As the full weight of the robocalls scandal settles over official Ottawa and the players marshal their forces for war this week in the House, it has become quite clear that the Conservatives have no decent line of defence, here. They’re flying blind.
Less than a week in — the first story by Postmedia News’ Stephen Maher and the Ottawa Citizen’s Glen McGregor broke last Wednesday — Conservative apologists are already falling back to a variant on the “wire-brush” gambit, made famous by Liberal PMO communications director Scott Reid at the height of the sponsorship scandal. To say this does not bode well is an understatement.
Here’s Dean Del Mastro, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister: “The Conservative party is calling on anyone with any information about harassing calls or calls giving inaccurate poll information to come clean immediately and hand it over to Elections Canada ... we call on Elections Canada to investigate and get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible so the truth is known.”
Or there’s this, from Conservative strategist Tim Powers: “Cheating and breaking the law are not acceptable ways of winning elections. If they occurred, those guilty of such acts must be punished regardless of the party they support ... leave no stone unturned here.”
You could call it the supine defence: It looks as though you’re going to put the boots to us, fellas. Do it quickly, please, so that we can all move on.
Truth is, there is no defence to the robocalls story, any more than there was to sponsorship. And anyone who says the two can’t be mentioned in the same breath is dreaming. Eighteen closely fought ridings were targeted by fraudulent automated calls, Maher and McGregor have reported. In 14 ridings Liberal supporters reported receiving misleading calls from live people. According to Bob Rae’s latest count, the tally of affected ridings is 27.
The Conservatives won their majority with 166 seats. That’s a margin of 11. That means the legitimacy of the Tory majority is in question. It’s simple math.
No, this will not lead to a redo of the May 2 vote, or to byelections in ridings found by Elections Canada to have been targeted. That’s because, though outcomes may have been affected, it will be nigh impossible to establish by how much. All we can say is that the legitimacy of Tory victories, in ridings found to have been hit by fraudulent tactics favouring Conservatives, and in which the Conservatives won, will be permanently tainted.
But that in itself, is huge. It provides the opposition with a dirty-tricks narrative that they can now mine, literally, for years to come. Most damaging, as Andrew Coyne has pointed out, the story neatly clips into and confirms a pre-existing narrative of the Harper Conservatives taking liberties with ethical behaviour, witness the in-and-out scandal, in order to gain power.
Bob Rae has charged that Stephen Harper personally is responsible to the extent that he engendered, tacitly if not explicitly, a political culture in which some Conservatives may have felt the end justified the means. That’s true, actually. But it’s really just the start. The more interesting questions remain to be answered. How many ridings were targeted, in total? Who planned, organized and financed this? Who knew what, when?
In the past, Harper has shown an uncanny ability to toss his associates under a bus, when doing so was expedient. He did it to Brian Mulroney in the Schreiber affair. He did it again to Helena Guergis, when she ran into controversy. We can expect to see, in short order, a small band of partisan Conservative miscreants, “rogue operatives,” shackled and delivered to the RCMP and Elections Canada, for a suitable burial.
But that won’t wash. There is a clear public interest in this investigation being done in a way that is transparent and at arm’s length. With due respect to Elections Canada and the Mounties: Given the degree of control the Harper PMO has asserted over the senior ranks of the public service, some will ask whether there can be full confidence of impartiality, if the investigation is not public and at arm’s length. It’s a fair question. Karma, again.
Stephen Harper saw Paul Martin slowly dismantle the Liberal party with the Gomery Inquiry, which he himself convened. Every nerve in this PM’s body will shriek out against the notion of a public investigation. He has a majority. He can try to ride it out, hoping the coming budget changes the channel. He can hope that, come Election 2015, Canadians will have forgotten.
It won’t wash. Based on the facts now known, this was electoral fraud — focused, organized and widespread. Rae did not exaggerate when he called it Nixonian. There needs to be a public, arm’s-length judicial investigation.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Michael Den Tandt
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