Perhaps the most telling thing about the growing “robo-call” scandal in Canadian federal politics is not the lame denials by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, denials that suggest that if voter suppression took place, it was not an election tactic set by the party as a whole. Nor is it the trial balloons being floated by Conservative insiders that the scandal is the fault of “rogue operatives” in the party.
No, what’s most telling is how quickly Canadians are hearing the suggestion that the dirty tricks behaviour is something you could expect, given the Tories’ past record for playing fast and loose with the rules.
Right now, the extent of the scandal isn’t completely clear. Elections Canada is investigating a scheme that saw automatic calls misdirect Liberal supporters to non-existent polling stations on election day. There are still other cases where there were faked call centre calls, apparently meant to dissuade Liberal voters in ridings with close campaigns. (Those calls included rude and abusive callers, claiming to be Liberals, phoning late at night, early in the morning and on religious holidays, as well as using offensive fake accents with minority groups.)
Over the weekend, the federal Liberals said they could pinpoint 27 ridings where underhanded phone tactics were being used; the NDP say similar tactics were used in districts where the NDP were strong, and suggests a total of 34 federal ridings had some level of telephone tampering, either from automatic-dialling robo-callers, or from call centres.
The Tories’ response so far is that their campaign was not behind the schemes, and that anyone who is caught should face the full punishment of the law.
They’re certainly right about the second part of that statement.
The problem with the first part is that the phone tampering seems so much in keeping with Tory tactics. From abusive attack ads to the in-and-out scandal where the Conservative party pleaded guilty to breaking Canadian election laws — basically on the courtroom steps and after months of loudly protesting their innocence — to the downright sleazy practice of phoning supporters of Liberal Irwin Cotler and telling them he was about to step down, the Tories have already shown themselves to be clear masters of dirty politics.
One thing you don’t hear is anyone leaping to the Tory defence, shouting that, as a party, they are just too principled to ever stoop to such behaviour.
Because stoop, they have.
Columnist Andrew Coyne put it well in The Ottawa Citizen: “Having first compromised its beliefs, a party finds it is easier to compromise its principles; having compromised its principles, it learns to compromise its ethics; and compromises of ethics, as we have seen in other parties, lead sooner or later to compromises with the law.”
No doubt, anyone’s mother would put it more succinctly, coming up with a handful of sayings that would be apt for the Tories in this particular situation. We’ll leave you with just three.
When you make your bed, you sleep in it.
When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
When you roll in the mud, some of it is going to stick.
Original Article
Source: the telegram
Author: --
No, what’s most telling is how quickly Canadians are hearing the suggestion that the dirty tricks behaviour is something you could expect, given the Tories’ past record for playing fast and loose with the rules.
Right now, the extent of the scandal isn’t completely clear. Elections Canada is investigating a scheme that saw automatic calls misdirect Liberal supporters to non-existent polling stations on election day. There are still other cases where there were faked call centre calls, apparently meant to dissuade Liberal voters in ridings with close campaigns. (Those calls included rude and abusive callers, claiming to be Liberals, phoning late at night, early in the morning and on religious holidays, as well as using offensive fake accents with minority groups.)
Over the weekend, the federal Liberals said they could pinpoint 27 ridings where underhanded phone tactics were being used; the NDP say similar tactics were used in districts where the NDP were strong, and suggests a total of 34 federal ridings had some level of telephone tampering, either from automatic-dialling robo-callers, or from call centres.
The Tories’ response so far is that their campaign was not behind the schemes, and that anyone who is caught should face the full punishment of the law.
They’re certainly right about the second part of that statement.
The problem with the first part is that the phone tampering seems so much in keeping with Tory tactics. From abusive attack ads to the in-and-out scandal where the Conservative party pleaded guilty to breaking Canadian election laws — basically on the courtroom steps and after months of loudly protesting their innocence — to the downright sleazy practice of phoning supporters of Liberal Irwin Cotler and telling them he was about to step down, the Tories have already shown themselves to be clear masters of dirty politics.
One thing you don’t hear is anyone leaping to the Tory defence, shouting that, as a party, they are just too principled to ever stoop to such behaviour.
Because stoop, they have.
Columnist Andrew Coyne put it well in The Ottawa Citizen: “Having first compromised its beliefs, a party finds it is easier to compromise its principles; having compromised its principles, it learns to compromise its ethics; and compromises of ethics, as we have seen in other parties, lead sooner or later to compromises with the law.”
No doubt, anyone’s mother would put it more succinctly, coming up with a handful of sayings that would be apt for the Tories in this particular situation. We’ll leave you with just three.
When you make your bed, you sleep in it.
When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
When you roll in the mud, some of it is going to stick.
Original Article
Source: the telegram
Author: --
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