Such charges are “categorically false,” says a detailed affidavit filed in federal court on Wednesday by Andrew Langhorne, chief operating officer of Responsive Marketing Group, the Conservative party’s main voter contact firm.
Langhorne filed the affidavit as part of the party’s response to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results in seven ridings where Conservatives won close elections last May.
Opposition supporters in those ridings have filed affidavits alleging that they were contacted by call centre workers who misdirected them to the wrong polling stations, seemingly in an effort to discourage them from voting.
The Conservatives have always rejected allegations that the party had anything to do with voter suppression calls, although local volunteers have been linked to an as-yet inconclusive 16-month Elections Canada investigation of a deceptive robocall that sent hundreds to the wrong poll in Guelph, Ont.
A key piece of evidence in the lawsuit launched by the left-leaning Council of Canadians is the affidavit of Annette Desgagnes, who worked in a Responsive Marketing Group call centre in Thunder Bay in the run-up to the May 2011 election.
In February, after media reports of an apparent pattern of deceptive calls, Desgagnes told the Toronto Star that during the campaign, callers at the Thunder Bay call centre were so rattled by calls they were asked to make that she contacted the RCMP.
In her affidavit, filed in April, she said that in the final days of the election she and other callers were given scripts that identified them as calling on behalf of the “voter outreach centre,” told them Elections Canada had moved many polling stations, and offered to check the address.
Many voters told her that the addresses she gave them were wrong, she says.
Langhorne’s affidavit contradicts her on key points. It asserts that neither the party nor the company even discussed calling non-supporters; it asserts that callers were told to identify themselves as calling for the Conservatives; and it provides a get-out-the-vote script used by callers.
“Hi, I’m calling for (name from list),” the script begins. “This is (first name) with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. Your candidate (Candidate name) asked me to call you.”
The script goes on to say that “Elections Canada has changed some voting locations at the last moment,” and asks them to provide their polling station to the caller.
Langhorne says the callers would check that against their list.
“If the address provided by the voter for their polling station did not match the address in front of the RMG agent, the RMG agent was directed to provide the voter with the polling station address displayed from the (get-out-the-vote) data.”
Langhorne says that RMG records show that Desgagnes made only 20 get-out-the-vote calls to voters in the seven ridings at issue, and identified herself as calling on behalf of the Conservatives, as the script states. The records show she gave voters correct addresses, Langhorne says.
Langhorne says that voters and callers may have different addresses because of errors in the database callers use, or errors in the lists provided by Elections Canada.
During the campaign, Elections Canada asked all the parties to not give voters the addresses of polling stations, to avoid confusion. The agency has advised the Council of Canadians that polling stations were moved in only one of the seven ridings in the lawsuit.
The Conservatives also attempt to rebut the argument that a voter suppression campaign was underway in an affidavit from Joe Leuzzi, campaign manager for the Conservative MP for Winnipeg South Centre Joyce Bateman, who defeated Liberal MP Anita Neville by 722 votes on election day.
Leuzzi states that Bateman’s campaign did not engage in voter suppression calls, and cites voting figures to show that voter turnout was three per cent higher in 2011 than 2008.
Council of Canadians lawyer Steven Shrybman, who is acting for the voters in the seven ridings, said Thursday that it is curious that there is no direct evidence from any of the candidates or senior Conservative officials.
“Even though Langhorne describes the critical role the Conservative Party of Canada plays in creating the scripts that were read to voters and deciding who’s going to be called, there’s no one that’s come forward from the Conservative Party of Canada to explain what they were doing or not doing in relation to contacting non-supporters, which is the key issue at the centre of this case.”
Shrybman would not say whether he will ask to see the phone records and call logs that Langhrone references in his affidavit.
Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey said only that the Conservative affidavits speak for themselves.
Lawyers will hash out the contradictions in the affidavits in cross examinations this month, although there is a chance the case may sputter out at a hearing Sept. 18.
Along with the evidence filed Wednesday, the Conservatives asked the court to set aside a legal challenge of the election results in seven ridings unless the applicants agree to put up $260,000 as a surety for costs, a decision that could kill the case if the court agrees.
The Elections Act requires that each applicant in such a case put up a surety of $1,000, but allows the court to increase that amount, “if it considers it just.”
An affidavit from Conservative Party executive director Dan Hilton states that Conservative MP Jay Aspin will ask the court to order the applicants to provide $40,000 in surety for his case, because the case “will require significant legal fees and disbursements.”
“As the respondent whose electoral success is now under attack, Jay Aspin must defend against this application,” Hilton writes. “The costs of doing so are high.”
Similar motions filed by the other Conservative MPs whose seats are in jeopardy have applied for similar amounts, meaning the Council of Canadians would have to find about $260,000 or the case will be thrown out.
Aspin defeated Liberal Anthony Rota in Nipissing-Timiskaming by 18 votes, the closest of the seven ridings.
Shrybman said Thursday that he will oppose the motion vigorously.
“It imposes an additional financial burden on applicants who have come forward in the public interest to defend a charter-guaranteed right to vote,” he said. “It would be horrendously unjust in the circumstances.”
Shrybman pointed out that the Conservatives’ lawyers are paid with tax-deductible donations from supporters, while the council does not have charitable status, giving the party what amounts to a four-to-one fundraising advantage.
Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey said Thursday, as he had in the past, that the council’s lawsuit has no merit.
“This is a transparent attempt to overturn certified election results simply because this activist group doesn’t like them,” he said.
The Conservatives have filed several motions seeking to have the case thrown out of court.
Last month, federal prothonotary Martha Milczynski rejected one such motion, which argued that the case was frivolous and vexatious: “Far from being frivolous or vexatious, or an obvious abuse, the applications raise serious issues about the integrity of the democratic process in Canada and identify practices that, if proven, point to a campaign of activities that would seek to deny eligible voters their right to vote and/or manipulate or interfere with that right being exercised freely.”
In a five-day hearing this winter, yet to be scheduled, the lawyers will also discuss another Conservative motion that seeks to stop the case because of “champerty and maintenance,” a legal doctrine that forbids parties from interfering in third parties’ lawsuits. The Conservatives filed a 690-page affidavit in support of that application.
Earlier this month, Conservative lawyers opposed a motion for Shrybman that seeks to have Elections Canada produce evidence about its investigation into deceptive calls in the last election.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: STEPHEN MAHER AND GLEN MCGREGOR
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