So, new Elections Canada commish, what’s up? I know you’re new on the job, but you seemed to have been able to get a confident handle on things enough by only your second day at work. You were already sure it was right to dismiss a months-long investigation into an
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Dave Coles comments on Brad Wall’s attempts to erase a century’s worth of gains when it comes to labour rights, but recognizes that we instead have an opportunity to again lead the way toward social progress: During this moment of relative prosperity
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Electoral Hanky-panky blogging
Apparently Dean Del Mastro has had a change of heart. With regards to the investigation into his 2008 campaign spending, the MP had insisted repeatedly that he wasn’t prepared to meet with Elections Canada on their terms. But it was reported last Friday afternoon that he’s now prepared to do
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Cutbacks
Investigating election crimes is hard work, but someone has to do it. Elections Canada in particular has to do it, and in theory they are conducting an investigation into illegal phone calls of all sorts made in 2011. The Conservatives are trying their best to slow that hard work down.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Delayed Justice, Swift Dismissal
The day after the new Elections Canada commissioner took over the duties of the suddenly retired previous commish Corbett, he’d had his office dismiss photographic evidence of Americans not living in Canada, making inducement phone calls to convince voters to vote for Conservatives. It’s against the law, by a reasonable
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Friday RoboCon
News goes to die, on Fridays. So today it is appropriate to talk about the biggest news story in the country that doesn’t get the respect or urgent coverage it deserves. It’s only been more than the entire last year that our present government may have been ruling without a
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Baseless Smears and Allegations blogging
Remember Guelph? That was the original focus of the Elections Canada investigation into fraudulent phone calls but it seems like such a long time ago it may be difficult to remember. So here’s a reminder. Kornelis Klevering knows it will have little impact on his own numbers, but the local
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your long weekend reading. – Jim Stanford highlights how anti-labour “right to work” policy is spreading from the U.S. into multiple Canadian provinces: It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Dude, Where’s My Democracy? blogging
If there’s been any news on the original Elections Canada investigation into fraudulent robocalls, I’ve missed it. But once again, there have been developments on related fronts. There was a preliminary hearing this past week in the matter of the seven ridings whose outcome is being challenged by voters with
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Friends in High Places
Medals for everyone! It’s good that she’s so proud of her public service that brought her the public recognition, as to be so shy as to decline to speak about it all. Neither Byrne nor the Conservative party media office responded to requests for comment. It is unclear what Byrne
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Accountability in Conservative Government
Do you know what I love about Stephen Harper? He wants [wanted?] Canadians to hold politicians accountable. Let’s get right on that please, and stand up for Canada. “Bullying” and “frequent sexual harassment” created “toxic” work environment under Brazeau: court documents allege aptn.ca/pages/news/201…— Emilie Novaczek (@envczk) June 27, 2012 Brazeau
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Timeline and Timeliness
CBC offers a timeline of Del Mastro’s apparent overspending on his campaign. I think the Prime Minister may regret defending Del Mastro. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in the House of Commons on June 20, 2012, defended Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro against opposition questions June 13 over his election spending.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: 3% Reduction in Voting
I think it’s rather clever how these researchers, Tom Cornwall & Anke Kessler, realized that the individual polling stations within a riding could be used to determine the effect of robocalls and fraudulent live-calls targeted at non-Conservative voters! The various neighbourhoods tend to vote in a particular manner, possibly related
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Adventures with Elections Canada blogging
I guess I should thank McGregor and Maher for breaking some stories over the last couple of days so I’d have something to write about. The big news involving the main robocon story is the retirement of Commissioner of Canada Elections William Corbett, the official who directly oversees Elections Canada
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Robocon Redux
It’s been almost a month since I’ve blogged anything about the Robocalls Scandal, aka Robogate, aka Robocon (#robocon to the #cdnpoli Twitterati)… Unfortunately, the only thing new on #robocon is the recent departure… err, retirement of William Corbett and the surprise announcement by Elections Canada that Yves Côté would be
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Democracy Retired
“Ex-justice department bureaucrat named federal elections commissioner as major investigations continue” It’s one of those announcements where the appropriate response is probably to weep for lost opportunities. Nothing gets done spending time in the fetal position though, so we’ll have to make the most of the less than ideal situation.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: ConCalls: Torn
Dean Del Mastro is facing some pretty serious accusations sworn against him by Elections Canada. The question is, where are the charges? Traditionally, EC has taken a corrective approach to candidates filing erroneous returns or making questionable phonecalls (see Liberals in Guelph and their unidentified abortion issue robocall in 2011),
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Harper Government to Aid Canadian Calendar Industry (guest blog)
(The following is reported {in jest} by Richard of Cornwall) — “Since the former Liberal Government created the new territory of Nunavut, the Canadian calendar industry has been suffering. It is the intention of the Harper Government to redress this wrong.” This is a quote from Stephen Harper on a
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Friday morning Robocon etc. blogging
About three weeks ago the Conservative Party presented a Federal Court with a 690 page affidavit designed to demonstrate that the Council of Canadians has been mean to Conservatives. And since that nasty Maude Barlow and her union-elite-loving lawyer actually have opinions about things, they should be disqualified from sponsoring
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your day. – Thomas Walkom highlights why we should be nothing but dubious about the austerians’ call to slash public supports: The Harper Conservatives are scaling back spending on national parks to save about $20 million. But at the same time they are planning to spend
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