The allegations surrounding the so-called "robocall" scandal are serious, and warrant close examination. More than 31,000 reports have been phoned into the offices of Elections Canada, with voters claiming that harassing or misleading telephone calls were made in the run-up to last May's federal election. If Elections Canada requires additional resources to perform a thorough investigation, such as manpower and expertise normally assigned to the RCMP, such assistance should be made available. Elections fraud is a crime, and anyone found guilty of intentionally disrupting our democratic processes through pretence or contrivance should go to jail. Every political party must cooperate fully with whatever shape the investigation ultimately takes.
But in the meantime, our political leaders - particularly those in opposition - would be well-advised to dial back their rhetoric. Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, for example, claimed that the scandal puts Canada "in uncharted waters as far as the history of the country is concerned." The NDP's Pat Martin called it a "systematic effort to undermine our democratic system by lying to people," and darkly fumed that the last election may have been "hijacked." Green party leader Elizabeth May termed the allegations a "genuine emergency."
This rhetoric is overblown. In fact, it borders on the absurd. Despite the very high number of nominal complaints to Elections Canada, there is little indication that intentional, malicious efforts to discourage voters were made anywhere beyond the riding of Guelph, Ont. (which the Liberals won by a large margin, in any event). In almost all of the other ridings where dirty tricks have been alleged, there was no motive for Tory chicanery because the Conservatives were either runaway favourites, or had no realistic chance of winning.
Whatever else may be said about Stephen Harper and those who work closely with him, even their harshest critics would concede that they are professionals; and it would be ludicrous to suppose that such professionals would risk the legitimacy of their government for the sake of an amateurish voter-misdirection scheme that - even if performed successfully, and undetected - might produce barely a blip on voting outcomes.
Canada is not the United States, where an election result can be flipped by playing dirty tricks in one or two big swing states, such as Florida or Illinois. Every one of Canada's 308 ridings counts as much as any other. To systematically rig an election, one would have to engineer real conspiracies in dozens of ridings, and disenfranchise tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of voters. The idea that any major political party of this day and age would consider such a scheme, let alone be able to get away with it in the era of Youtube and Vikileaks, is a fantasy.
In the case of the robocall scandal, what opposition leaders suggest is an enormous, orchestrated fraud may well turn out to be merely the rogue actions of a few amateurish partisans. No doubt many of those 31,000 callers to Elections Canada sincerely believe that similar dirty tricks played out in their ridings. But it may also be the case that - in light of the Guelph news - they are simply reading sinister motives into the various ordinary automated calls that millions of Canadians receive around election time. (The Tory-supporting grandmother of one National Post editorial board member, for instance, received a call from a Tory volunteer trying to steer her to the wrong polling station. The well-intentioned caller did not realize that grandma recently had moved, but had kept the same phone number.)
Let the investigation run its course. Let those accused of a crime be tried, and if convicted, sentenced harshly. Until then, all parties involved in this distasteful chapter in Canadian electoral history should dial back their rhetorical attacks and allow the independent experts at Elections Canada do
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: ---
But in the meantime, our political leaders - particularly those in opposition - would be well-advised to dial back their rhetoric. Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, for example, claimed that the scandal puts Canada "in uncharted waters as far as the history of the country is concerned." The NDP's Pat Martin called it a "systematic effort to undermine our democratic system by lying to people," and darkly fumed that the last election may have been "hijacked." Green party leader Elizabeth May termed the allegations a "genuine emergency."
This rhetoric is overblown. In fact, it borders on the absurd. Despite the very high number of nominal complaints to Elections Canada, there is little indication that intentional, malicious efforts to discourage voters were made anywhere beyond the riding of Guelph, Ont. (which the Liberals won by a large margin, in any event). In almost all of the other ridings where dirty tricks have been alleged, there was no motive for Tory chicanery because the Conservatives were either runaway favourites, or had no realistic chance of winning.
Whatever else may be said about Stephen Harper and those who work closely with him, even their harshest critics would concede that they are professionals; and it would be ludicrous to suppose that such professionals would risk the legitimacy of their government for the sake of an amateurish voter-misdirection scheme that - even if performed successfully, and undetected - might produce barely a blip on voting outcomes.
Canada is not the United States, where an election result can be flipped by playing dirty tricks in one or two big swing states, such as Florida or Illinois. Every one of Canada's 308 ridings counts as much as any other. To systematically rig an election, one would have to engineer real conspiracies in dozens of ridings, and disenfranchise tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of voters. The idea that any major political party of this day and age would consider such a scheme, let alone be able to get away with it in the era of Youtube and Vikileaks, is a fantasy.
In the case of the robocall scandal, what opposition leaders suggest is an enormous, orchestrated fraud may well turn out to be merely the rogue actions of a few amateurish partisans. No doubt many of those 31,000 callers to Elections Canada sincerely believe that similar dirty tricks played out in their ridings. But it may also be the case that - in light of the Guelph news - they are simply reading sinister motives into the various ordinary automated calls that millions of Canadians receive around election time. (The Tory-supporting grandmother of one National Post editorial board member, for instance, received a call from a Tory volunteer trying to steer her to the wrong polling station. The well-intentioned caller did not realize that grandma recently had moved, but had kept the same phone number.)
Let the investigation run its course. Let those accused of a crime be tried, and if convicted, sentenced harshly. Until then, all parties involved in this distasteful chapter in Canadian electoral history should dial back their rhetorical attacks and allow the independent experts at Elections Canada do
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: ---
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