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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Election Day in Canada : The Rise of Voter Suppression

The Script&Film Company's EDayFilm "Election Day In Canada: The Rise Of Voter Suppression" is travelling across Canada visiting communities where live and robocalls were made to record the stories of the electors Elections Canada has abandoned. 

It kicks off at 6:30pm tomorrow Wednesday May 20 at the main branch of Public Library in Guelph with a presentation and a fundraiser. Free admission. More deets here for an event on the 21st in Waterloo and then back again to Guelph on the 23rd - Guelph where an estimated 7,760 robocall attempts were made.

Because isn't it time we had some answers about what happened with the robo and live calls in 237 ridings right across Canada in the 41st federal election before we deal with more of the same again in the upcoming 42nd election this fall? 

In November of 2012, nine months after the robocall story really broke open nation-wide, Elections Canada commissioned and published a survey which reported that 85% of electors polled said the 41st election "was fairly run". Subsequent missives from EC show they never wavered far from this comforting conclusion, despite the commissioner's own final report on the termination of any further investigation stating that 27% of the complainants they investigated received fraudulent calls. 

So it's up to us now.  

Support the film any way you can - with a donation, promoting it online, or organizing presentations in your community like the ones in Guelph.   

It really is up to us now.  

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Decline Your Vote Elect Some Cons!

                                                                Post updated below

The option to formally Decline Your Vote in the Ontario provincial election tomorrow has been getting  some  press, with the OttawaCitizen even giving detailed instructions on how to do it. 

It's a brilliant strategy when you think about it - getting people in a province with under 50% voter turnout in the last provincial election to think they will be making a difference this time by refusing to vote.  Activism! Stand up for your right not to vote!
And who benefits from lower voter turnout when the contest is between the Harper/Hudak/Ford TeaCon Trifecta entry vs the other guys that progressives are generally pissed at and feeling "none of the above" about?

The man behind the Decline Your Vote campaign is former Campaign Research employee Paul Synnott. 
Quick refresher on Campaign Research from principal Kouvalis :



Synnott left Campaign Research in April 2010 to launch his own company, Polisource, from May 2010 to Dec. 2011, and rolled out his first Decline Your Vote campaign in Sept 2011:

"Polisource.ca is a New Media Solutions company focusing on conservative Canadian Politics at the Municipal, Provincial and Federal levels.

Political campaigns in Canada are subject to strict spending limits. Polisource.ca will help you deliver your message through the Internet utilizing the latest tools in a efficient, cost-effective manner."

Getting people to suppress their own votes would definitely qualify as cost-effective.

And despite his particular dislike of Hudakery, Synnott's conservative creds are not in doubt. He has worked on conservative election campaigns in Ontario and here's his upload of Kory Teneycke's Oily the Splot attack ad attacking Dion's carbon tax back in 2008.

But here's something I don't get.
From Synnott's Decline Your Vote website :

Join us in spreading the word about the option of "Declining Your Vote"  [Us?]

We are looking for individuals in all ridings to spread the word locally. There will be simple flyers you can download and distribute in your neighbourhood or across your city or town. We will have lawn signs available to print as well as a utility to make phone calls to educate people.

Social media will be a large part of our initiative, so if you can help us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram - sign up below!
The following ridings are our "Top 10" to target : [Wed night update : additional riding info in red and orange was added by me and is not in original Decline post]                                                    

Brant                                       LIB        by 1106 votes
Etobicoke Centre                  LIB        by 7960 votes
Kitchener-Waterloo               NDP     by 3748 votes
London-West                         NDP     by 3278 votes
Mississauga-Erindale           LIB        by 4258 votes
Oakridges-Markham             LIB        by 4928 votes
Ottawa South                          LIB        by 1279 votes
St. Catherines                        LIB        by 1705 votes
Windsor-West                        LIB        by 3583 votes
Thunder Bay-Atikokan           LIB        by  438 votes 

Why them? I don't know enough about local Ontario politics to know why those "Top 10" ridings in particular were chosen to elect Conservatives merit your considered and principled lack of voting. Perhaps someone out there in Ontarioland could fill me in on that.

