved crime of unknown proportions, lost his sentence appeal on May 18 and headed back to jail to serve out his nine month sentence.

Sona, with nothing to deal and no electronic or material evidence of his guilt produced at his trial, was such a likely fall guy.  

A couple of weeks before the 2011 election, CPC HQ had sent him out to halt voting at a special election poll at Guelph U that CPC HQ disputed the legality of and his name hit the media bigtime.

Elections Canada's investigation into the robo/live calls misdirecting voters across two thirds of the ridings in the 2011 federal election appeared dead in the water in 2012, but public interest was rekindled when reporters Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor exposed "Pierre Poutine" as the perp and the robocall company RackNine as the source of the calls into Guelph. 

Con Party robocaller Matt Meier of RackNine - you might remember him from the dubious Con Party 2013 Saskatchewan election boundaries robocalls debacle - traced the missing Poutine evidence on the RackNine hard drives and fired it off to EC investigator Al Mathews, along with a heads up to CPC HQ. Months earlier he'd sent another heads up to Andrew Prescott, Sona's Guelph campaign co-worker.

Then out of the blue on Feb 23 2012, Brian Lilley announced on Sun News that 
1) the Cons had identified Sona as a suspect, 
2) Con Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton was on the case, and 
3) Jenni Byrne had given Sun News a statement denying CPC HQ involvement. 

A shocked Sona called everyone he knew at CPC HQ to find out what was going on. According to Sona, CPC lawyer Arthur Hamilton called him back and told him not to worry about anonymous sources. 

Hamilton subsequently delivered a sixpack of Con staffers to Al Mathews and sat in on their interviews on the CPC's behalf as they told their stories of Sona asking how to pull off an anonymous robocall and later bragging of having pulled off the Pierre Poutine robocall scheme, the latter details of which were by then widely available in the media.

Elections Canada dropped their investigation into other suspects and ridings and the RCMP granted immunity from prosecution to the Crown's star witness Andrew Prescott. Prescott's "evolving" testimony at trial - Sona's post-election toast to "Pierre", burner phone packaging in Sona's waste bin, and Sona's euphoric election morning office announcement "it's working, it's working" - the Crown stressed several times, "should be approached with caution". 

The three minute difference between the end of a 4:12am Election Day Pierre Poutine log out at RackNine as Client 93 and a 4:15am Andrew Prescott log in from the same IP address in the Guelph campaign office as Client 45 was never adequately explained at trial. 
However Prescott testified that sometime before 7pm that same day, an hour before polls were to close anyway, Guelph campaign chief Ken Morgan handed him the Pierre Poutine RackNine account log in info and instructed him to put a stop to the "Counter Fake EC" robocall. 

Mr. Morgan later decamped to Kuwait without ever being interviewed by Elections Canada and Mr Prescott destroyed the Guelph campaign computers.

Sona did not testify at his trial, as is his right, after repeatedly maintaining his innocence of the charges against him and therefore his lack of knowledge as to who else might have been involved. His lawyer Norm Boxall was confident they'd won their case according to Sona, given the lack of any material or electronic evidence connecting Sona with either RackNine or Pierre Poutine or a CIMS list of non-supporters. Sona did not have access to CIMS.

On August 14 2014 however, Justice Gary Hearn found that, while apparently not acting alone, Sona authored the initiating email to Racknine and purchased one or more of the various credit cards and the burner phone in order to direct Guelph voters to the wrong polling station on May 2 2011. He believed the testimony from the Conservative staffers and campaign co-workers, or rather, as he stated in his summation, he could not believe the Conservative staffers and co-workers made it all up.

In sentencing Sona in November 2014, Hearn found that despite defence lawyer Norm Boxall's characterization of Sona's actions as possibly a "prank gone terribly wrong", nine months in prison was :

"necessary in order that the public and particularly those involved in political campaigns at any level will appreciate that the courts regard this type of activity as criminal and to be treated seriously."

So off Sona went to jail and was back out on bail pending appeal of his sentence which he has just subsequently lost.

Guelph resident Susan Watson wrote the following day in the Guelph Mercury :

"Sona certainly didn’t access non-supporter lists in Winnipeg South Centre, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Elmwood-Transcona, Nipissing-Temiskaming, Vancouver Island North and Yukon. In a court case involving these six ridings, Justice Richard Mosley found that “misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country, including the subject ridings.”

