The gathering of campaign organizers from parties that are members of the International Democrat Union, founded by the former Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and other Conservative leaders in 1983, was the latest in a series of meetings the association holds and was coincidentally planned just prior to the revelations in February that Elections Canada was investigating fraudulent robocalls that targeted Liberal voters in Guelph, Ont., on election day last May 2.
The buildup to the meeting and its schedule are posted on the IDU’s website, along with several newsletters since 2007 that are strongly supportive of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary West, Alta.), including a lengthy description of what the IDU called a “power grab” by the opposition parties in November 2008, when the Liberals and NDP, with support from the Bloc Québécois, attempted to form a coalition to replace the Harper Conservative government over allegations it had failed to respond to the economic crisis that was taking hold globally, and a surprise budget proposal to eliminate federal subsidies for political parties.
The IDU termed Mr. Harper’s controversial prorogation of Parliament to avert the confrontation that year a “recess” of Parliament that gave him “important breathing time” before presenting a new budget the following January, and its statement quoted Mr. Harper’s controversial English-language statement that “a coalition with the separatists cannot help Canada.”
The IDU issued a congratulatory newsletter after Mr. Harper won his first majority last year, calling it a “remarkable victory” and saying Mr. Harper “can now govern Canada for the next four years and implement his campaign commitments for tax cuts, stronger defence and tougher measures against crime.”
In a Twitter response to this story, Guy Giorno, the Conservative Party's campaign chair for the 2011 election, said he and Jenni Byrne were not among the Canadian Conservatives at the meeting. "Sorry, @timnaumetz barking up wrong tree. Neither @jenni_byrne nor I participated in this event," Mr. Giorno tweeted.
Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey did not respond to an email from The Hill Times asking him about the long-planning meeting of conservative party campaign managers that took place in Ottawa last March 28 through March 30—the day Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand denounced the fraudulent election calls as “outrageous” when he testified at the Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee—and the IDU’s executive secretary, Eirik Moen, did not reply to emailed questions.
Former Australian prime minister John Howard, a close ally of Mr. Harper’s and whose party was the source of some of the campaign tactics adopted by the Canadian Conservative Party, is chair of the IDU.
Canadian Conservative Senator Doug Finley, who directed the 2006 and 2008 Conservative federal election campaigns is vice-chair. Unusually for a Cabinet minister with such key duties in Mr. Harper’s Cabinet, Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) is one of 17 IDU vice-presidents.
NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.), in commenting on the campaign organizer meeting, said there is nothing wrong with like-minded political parties sharing ideas and lawful campaign tactics, but he also pointed out that illegal election tactics are at the centre of the robocall controversy, where Elections Canada traced fraudulent calls in Guelph, Ont., to an as yet undisclosed source who was apparently a member of the local Conservative campaign team.
The controversy as well centres on a new electoral phenomenon that was pioneered by the Republican Party in the U.S.—deliberate attempts to keep voters who support opponents away from the polls.
“The question of voter suppression and where that’s being practised is certainly a real concern to anybody who has a stake in this, and we all have a stake in the democratic process,” Mr. Angus told The Hill Times.
“Meeting with various like-minded right-wing parties is not necessarily problematic, certainly Harper learned from Howard’s government in Australia, but we talked to Labour in Australia ourselves,” Mr. Angus said. “We wanted to see what they did and what they didn’t do."
Mr. Angus continued: “But the issue for us are the hijinx and monkey-wrenching of the democratic process that seems to be now part and parcel of so much of the Republican campaign-style in the U.S. We don’t want that coming over the border and we would be very concerned about sharing of ideas, unless they are founded on ideas that protect the paramount legal voting standards we have in Canada.”
Mr. Angus, who has often asked Mr. Clement about questionable government spending in his Ontario electoral district, using humour occasionally as he dubbed him “the Minister for Muskoka,” joked when he was informed of Mr. Clement’s position with the conservative organization: “Of course, Tony always wanted to be a big player ever since his days of running the Margaret Thatcher Appreciation Society back in University,” Mr. Angus quipped.
The IDU’s website lists campaign tactics and other voter-related aspects of politics its member parties share, along with executive and leader meetings.
The IDU also organizes campaigning seminars for politicians and party workers. These involve exchanges of information on campaign technology, fund-raising techniques, opinion polling, advertising and campaign organization. “The IDU plays an essential role in enabling like-minded, centre-right parties to share experiences in order to achieve electoral success,” the site says.
Toronto Star writer Linda Diebel pointed out Conservative Party connections to the U.S. Republicans through the IDU in a recent account of Canadian Conservative candidate connections to voter-contact firms used by the Republicans.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
No comments:
Post a Comment