It’s early innings in the Robocalls scandal, but one wonders what might have occurred electorally had they not taken place.Measuring those rogue calls’ effectiveness is difficult. Still could they have made the difference between a Conservative majority and a Conservative minority? With a Conservative minority, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s public policy moves might have changed.
Would Harper have risked proposing raising the eligibility limit on the Old Age Security in a minority situation? Would he have actively continued to pursue the sinkhole that is the F-35 purchase? Would the prime minister have tried to pass his expensive crime legislation? Would he have unilaterally capped federal health-care transfers to the provinces?
Many kudos to journalists Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher for investigating the Robocall question. Their work has raised some very basic questions about the state of Canadian democracy. It’s hard to under-estimate the importance of the Robocall scandal.
For a country that sends people to the Third World to show how elections are conducted, this is very embarrassing and frightening. Add Robocalls to Adscam and Vikileaks and the ethics in our political system look very thin. Monday was a day of apologies in Ottawa. Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said sorry about Vikileaks. Ottawa West-Nepean MP John Baird apologized for blaming the NDP for Vikileaks.
Now the hard slogging begins for journalists on the Robocalls scandal. Just who knew about this? How high did the information filter? Did the prime minister, who has an astounding grasp of detail and doesn’t like to delegate, have any idea these Robocalls were occurring? Who will get fired?
But there is even a bigger issue at stake. Just how fragile is our political system and public policy when assaulted by sophisticated political dirty tricks?
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Ken Gray
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