If he knows who it is he is doing time for "aiding and abetting", Sona isn't saying. 

Stripped of their in house authority to prosecute election offences courtesy of Harper's 2006 Federal Accountability Act, and with the no longer independent Commissioner now housed under the Attorney General's roof courtesy of the Fair Elections Act, Elections Canada has quietly rolled over and gone back to sleep. 

The website for Peter Smoczynski's documentary film Election Day in Canada : The Rise of Voter Suppression has two new interesting pieces on Sona :

Sona on his realization he had been pegged as a suspect, and

Stephen Maher's reflections on Sona as a fall guy after his conviction, in the film's trailer


Also see Michael Harris : 'I'm Tired': Michael Sona on robocalls, his suicide attempt -- and the road back
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Marc Mayrand on Election Reform and Referendum

Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand at PROC (Procedures Committee), excerpted :

"With a majority government in place, as well as a fixed election date of October 21, 2019, there is an opportunity now to bring the electoral process, currently anchored in the 19th century, in line with contemporary Canadian expectations."

On holding a referendum on choosing a new voting system as advocated by the Cons :

"The Referendum Act is outdated. It has not been changed since 1992, which was the last time we had a national referendum. In that regard, it is very much out of sync with the Elections Act, particularly around political financing. For example, unions and corporations could contribute to referendum committees. I think that may come as a shock. There is no limit on contributions by any entities. Again, that may come as a shock, but the legislation still stands."

"Six months minimum to set up a national referendum." 

On amending the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act for STV or MMP or ...

"The bare minimum for a standard redistribution is 10 months.There are another seven months after that for implementing. You need to redesign all the maps across each riding and reorganize the poll divisions to reflect the new riding boundaries."

On time needed to revamp the whole system in time for the 2019 election :

"Legislation enacting the reform should be there at least 24 months before the election.Once you have the redistribution, you would need six to seven months to implement the new maps, the new districts, and then we would need to get ready for the election. We would need to prepare all the training. We would also need to build the systems that would support this new regime. We can assume that there would be a need for major public education." Also for parties, candidates, election officials.

On new Election Day technology :

"You have the electronic lists available at the polls. That means that someone who is showing up at the poll shows a voter ID card. The card is scanned, their name is struck out of the list immediately, and automatically it's valid across the country, so that person cannot show up somewhere else later during the day. As a result of that, they get their ballot. We could consider entering them into a tabulator, so, again, the results would be instant on election night."

On advance polls :

"This time around, 25% of all Canadian voters showed up at advance polls. Similarly, we had a 117% increase in voting by mail—in this day and age, yes.We estimate that serving an electorate at an advance poll takes roughly 10 to 15 minutes. If you have 10 people ahead of you, and you're the eleventh, imagine the time it takes. If you see three or four tables that are free, why can't you go to them? If I show up at any store I'll go to the checkout that is available. Why can I not do that?"

"The other thing that we need to look at is automating procedures. If you have voted at an advance poll, you know that electors, when they show up, have to prove their ID, etc. Then their name has to be searched in a big paper document, and they have to enter the name and address and they have to sign. There's no reason in this day and age that it still needs to happen this way. We would be looking at automation. There are good reasons that controls are in place: to ensure that the vote is reliable. However, I think there are big opportunities for automation and better service at the polls."

Mr Mayrand also referred to four other Elections Canada issues that in my opinion should be addressed before the next election.

On removal of voter identification card as a valid piece of identification in the 2015 Federal Election: 

"Voter ID was a barrier for 172,000 people who claimed that not being able to prove their ID or address was an issue for them, and therefore they did not vote according to the Statscan Labour Force Survey"."There is no national ID card of any sort that meets the requirements of the Elections Act."

On voter education outreach :

"Our mandate now is restricted to non-voters, those who are under the voting age." 

"Elections Canada is, in fact, the only body in the world that I know of that cannot promote democracy within the country."

On expenses reimbursement to political parties after an election :

Approximately $60M goes back to our respective political parties—no receipts required. 

On the power to compel witnesses :

"The commissioner cannot compel witnesses.""The commissioner's office was moved from Elections Canada to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is reporting through the DPP and through the Attorney General. It's not an office of Parliament, so it doesn't report directly to Parliament."

