The robocalls scandal already seems to be last week’s outrage, which is too bad.
Only a few days ago the opposition parties were demanding a Canada-wide investigation into claims the Conservative party conspired to subvert democracy. And then, silence.
It’s my guess we won’t hear much more about the suspicious phone calls or the unsupported claims about cheating during the last election. Rioting students are the new outrage of the moment.
Robocalls probably won’t be heard of again until Elections Canada issues a report about the 700 complaints it received regarding the 2011 election. It turns out that is a normal number of complaints for a federal election; the NDP claim that there were 31,000 complaints was not true.
Elections Canada’s findings will be reported months or even years from now. I predict the news will be buried and forgotten, filed next to the in-and-out scandal, last fall’s Mount Royal Tory polling fuss, and a few other geeky footnotes to history.
That’s a shame because the opposition parties and the media were right about Canada needing a good, thorough investigation of the dirty tricks employed during federal elections.
The reason the baying hounds suddenly backed off the trumped-up scandal is that the evidence suddenly started pointing back in the direction of the Liberal and NDP parties.
By late last week the Liberals — who had been running wild with claims of a scandal after the media dug up evidence of strange election calls made in a riding in Guelph, Ont. — found themselves having to explain why their candidate in the same riding had not only been using robocalls himself on election day, he was using them illegally, without identifying the candidate behind them.
On Friday, Toronto Davenport MP Andrew Cash (NDP) was telling an audience in Guelph that the phone calls — which they assume came from a Conservative campaign worker — were evidence of “systemic electoral fraud.”
But by Monday, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Joe Comartin (NDP) was defending the use of robocalls as a perfectly legal and legitimate means of contacting voters during an election, just like campaign signs.
“It’s just impossible today to run an effective campaign of any consequence” without using robocalls, Comartin told the Hill Times. “It’s just about mandatory ... If you’re serious about winning, you need that as another tool.”
I hope that doesn’t mean the NDP no longer support an in-depth investigation of the 2011 campaign by Elections Canada.
It’s very likely some dirty tricks will be uncovered by Elections Canada. And I don’t mean the minor technical faults.
Anyone who has been around politics for a few decades knows that all kinds of underhanded tricks are employed to win elections and gain power, and they have been part of the picture for as long as politics has existed.
From Confederation until recent times that has meant plying some voters with booze. In 1983, when Brian Mulroney was running for the leadership of the now defunct Progressive Conservative party, his team was accused of using booze to lure a busload of street people to the convention to vote for him.
In the U.S., the Democrats famously used “free beer” posters to start a riot outside a Republican convention in Chicago during the 1980s.
There is a long history of spying in campaigns that continues to this day. Several Windsor area campaign teams told me during the 2011 election they were certain they had been infiltrated by members of other parties trying to get close to their data.
Formal complaints aren’t filed under such circumstances; the campaigns involved simply try to insulate the suspects from sensitive information, like internal polling.
And then there is the campaign staffing issue, which I think Elections Canada should really be putting under its microscope.
With the exception of one or two paid staff, Canadian election campaigns are supposed to be run entirely on volunteers. Every financial input is counted against a campaign’s spending limit of about $90,000 per riding.
Companies or organizations cannot simply donate goods or services for free; every form of help must be counted as a donation “in kind” and subtracted from the spending limit.
Even lawn signs left over from a previous campaign are assigned a value and counted against the budget, to prevent incumbents from gaining an unfair advantage over challenges.
So what about all the union staff and organized labour staffers who appear to work full time for the local NDP campaigns during recent elections?
If their normal paid duties are somehow suspended during a campaign but their paycheques continue, that should be counted as election spending.
I would like to see Elections Canada investigate campaign staffing and issue a ruling on the legality of suspiciously full-time campaign workers.
It isn’t just the party in power that has to follow all the rules.
Original Article
Source: windsorstar
Author: Chris Vander Doelen
Only a few days ago the opposition parties were demanding a Canada-wide investigation into claims the Conservative party conspired to subvert democracy. And then, silence.
It’s my guess we won’t hear much more about the suspicious phone calls or the unsupported claims about cheating during the last election. Rioting students are the new outrage of the moment.
Robocalls probably won’t be heard of again until Elections Canada issues a report about the 700 complaints it received regarding the 2011 election. It turns out that is a normal number of complaints for a federal election; the NDP claim that there were 31,000 complaints was not true.
Elections Canada’s findings will be reported months or even years from now. I predict the news will be buried and forgotten, filed next to the in-and-out scandal, last fall’s Mount Royal Tory polling fuss, and a few other geeky footnotes to history.
That’s a shame because the opposition parties and the media were right about Canada needing a good, thorough investigation of the dirty tricks employed during federal elections.
The reason the baying hounds suddenly backed off the trumped-up scandal is that the evidence suddenly started pointing back in the direction of the Liberal and NDP parties.
By late last week the Liberals — who had been running wild with claims of a scandal after the media dug up evidence of strange election calls made in a riding in Guelph, Ont. — found themselves having to explain why their candidate in the same riding had not only been using robocalls himself on election day, he was using them illegally, without identifying the candidate behind them.
On Friday, Toronto Davenport MP Andrew Cash (NDP) was telling an audience in Guelph that the phone calls — which they assume came from a Conservative campaign worker — were evidence of “systemic electoral fraud.”
But by Monday, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Joe Comartin (NDP) was defending the use of robocalls as a perfectly legal and legitimate means of contacting voters during an election, just like campaign signs.
“It’s just impossible today to run an effective campaign of any consequence” without using robocalls, Comartin told the Hill Times. “It’s just about mandatory ... If you’re serious about winning, you need that as another tool.”
I hope that doesn’t mean the NDP no longer support an in-depth investigation of the 2011 campaign by Elections Canada.
It’s very likely some dirty tricks will be uncovered by Elections Canada. And I don’t mean the minor technical faults.
Anyone who has been around politics for a few decades knows that all kinds of underhanded tricks are employed to win elections and gain power, and they have been part of the picture for as long as politics has existed.
From Confederation until recent times that has meant plying some voters with booze. In 1983, when Brian Mulroney was running for the leadership of the now defunct Progressive Conservative party, his team was accused of using booze to lure a busload of street people to the convention to vote for him.
In the U.S., the Democrats famously used “free beer” posters to start a riot outside a Republican convention in Chicago during the 1980s.
There is a long history of spying in campaigns that continues to this day. Several Windsor area campaign teams told me during the 2011 election they were certain they had been infiltrated by members of other parties trying to get close to their data.
Formal complaints aren’t filed under such circumstances; the campaigns involved simply try to insulate the suspects from sensitive information, like internal polling.
And then there is the campaign staffing issue, which I think Elections Canada should really be putting under its microscope.
With the exception of one or two paid staff, Canadian election campaigns are supposed to be run entirely on volunteers. Every financial input is counted against a campaign’s spending limit of about $90,000 per riding.
Companies or organizations cannot simply donate goods or services for free; every form of help must be counted as a donation “in kind” and subtracted from the spending limit.
Even lawn signs left over from a previous campaign are assigned a value and counted against the budget, to prevent incumbents from gaining an unfair advantage over challenges.
So what about all the union staff and organized labour staffers who appear to work full time for the local NDP campaigns during recent elections?
If their normal paid duties are somehow suspended during a campaign but their paycheques continue, that should be counted as election spending.
I would like to see Elections Canada investigate campaign staffing and issue a ruling on the legality of suspiciously full-time campaign workers.
It isn’t just the party in power that has to follow all the rules.
Original Article
Source: windsorstar
Author: Chris Vander Doelen
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