h/t Reddit via Stephen Lautens
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Wed night Update : An answer as to why those particular ridings were targeted was provided by Brian Busby and Beijing York in comments. Seems they're currently held by Lib or NDP candidates in the 2011 provincial election and 2013 by-elections, while 8 out of 10 of those ridings voted Con federally.  
I've now added this info to Paul Synnott's original Decline Your Vote list above, as per Elections Ontario. 
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Thurs am update : More dumbass media promotion of Decline :
Windsor Star : Decline your vote ?
NaPo : Ontario Election 2014: How to vote for 'none of the above'
and a good one from Alheli Picazo : 'Decline your vote' makes no difference - with Brian Busby and Synnott in comments!
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ElectRight & Prime Contact Group - from a former candidate

An election candidate who paid $22,000 to a voter contact/robocall firm in 2010 for a "Mayoral Victory Package" has a warning to similar aspirants for 2014 :  Ontario Candidate Watchdog. It's an interesting read.

According to John James' account, following the election he lost to his municipal rival, he and his rival shared notes about their respective voter contact firms - James used Prime Contact Group and his rival used ElectRight -  and found they'd both been sold the exact same polling information and, James contends, both were serviced by the same rep.

"What surprised me at the time was that his numbers were almost exactly the same as the poll numbers I had received from Prime Contact in August 2010. I went back to review my files that night and realized they weren't just close, they were exactly the same, down to the tenth of a percentage point for all candidates.  

The next day, I asked him if he had received a similar house by house report from his ITR as I had received and if he would mind sharing it with me. The response numbers were exactly the same, every single response was exactly the same. These two ITR polls that had supposedly been conducted two weeks apart got responses from the same exact phone numbers and the same exact responses for all the candidates and undecided voters. 

I realized right away that we had both been sold the same poll results. My only consolation was that my friend had paid significantly more for his than I had for mine. Over the next few weeks we also compared our live call results and realized they matched exactly, except for the signs that had been requested for each of us. I also found out that my old friend Derek [his Prime Contact Group contact] had also been the client rep for Electright and had communicated with the other campaign as he had done for me."

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of his account as he has no contact info on his blog which was just set up last Thursday. And he does admit all this is legal.

But if true, it raises some interesting questions. Do ElectRight and Prime Contact work together and share outreach staff and information? Do they both use the same in-house resources or those of some other third party? Is there a parent clone company for both somewhere?

The Windsor Square interviewed Josh Justice, President of Prime Contact, in January 2012:

"A licensed provider of Canadian Data Services, Prime Contact offers such services as virtual town halls, live voter ID calling, automated surveys, market research, data services and polling.

The company, with an office in Hamilton and headquarters in Tampa, Florida, started up 10 years ago consulting focusing on municipal elections. It has since grown to become Canada’s largest firm of its type “specifically on the municipal side,” according to Justice.

Among the company’s successful clients include Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi."

From a York Region interview in 2010 regarding a telephone townhall in Vaughan in October 2010:

"PrimeContact president Josh Justice said the company has done hundreds of these sessions across North America, mainly in the United States."

I wonder if these US and Florida references about Prime Contact Group can be correct, given there's a little "Made in Canada" flag up there on their website?

"PCG Research owns and operates a series integrated in-house research call centres in Ontario, Canada in which 100% of our domestic research is conducted.

Global 
"Our successful international market research brings elements together to deliver research programs which enable our clients to address critical issues both locally and globally. PCG Research International is network flexible and we are not compelled to work with local subsidiaries or franchisees. 

We select local partners based on quality, track record, and compatibility. For qualitative work we will always send a team member to brief the local partner and engage in the local fieldwork process from beginning to end. Wherever possible, we try to meet local stakeholders and gain firsthand experience of local markets. "

 Ok then.

There have been a few glitches, as when they mistakenly mis-identified the NDP candidate as a Green Party candidate in a PCG National Research robocall poll in the London West election in July 2013 and no one could find out who had contracted the poll. 

 I don't know much about ElectRight and its beleaguered director Brett McFarquhar aside from the fact that Jim Ross, formerly of Front Porch Strategies,  apparently got a job there and a whole boatload of Con candidates used them in the 2011 federal election.. 

And Steve's then Parliamentary Secretary Dean Del Mastro used parliamentary resources to have them do a poll in support of a former staffer who was a provincial Con candidate in Del Mastro's riding ...  

which must be what the Cons mean in their Fair Elections Act when they say they want to see politicians push the vote instead of Elections Canada.