Note : I took Mayrand's remarks on electoral reform and a potential referendum out of the order in which they were made and bumped them up to the top of the post. These quotes are responses made to questions from the MPs at PROC.

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Legal loopholes - Bruce Carson, Nigel Wright, and Elections Canada

Elections Canada declined to recommend the RCMP investigate and prosecute electoral fraud cases in both 2008 and 2011 elections because, in the *opinion* of Elections Canada, the perps were unsuccessful in their attempt to sway the election results. They were crap at it so no harm no foul.

Yesterday Bruce Carson was acquitted of influence peddling under Section 121 of the Criminal Code - which prohibits anyone from using their influence with the government to obtain benefits for themselves or someone else - because although he approached Indian and Northern Affairs government officials to help set his girlfriend up with a 20% fee to sell water purification systems to First Nations, he approached the wrong people. He was crap at influence peddling so again, no harm, no foul.


This also partly explains I suppose why the RCMP never charged Nigel Wright, who shares lawyer Patrick McCann with Carson, with paying Mike Duffy off with a $90,000 cheque to "make this whole thing go away". It didn't go away, Nigel was crap at making it go away, so again - no harm, no foul.   

Canadian law apparently requires certain standards of felony competence from white collar perps before it is willing to take them seriously. If you can't be arsed to attain a bare minimum of professionalism in your chosen felony, Canadian law just isn't interested.  

This must piss off bank robbers no end. Busted at 4am surrounded by their safe-cracking tools and cops and blaring bank alarms does display a certain wont of proficiency at their chosen profession, yet Canadian law does not offer them the same consideration shown to those who attempt to undermine our elections, take personal advantage of their positions of influence, or buy off political cronies.

Bruce Carson still faces charges of influence peddling and being "the secret sauce" that enabled tarsands/extractive industry lobby group EPIC, according to their own presser, to successfully rewrite government regulations thatwere holding up tar their permits. 
According to the RCMP ITO, Carson allegedly lobbied Nigel Wright and Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council, on behalf of EPIC for a salary of $10,000 a month. 

We await the court's decision on whether he was crap at that too.
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THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF RMG

Prior to the 2011 federal election fraud/robocalls scandal, few Canadians had ever heard of CIMS, the Conservative Party of Canada’s national permanent voter-tracking database, or its close relationship to Responsive Marketing Group or RMG, the Conservatives' main GOTV phone bank and fundraising company used in that election by the CPC national campaign and 97 individual Conservative candidates.

Canadians did not know that the Conservative Party paid RMG $1.4million and provided them with a CIMS voters list and a script for its call centre employees to read to voters. That script, according to Canada Elections investigators, read in part : 

“Elections Canada has changed some voting locations at the last moment. To be sure, could you tell me the address of where you’re voting.”

This last in direct contravention of Elections Canada's request that "users of the dataset of all polling sites respect the following restrictions: that the dataset be used for internal purposes only; that it not be used to inform voters of their voting location."

As it happens, the percentage of voting stations across Canada that changed location in the final week of the election was just 0.003.

In their section on RMG in the 2014 Summary Investigation Report on Robocalls, Elections Canada reported that investigators who listened to the recorded live calls noted that “RMG provided wrong poll location information in 27% of the cases involving complainants.”

“In some cases the difference was a few kilometres; in several cases the difference was more than 100 kilometres. The furthest location, provided to an elector called twice by RMG, was 740 kilometres from the correct location.”

“From April 29 to May 1, 2011, returning officers in 11 electoral districts reported elector complaints of incorrect poll location information coming from Conservative Party callers. When contacted by returning officers, local Conservative Party campaigns advised that the calls were from the national campaign of the party, and that the campaigns could not stop them.”

“Investigators were told by the Conservative Party national campaign chair that Elections Canada had no authority to limit a party's use of the poll location data.”

The Conservative Party’s partnership with RMG dates back to 2003 when RMG founder and president Michael Davis pitched the idea of a fundraising machine attached to a national permanent CIMS database to Stephen Harper's mentor Tom Flanagan.

Mike Harris strategist Stewart Braddick came on board to head up Target Outreach, an affilliate firm providing "fundraising and direct voter contact solutions to U.S. Right of Centre Political Organizations". 
Greg Kaufman signed up with RMG in 2007. From his bio at RMG parent group iMarketing Solutions, where he became Chief Knowledge Officer in 2010 :

"Greg has extensive experience in IT management. For six years, he worked for the Ontario PC Party as part of the IT / Direct Voter Contact Team. There, he helped develop CIMS, a revolutionary political database tool that is in wide use today.

