The Elections Canada investigation prompted by misleading calls to voters during the final days of last May's election is spreading, CBC News has learned.
The growing probe will involve interviews with some employees of a call centre based in Thunder Bay, Ont., operated by Responsive Marketing Group. The company was hired by the Conservatives to reach out to voters.
It was not immediately clear whether the interviews in Thunder Bay are directly connected with the continuing investigation by Elections Canada in Guelph.
A former employee of the RMG call centre in Thunder Bay told CBC earlier this week that some staff were poorly trained and that could be one reason why voters may have been given false information about polling station locations.
Another RMG worker, who asked to remain anonymous, described to CBC Radio's As it Happens Monday her discomfort with the way she felt her fellow employees were asked to influence voters on behalf of the Conservative Party. They weren't allowed to say they worked for a call centre, she said.
The employee said she and other workers took their concerns to the RCMP, but "they said they didn't want to listen, it wasn't their area, and it was now all over and done with."
Top Tory says story blown out of proportion
Earlier Wednesday, the man who ran the the Conservative Party's 2006 and 2008 election campaigns said misleading robocalls in Guelph are an isolated case.
Doug Finley, who advised the Conservatives on the 2011 election and sits as a Conservative senator, says the case of the strange calls has been blown out of proportion.
Opposition MPs have a list of 45 ridings they say were targeted by automated robocalls or live calls wrongly telling voters their polling locations had changed, or harassing calls late at night or on religious holidays.
The controversy's epicentre is in Guelph, Ont., where Elections Canada is investigating allegations someone from the Conservative campaign deliberately tried to suppress votes by impersonating the election agency in robocalls directing people to the wrong voting location.
It's illegal to prevent a person from voting and to induce somebody to vote or not vote for a particular candidate.
Finley says the Conservatives are co-operating with Elections Canada.
"There hasn’t [been] so far, as far as I can determine, one single issue of voter suppression — not one," he told CBC News. "To me it would appear it’s very isolated. If Guelph is where it is, it’s where it is."
Robocalling and live campaign calls are legitimate methods of campaigning used by all parties, Finley said. The calls cost pennies and some call centres in Canada are capable of making 200,000 to 300,000 calls an hour, he said.
"Quite frankly, this thing is blown out of proportion. That's number one," said Finley. "Number two … if there was a particular attempt at this voter suppression, in Guelph or anywhere else, I have no idea.
"This is the whole point, is that central campaign does not know because they had absolutely no idea what was happening."
The Conservatives use RMG, Finley said, not Racknine, the call centre through which the Guelph robocalls were placed. RMG does live calls only, he said.
'Smear campaign'
In question period Wednesday, the Conservatives changed tactics, accusing the Liberals and NDP of being sore losers.
"This member and the members of his party have conducted a smear campaign against our party — a completely unsubstantiated smear campaign," Del Mastro said to NDP MP Charlie Angus.
NDP MPs pointed out that only the Tories have had to pay a fine for breaking election laws. Charges against Finley and other party officials were dropped as part of an agreement that saw the party pay $52,000 in fines for moving money from the national campaign to local campaigns and back in 2006, a tactic that became known as "in and out."
Conservative MPs had pointed to Guelph campaign worker Michael Sona, who stepped down from his job with MP Eve Adams last week, as being behind the robocalls. But in a statement Tuesday, Sona denied he had anything to do with it and said he resigned from his job because of the controversy over his involvement.
"I have remained silent to this point with the hope that the real guilty party would be apprehended," he said. "The rumours continue to swirl and media are now involving my family, so I feel that it is imperative that I respond."
Original Article
Source: CBC
Author: Laura Pyton
The growing probe will involve interviews with some employees of a call centre based in Thunder Bay, Ont., operated by Responsive Marketing Group. The company was hired by the Conservatives to reach out to voters.
It was not immediately clear whether the interviews in Thunder Bay are directly connected with the continuing investigation by Elections Canada in Guelph.
A former employee of the RMG call centre in Thunder Bay told CBC earlier this week that some staff were poorly trained and that could be one reason why voters may have been given false information about polling station locations.
Another RMG worker, who asked to remain anonymous, described to CBC Radio's As it Happens Monday her discomfort with the way she felt her fellow employees were asked to influence voters on behalf of the Conservative Party. They weren't allowed to say they worked for a call centre, she said.
The employee said she and other workers took their concerns to the RCMP, but "they said they didn't want to listen, it wasn't their area, and it was now all over and done with."
Top Tory says story blown out of proportion
Earlier Wednesday, the man who ran the the Conservative Party's 2006 and 2008 election campaigns said misleading robocalls in Guelph are an isolated case.
Doug Finley, who advised the Conservatives on the 2011 election and sits as a Conservative senator, says the case of the strange calls has been blown out of proportion.
Opposition MPs have a list of 45 ridings they say were targeted by automated robocalls or live calls wrongly telling voters their polling locations had changed, or harassing calls late at night or on religious holidays.
The controversy's epicentre is in Guelph, Ont., where Elections Canada is investigating allegations someone from the Conservative campaign deliberately tried to suppress votes by impersonating the election agency in robocalls directing people to the wrong voting location.
It's illegal to prevent a person from voting and to induce somebody to vote or not vote for a particular candidate.
Finley says the Conservatives are co-operating with Elections Canada.
"There hasn’t [been] so far, as far as I can determine, one single issue of voter suppression — not one," he told CBC News. "To me it would appear it’s very isolated. If Guelph is where it is, it’s where it is."
Robocalling and live campaign calls are legitimate methods of campaigning used by all parties, Finley said. The calls cost pennies and some call centres in Canada are capable of making 200,000 to 300,000 calls an hour, he said.
"Quite frankly, this thing is blown out of proportion. That's number one," said Finley. "Number two … if there was a particular attempt at this voter suppression, in Guelph or anywhere else, I have no idea.
"This is the whole point, is that central campaign does not know because they had absolutely no idea what was happening."
The Conservatives use RMG, Finley said, not Racknine, the call centre through which the Guelph robocalls were placed. RMG does live calls only, he said.
'Smear campaign'
In question period Wednesday, the Conservatives changed tactics, accusing the Liberals and NDP of being sore losers.
"This member and the members of his party have conducted a smear campaign against our party — a completely unsubstantiated smear campaign," Del Mastro said to NDP MP Charlie Angus.
NDP MPs pointed out that only the Tories have had to pay a fine for breaking election laws. Charges against Finley and other party officials were dropped as part of an agreement that saw the party pay $52,000 in fines for moving money from the national campaign to local campaigns and back in 2006, a tactic that became known as "in and out."
Conservative MPs had pointed to Guelph campaign worker Michael Sona, who stepped down from his job with MP Eve Adams last week, as being behind the robocalls. But in a statement Tuesday, Sona denied he had anything to do with it and said he resigned from his job because of the controversy over his involvement.
"I have remained silent to this point with the hope that the real guilty party would be apprehended," he said. "The rumours continue to swirl and media are now involving my family, so I feel that it is imperative that I respond."
Source: CBC
Author: Laura Pyton
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