So ... questions about two robocall/voter contact companies' alleged collusion from an ex-candidate.

I do have some reservations about Ontario Candidate Watchdog's conclusions though :

"With potentially dozens of resellers all using Prime Contact's call centres and databases, including Electright, is it possible that this is the solution to the robocall mystery? Is the Derek that called me back in 2010 the real Pierre Poutine behind the voter suppression that confused tens of thousands of voters across Canada? Was it just a mistake, did Prime Contact call Liberal supporters by mistake with a suppression message, or did they just give the data to Electright?"

Mixed up the Lib and Con lists by mistake? No. Because what possible benefit would a list of wrong polling place addresses and phone numbers to make offensive phone calls be to anyone but the Cons for the purpose of misleading their opponents'  supporters - the ones who actually got those calls.
So no - no mistake.

Edited for typos, clarity.
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Nigel Wright & Linda Frum in the Republican wayback machine

In a week that has featured ...

1) Nigel Wright let off the hook by the RCMP for bribing sitting legislator Senator Mike Duffy in spite of weeks of PMO discussions involving over a dozen senior party officials re buying Duffy's silence,    and 

2) Senator Linda Frum making the most idiotic and widely-mocked attack on Elections Canada over the Fair Elections Act to date, ie  that it is a conflict of interest for Elections Canada to both administer the vote during elections and encourage people to vote between elections, 

... it is fitting that Jay Watts III should dig up a piece of Canadian history that includes both Frum and Wright, as blogged by Brian Busby in a brilliant pair of blogposts that really should be savoured in their own right.

Seems in 1984, a rightwing Republican foundation confirmed it was funding several start-up campus publications in Canada among its 69 across North America. The Institute of Educational Affairs was set up by Irving Kristol, godfather of the US neoconservative movement, his fellow founding PNACer William Bennett, and William Simon, Reaganite, Richard Nixon's treasury secretary and board director of Halliburton Canada. It bankrolled : 

~ University of Toronto Magazine, founded by Nigel Wright - already working in Muldoon's PMO - and his friend and classmate Tony "Gazebo" Clement, and
~ McGill Magazine and editor Linda Frum, daughter of CBC's Barbara Frum and sister to David "Axis of Evil" Frum
~ Libertas at Queens, run by the son of the CEO at the Bank of Montreal. 
The original Canadian University Press article says 7 other clones of Libertas appeared across Canadian campuses that month, including articles of *unusual access* for campus papers - like an interview with George Bush.

Nigel Wright told the Montreal Gazette at the time that he had "no misgivings about applying for and accepting money from the Republican foundation".

The only advice he could recall receiving from the foundation was a circular "suggesting we publish nothing to do with the John Birch Society."

 Right-wing paper covertly funded from US , also published as Republicans fund Ontario & Quebec right wing newspaper :

"We were happy to have help and advice from the Americans," said Nigel Wright. 

In 1982 the IEA and American Spectator, a prominent conservative newspaper, held a seminar for college students interested in starting or maintaining conservative newspapers. More than 40 students attended to hear speakers such as the Spectator's R. Emett Tyrell Jr lecture on taste and strategy. 

"Don't print Klu Klux Klan literature," Tyrell advised. 

IEA Executive Director Phillip Marcus suggested: "If someone accuses you of being racist or sexist, accuse them back of McCarthy tactics." 

One person contacted who attended that conference but asked not to be identified said: "They told me that when I was ready to go ahead publishing, I shouldn't worry about the money. They said they'd take care of that."

From such smug little acorns are whole governments sprouted, along with their bent senators and chiefs of staff and covert bribes and Republican-style voter suppression bills.
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Ap27 Update : While we don't know whether Linda Frum attended the 1982 RepucliCon newspaper start-up seminar that advised accusing opponents of McCarthy tactics, Jay Watts III discovered her doing exactly that in the Montreal Gazette in 1984.
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Hey, Skippy, this is how it's done.