Following his time with the Ontario PC Party, Greg spent three years working for Elections Ontario as a manager in the register division, where he compiled and managed the Provincial Voters List."

Flanagan : “CIMS provided a receptacle for the hundreds of thousands of records generated by RMG’s large-scale calling programs.”

In 2009 Preston Manning at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy presented RMG founder Michael Davis with the Manning Centre Pyramid Award for Political Technology, “recognizing RMG's role in helping to build the conservative movement in Canada” :

“Since its inception, RMG has raised more than $75 million for right of centre causes in Canada, and helped to elect hundreds of 'right of centre' politicians at municipal, provincial and national levels."

In March 2010 RMG parent company iMarketing Solutions merged with Xentel, a company with an alarming history of lawsuits on both sides of the Canada/US border over its fundraising practices. That year they spent $1,839,000 on equipment to update their dialing platform and another $1,453,000 in 2011.

In the first quarter after the 2011 election, iMarketing Solutions posted $24M in revenue, but according to their Canadian Stock Exchange statement : "For the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company had a loss of $5,253,000."

A 2012 legal challenge supported by the Council of Canadians was based in part on the affidavit of Annette Desgagne, a RMG call centre worker who reported that three days before the 41st federal election she and her co-workers were given scripts to mislead voters on election day into going to the wrong location to vote.

From the Desgagne 2012 affidavit :

“The new scripts we were to read did not identify that we were calling on behalf of the Conservative Party nor did we mention the local Conservative candidate. The new script, as far as I can recall, was as follows: “Hello. My name is Annette Desgagne. I am calling from the Voter Outreach Centre. Elections Canada has made some last minute changes to the polling stations.”

Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton served motions to have the case thrown out of court before the supporting evidence had been filed. 
RMG CEO Andrew Langhorne, a former election campaign worker for Stephen Harper and seven years a Director of Voter Contact and Information Management for Premier Mike Harris and the Ontario PC Party, filed an affidavit in August calling Desgagne's affidavit "categorically false". 
The plaintiffs' suit to overturn election results in six ridings was unsuccessful and the court ascribed no blame to RMG.


Four months later on April 8 2013, RMG announced it was closing its call centres and laying off call centre employees, and four days after that iMarketing Solutions and all its 18 Canadian and American subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the US.
At the time they owed the Canadian federal government $1 million in unpaid taxes.

CEO Andrew Langhorne was sanguine :

“The nature of our business often necessitates ramping work up and down based on business requirements.”

And sure enough the 42nd federal election has brought them out above ground once again, now known as IMKT Direct Solutions in Canada and iMarketing Acquisitions in New Mexico. They are currently posting ads to hire call centre workers across Canada and Andrew Langhorne is once again launching those phone banks for Voter Outreach Centre, the name registered in February 2011 and used by RMG in the previous election as well. 

Households across Canada from Ottawa to BC reported receiving their calls beginning in December.
Port Alberni municipal councillor Chris Alemany got a call on August 4 :

“Hi, this is the Voter Outreach Centre for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. We would like to know if we can count on your support for Stephen Harper in the upcoming election”

His wife picked up another call 11 days later :

"Hi, this is _name of person_ with the Voter Outreach Centre. We would like to know if we can count on your vote for Stephen Harper in the upcoming election."

Councillor Alemany : "Note the difference from my call? They didn’t specifically identify the Voter Outreach Centre as being a part of the Stephen Harper campaign."

A new script or a bit of free lancing on the part of the call centre employee?
Either way, they did mention Steve in there so it's all still legal.

Operators are standing by...

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Saanich-Gulf Islands - perhaps not quite Ground Zero after all

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", and because "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 308 ridings 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
• Dean Park Advocacy Association  - Ralph Bodine, contributors Ralph and Linda Bodine c/o Hallsor law office
• Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council  - Dana Dickinson c/o Hallsor law office
• Citizens Against Higher Taxes  - Lynda Farmer c/o Hallsor law office
• Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria  - Donna Evans

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 2006 in 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."

and is still the registered lobbyist for WAM in 2015 : 

• 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.
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