The latest from McMaher: The Council of Canadians has launched legal challenges of May federal election results in seven ridings, on behalf of electors living in those ridings. The ridings are: Don Valley East (Lib Ratansi defeated by Con, 890 votes), Winnipeg South Centre (Lib Neville defeated by Con, 722
Continue readingTag: Elections Canada
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner writes about the Cons’ backup plan of answering their own wrongdoing with criticism of anybody who dares to investigate it – and points out the dangers of that approach: (W)hat happens if Elections Canada delivers a report even a fraction as
Continue readingHarpes spreading through Conservative party. Epidemic proportions.
Harpes symptoms: sweaty, fidgety, guilty looking as hell, overcompensating denials Harpes [har-peez] noun Conservative Pathology 1. Blistering dishonesty, festering corruption, uninhibited contagion among Conservatives. 2. Most prevalent among those closest to Prime Minister Harper (Vic Toews, Dean Del Mastro). Also known to infect Conservative rap duos (Easy-E and K-Mart).
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – On the Robocon front, Terry Milewski connects the dots between identification of voters as non-Con supporters and the deceptive robocalls that followed. Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc discuss how Elections Canada figures to determine who placed the Cons’ fraudulent calls, while Glen McGregor
Continue readingPample the Moose: Robocalls and Voter identification – Department of the Bleeding Obivous
My Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with variants of this CBC story noting that the people robocalled on election day as part of the effort to misdirect voters to phony polling stations were people who had previously received calls from Conservative campaigns in which they identified themselves as non-Conservative
Continue readingPample the Moose: Robocalls and Voter identification – Department of the Bleeding Obivous
My Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with variants of this CBC story noting that the people robocalled on election day as part of the effort to misdirect voters to phony polling stations were people who had previously received calls from Conservative campaigns in which they identified themselves as non-Conservative
Continue readingPample the Moose: Robocalls and Voter identification – Department of the Bleeding Obivous
My Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with variants of this CBC story noting that the people robocalled on election day as part of the effort to misdirect voters to phony polling stations were people who had previously received calls from Conservati…
Continue readingImpolitical: Elections Canada’s new Robocon hires
“Elections Canada hires 14 new ‘frontline’ staff to examine more than 31,000 complaints on voter suppression issue.” Ramping up staff, part of that flexing of whatever is needed: “The Commissioner of Canada Elections has the authority, during periods of high volume, to contract additional resources or call upon other law
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Video Report: Winnipeggers demand Harper restore Canadian democracy
Winnipeg, March 11, 2012: Winnipeggers rally outside of Tory MP Joyce Bateman’s office demanding the federal government allow a full inquiry into the federal election robocall scandal. Photo: Paul S. Graham While Prime Minister Stephen Harper undoubtedly wishes this issue would disappear, Canadians marched in more than two dozen cities
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Activist Communiqué: Robo-call rallies around Canada
In a new Ipsos Reid poll on the robo-calls scandal, conducted for Postmedia News and Global TV, Canadians are uncompromising about the way forward. A whopping 68% want new by-elections in all affected ridings. Elections …Read More
Continue readingImpolitical: Building democracy
Here was Preston Manning speaking to the media yesterday on voter suppression: Speaking to reporters, Manning said all parties should be worried about robocall vote-suppression during the 2011 election that directed some voters to the wrong polling stations and which has Elections Canada investigating complaints of voter fraud. “I think
Continue readingImpolitical: Early evening robocon
Polling on election fraud allegations…it’s going to happen, might as well take a looksy: “Canadians split on who’s to blame for robocalls: poll.” From Ipsos, it is said to be a “blended telephone and online poll this week of 3,154 Canadians…”(1001 telephone/2153 online). While the headline is playing up a
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Criminal Activity in Joe Oliver’s Campaign?
The Star is reporting that Natural Resources Minister Joe (‘radicals are threatening the tarsands’) Oliver’s riding of Eglinton-Lawrence may have been the scene of another electoral crime, this one involving the last-minute rush of previously unregistered voters who cast ballots in the last federal election. Veteran Liberal MP Joe Volpe
Continue readingImpolitical: Conservative phone call harassment on tape
Listen to the tapes here. A former employee of RMG said things like this: «Oh, vous n’êtes pas un conservateur? Nous ne voulons pas parler à un socialiste ou à un séparatiste.» The former employee of RMG has been let go, here are the apologies: Le collecteur de fonds Don
Continue readingImpolitical: Harper reverses on new audit powers for Elections Canada
“Tories agree to new audit powers for Elections Canada.” The Conservative government has reversed course and now says it will support an NDP motion to give Elections Canada increased audit powers. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has battled the federal elections watchdog for much of his political career, told the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Robocon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor dig deeper into the story behind Robocon alias Pierre Poutine. – Maurice Vellacott admits that the voter lists needed to carry out multi-riding voter suppression were controlled strictly by the Cons’ central command – meaning there’s no prospect
Continue readingImpolitical: Today in party leader or Prime Minister?
This is nicely done, leader or Prime Minister, Manon Cornellier asks: Il y a moins de deux semaines, le 23 février bien précisément, Postmedia News révélait qu’Élections Canada menait une enquête sur des appels frauduleux faits dans la circonscription de Guelph et que sa première piste l’avait mené jusqu’à une
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In the latest on Robocon, John Ivison rightly notes that the scandal figures to give many Canadians a long-overdue first look at the Cons’ computerized voter information. Meanwhile, Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher note that the Cons’ spending in last year’s election
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Stephen Harper’s Pathological Hatred
While I stand by my comments about The Globe and Mail in my last post, the paper does have one real asset in the person of Lawrence Martin. Unlike other Globe employees who seem strangely constrained ideologically, Lawrence is consistently robust in his criticism of the Harper regime. Today’s column
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: #Robocall Movies: Canadian Political Humor Par Excellence
Canadian politics in the age of Stephen Harper and the Conservative majority government are depressing, to say the least. Luckily our political satire still kicks ass. Inspired by the unraveling Robo-calls scandal, a sample: [View …Read More
Continue reading