A picture of voters lining up for 6 hours to vote in the 2012 election in Democrat-heavy Miami-Dade Florida is accompanied by the caption :
"New rule prohibits voters in Miami-Dade from using the restroom, no matter how long the line."      h/t Kev

Apparently the decision to close all restrooms was a direct response to a request from a disability rights lawyer regarding the accessibility of polling place bathrooms to those with disabilities. 

So now people with disabilities are not being especially singled out for discrimination and everyone is free to choose between voting and peeing. 

Well it's just crazy old Florida, right?  Couldn't happen here.

The thing I found interesting was - when did people stop being outraged about lining up for six hours to vote?
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P.S. Dear Google : Having typed the terms "Miami-Dade" and "restroom" into your search box, I have now received all the advertising I will ever require for PortaPotty and Depends. Thanks.
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Elections Canada youth vote vids vs ... puffin poop?

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Noon Update : Hill Times : "Elections Canada says a video ad the Conservative government cited as the type of advertising campaign it wants to prohibit the elections agency from using under the proposed new election law was never actually aired." 
The ad was uploaded to their own Youtube account in 2008 by FluoHill, the art collective that produced it.
Mayrand cancelled it before it aired in 2007. Back to original post :

This Elections Canada video promoting the youth vote is exactly what the Cons intend their Fair Elections Act to put a stop to, an anonymous gov official told The Hill Times, providing them with a link to the video. 

As you can see, it shows Xs representing ballot votes moving from a rock concert to a recycling symbol and industry emitters and ends in a quiet forest : "Vote. Shape your world."
Interesting that the Cons would cop to admitting that a vid loosely advocating that youth exercise their vote for a cleaner environment in a better world is not in the Cons' own best interests.

" ... the official reiterated the government’s position that political parties and candidates, not Elections Canada, would be responsible for increasing voter turnout under Bill C-23."

Right. So just for comparison, here is an example of the kind of "political parties and candidates" outreach the anon gov official is presumably referring to : the Con Party puffin poop election ad that came out at the same time as the EC vid [that never aired]:

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Galvanizing stuff really, except that six year olds don't have the vote. 

A spokesperson for Minister of State for Democratic Reform Pierre Poilievre (Nepean Carleton, Ont.) said the government is addressing the content of Elections Canada voting promotion campaigns.

I'll bet. Can't be offending the industry dudes who wrote the Environmental Assessment Act 2012 for them. 

And I'm way past fed up with this Con tripe about shutting down EC's ads promoting the youth vote - on the grounds they are not successful because the youth vote hasn't increased -in favour of having individual political parties do it instead. Party ads targeting youth have run concurrently with the EC ads so using the Cons' correlation error logic, they've already proven they don't work either.

You know what does keep the youth vote from dropping off the electoral map entirely? Vouching. The next election will presumably fall in October 2015. How many students who just moved to a new campus the previous month are going to have voter ID with a current address for that riding one month after they arrive in it?

Remember that scene in Annie Hall when some pompous pontificating blowhard in a theatre line-up is grandly interpreting Marshall McLuhan and McLuhan shows up and says he's full of shit? If only life was like that, says Woody Allen.
Well that happened to the Cons this week when Harry Neufeld, the expert they've been heavily citing in support of their bid to kill off vouching and voter info cards due to widespread voter fraud, showed up and said they were full of shit. 
Neufeld's argument in favour of actually widening the use of vouching and on the dangers of the Cons' new voter suppression bill here.

Poilievre of course just shrugged it off. He likes his own pompous pontificating blowhard interpretation of Neufeld's report better than he likes Neufeld's.

The Cons don't even care any more that the Fair Elections Act has been revealed to be a ploy to suppress the vote. They're just counting on Team Con showing up to vote and as many other voters as possible becoming too disgusted to bother.
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The Fair Elections Action Plan

What problems are the Conservatives really trying to solve with bizarre Fair Elections Act?wrote Andrew Coyne in an excellent column two days ago.
I'd like to pillage that model and expand on it a bit.

Problem : Investigation into election fraud in 2011 Election 33 months ago being rushed along at dangerous breakneck speeds.

Fair Elections Act Solutions : 
1) Deny Elections Commissioner authority to compel documents and witness testimony (with individual authorizations from the courts)  - a power nonetheless already enjoyed by elections chiefs in most provinces : Yukon, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. 
Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand on CBC's The House yesterday :

"Many people refused to talk to the commissioner even if they were not suspects. I'm afraid to say this is happening more and more in files investigated by the commissioner."

2) The Del Mastro clause. Require Elections Canada to inform subjects they are being investigated while preventing EC from telling the public about it.


Problem : Public trust in fair elections in Canada at all time high.

Fair Elections Act solutions : 
1) Governing party rewrites election law while being investigating by Elections Canada for election fraud.
2) Don't consult with Chief Electoral Officer before tabling major overhaul of Elections Act.
3) Deny Elections Canada commissioner access to parties' and riding associations' financial documentation to support claims made on their financial returns. 
4) Forbid Elections Canada from communicating with public. Mayrand :

"Most reports and research will no longer be public - not only not available but probably won't be done at all. 

I can no longer speak about democracy in this country except where and when to vote. I am not aware of any other electoral bodies around the world who cannot talk about democracy."   

then cut off debate about the bill in the HoC, sending it to PROC with its 6 out of 10 Con committee members.

Problem :  Serially violate election law successfully but then lose court battles to election watchdog.

Solution : Neutralize watchdog by moving entire elections enforcement apparatus from current independent office answerable to Parliament to inside Peter MacKay's ministry.

Problem : Too many people vote - 61% in the last federal election - especially aboriginals, young people, old people, and poor people.

Solutions : 
1) Forbid Elections Canada from encouraging voting, including terminating the mock elections model currently being taught to 300,000 Canadian students.
2) Voter suppression. Kill off vouching *** - the provision allowing an elector to prove their residence in a riding by having someone they know in the riding who is registered to vote sign a legal document.  Marc Mayrand on CBC's The House again :

"Every Canadian has the right to vote. That's a universal franchise. Vouching is meant to assist people facing challenges. We estimate that in the last election a little over 100,000 electors required vouching before they could cast a ballot. What will happen to those electors in the next election?"

Neufeld Compliance Review, commissioned by Elections Canada :

"The audit estimated that “irregularities” occurred for 1.3 percent of all cases of Election Day voting during the 2011 federal election."

and of those irregularities, "0.4 percent of ballots had irregularities due to vouching - of which the vast majority were cases of misfiled paperwork, not misidentified voters."

Problem : Parties not spending enough time and money on elections 

Solutions : 

1) Bump allowable individual contribution limit up by 25% with yearly increases to follow.

2) Bump party spending limits directed at new members up by 5% ($22-million).

3) Permit parties to exclude from declaring as a campaign expenditure any communication with electors as long as it's done with an elector that has contributed before in the previous five years and that it includes a call for additional money.

Mayrand : "20 to 25% of total expenditure goes to GOTV"

Problem : Incumbents don't have enough advantage over new candidates.

Solution :  See Solution #3 above.

Problem : Not enough Pierre Poutine robocalls are being made during elections.

Solution : Ditto

Problem : Not allowed to campaign on Election Day 

Solution : Ditto

***On a personal note, I have often relied on vouching in order to vote in my riding, despite having voted in every election I have been in the country for since I came of age to do so. I have a voter ID card, a Canadian passport, a Canadian citizenship card, a BC health care card, and a deed to the house in my riding which has been my only residence for decades. None of these have my address on them, including, according to Elections Canada, the deed to my house because it lists a rural RR# address they no longer recognize. I pay all my bills online or through my credit union. 

Just get a driver's licence says the harried DRO every time. 

Why? says I. Driving a car is not a requirement of citizenship.

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Council of Canadians Phone Your MP Against Unfair Elections Act campaign is today!

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h/t Beijing York for Mayrand interview - highly recommended. 

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The Fair Elections Act

First : Five things you need to know about "Fair" Elections Act.

then : Kady O'Malley :

"After giving MPs just two hours to debate the pros and cons of a bill that would radically rewrite Canada's election laws, the government has, it seems, heard quite enough from the duly elected representatives in the House. 

Yesterday afternoon, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan served notice that he intends to bring forward a motion that would force an end to the first round of debate, which will likely be tabled shortly after the Commons reopens for business later this morning, and -- barring a last-minute rebellion on the Conservative backbench, at least -- passed before noon."

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RoboCon: RMG/Xentel/iMarketing Solutions revisited

Earlier this year the Cons' principal voter contact company Responsive Marketing Group came under heavy media scrutiny for

•  its role as a partner in the Cons' CIMS data collection on Canadian voters used by 97 Con candidate campaigns in the last election,
• allegations made by at least one former RMG call centre employee that their scripts were directing voters to the wrong polling stations, 
• aggressive fundraising tactics for the Cons with pensioners, and
• its merger with Xentel.

In March RMG put out a press release protesting the unfairness of being smeared by its association with Xentel, a company with a dodgy  robo/live call   history in both Canada and the US, that RMG had "acquired" two years earlier.
McMaher :

The company now operates under the umbrella of iMarketing Solutions Group. During the election campaign in the spring of 2011, the merged company was run by co-CEOs Michael Davis, formerly of RMG, and Michael Platz, formerly of Xentel 

As I wrote at the time, what was less clear was which company had acquired the other, with most news reports, like Bloomberg's Business Week for example, describing RMG as "a subsidiary of Xentel" and iMarketing Solutions as an "alternate name of Xentel".

Three weeks ago, iMarketing Solutions Group published its Canadian Stock Exchange Listing.
In the following excerpts, iMS is "The Company".

"On October 28, 2010, the shareholders of the Company approved a name change of the Company to iMarketing Solutions Group Inc. from Xentel DM Incorporated (“Xentel”) as an initial step in rebranding and reorganizing the operations. 

The Company merged with RMG on March 3, 2010. 

On behalf of political clients, the Company conducts direct tele-service contact with potential voters to assist in the assessment and evaluation of political and consumer attitudes.
The Company continues the practice of subcontracting some of its work.  This is done on a strategically selective basis where the subcontractor has superior data in a specific area and/or can execute the work on a more economical basis.    

Marketing List Rentals : The Company rents selected proprietary databases to not-for-profit organizations where they do not compete with our normal business activities. These databases are developed through our normal course of business. 

Re the CRTC's Do Not Call Lists, operated by Bell Canada :

A number of exemptions were made in the DNCL due to efforts of the Company and a group of diverse stakeholders. The following types of calls are exempt from using the DNCL:

(a) calls made by or for registered political campaigns, associations, candidates or persons seeking a political nomination,
(b) calls made to parties with whom the caller has an existing business relationship,
(c) calls made by or on behalf of a registered charity
(d) calls made for market research purposes

Throughout the report are numerous allusions to financial hardship with "substantial doubt that the Company will be able to continue as a going concern" without "access to additional financing".
Equipment purchases of $1,839,000 and $1,453,000 in 2010 and 2011 were "related mostly to the ongoing update of the Company’s dialing platform and information technologies".
The principals are making out ok though, with compensation packages of well over $½ million each  for Chairman Platz and President Winograd for 2010, not including their directors' fees.

David A. Winograd in Wisconsin was President of US operations of Xentel DM since 2003 - now President of iMarketing Solutions.
Michael Platz, Chairman, CEO, and "founder of the predecessor company Xentel", served as Co-Chief Executive Officer of iMS til Sept 2011 and Chairman til Jan. 2012. Now just a iMS director.
Andrew Langhorne, Mike Harris Voter Contact Director for 7 years and COO of RMG since Nov. 2006, now COO for iMS. 
Michael M. Davis, founder of RMG, is "Managing Director, Political"
Listed among iMS's 20 subsidiary companies like RMG and Xentel Inc - half of them Canadian and half US - is Stewart Braddick's Target Outreach for Republican campaigns.

Back in 2005, Sean Holman at Public Eye Online reported on a heavily loaded Xentel telemarketing poll leading up to the Vancouver civic elections. Their questions :

Number One: "The Vancouver Sun today says that the campaign is getting dirty and scare tactics are starting to fly. Does this make you more or less likely to vote?"  

Two: "It says in the Sun that Jim Green left COPE in tatters and with a great big debt. Does this make you more or less likely to vote?"  

And three: "Both Sam Sullivan and Jim Green are accusing each other of dirty tricks and negative campaigning. Does this make you more or less likely to vote?"

Xentel has merged with the Cons #1 voter marketing firm - working, as RMG puts it, "exclusively with right-of-centre campaigns ".  Does this make you more or less likely to vote?
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