OTTAWA—Six Conservative MPs whose 2011 elections are being challenged over allegations of widespread attempts to suppress votes with fraudulent or misleading telephone calls have used delaying tactics to hold off Federal Court hearings on the complaints, a lawyer for voters challenging the election results told court on Tuesday.“We did confront along the way what I would respectfully describe as a highly-adversarial and litigious opponent in the respondent MPs,” Ottawa lawyer Steven Shrybman said to Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley as he began outlining evidence and legal arguments that eight voters in the six electoral districts are using in attempt to have the results overturned.
“That’s one of the reasons it has taken so long, and why other things weren’t done,” Mr. Shrybman told Judge Richard Mosley, pointing to Canada Elections Act provisions that call for speedy court hearings into allegations of irregularities, fraud or corrupt practices that could have affected the results in any riding.
Before launching into a rundown of Elections Canada investigative evidence of hundreds of complaints received since last February about allegedly fraudulent or harassing calls that targeted voters who had indicated they would not be supporting the Conservatives, Mr. Shrybman argued that the Conservative MPs, through Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, had delayed the case with stalling motions, two of which were set aside by a Federal Court case management judge.
Two of the motions took up the first day and a half of four days that have been set aside for the case—one depending on a rarely used commercial litigation argument alleging the public-interest group supported and financially aided the eight voters who mounted the challenge for its own interest, and the other a determined attempt to have unusual evidence gathered by Ekos Resarch pollster Frank Graves dismissed out of hand.
Mr. Graves, retained as an expert witness by the Council of Canadians, surveyed more than 5,000 voters earlier this year, and produced a report that suggested nearly one-third of Liberal voters recalled getting calls attempting to misdirect them from their proper voting locations, with NDP and Green Party supporters also targeted.
Mr. Shrybman noted that none of the voters are accusing anyone in the Conservative Party of participating in fraud, or claiming that the principal voter-contact firm for the Conservatives during the election campaign, Responsive Marketing Group Inc., knowingly engaged in fraudulent activities.
Mr. Shrybman argued that under the Canada Elections Act, it is not required to prove the identity of perpetrators of fraud or corrupt practices in an election in order to get the results of the vote annulled and a court-ordered byelection.
“What we have to show is that fraudulent activities occurred and affected the election,” Mr. Shrybman said. “We have only one purpose and that is to recover the democratic franchise that was taken from electors in the ridings at issue.”
Mr. Shrybman cited sworn affidavits that Elections Canada investigators have signed over the past year-and-a-half to obtain up to at least one dozen court orders as they tracked down phone records from telecommunications service providers through whom fraudulent or harassing phone calls may have been placed as the May 2 neared last year, with most of the calls purportedly going out on voting day.
Most of the affidavits were sworn out by Elections Canada investigator Alan Matthews as he attempted to trace the person or persons responsible for more than 7,000 fraudulent calls to voters in Guelph, Ont. Mr. Shrybman pointed out the affidavits link the information on non-Conservative voters who were called to the Conservative Party’s database of supporters and voters who have declared support for other parties, but no link has been directly made between the misleading robocalls and any specific member of the Guelph Conservative campaign.
In his arguments and briefs, Mr. Shrybman used the Guelph incidents and investigation as one of the ways in which to demonstrate attempts at illegal voter suppression on election day.
The latest affidavits were sworn out by investigators looking into more than 80 complaints, all Shaw Communications or Videotron subscribers, who were sent to Elections Canada after the controversy over voter suppression began last February.
Mr. Shrybman noted that one of the affidavits mentioned yet another affidavit that was used to obtain court-ordered disclosure of phone records from Rogers Communications, and said others may also be in process.
“There are other shoes to drop, but we don’t know when that might occur,” Mr. Shrybman told Judge Mosley.
The head of the Council of Canadians, Maude Barlow, said the Conservative delays in the case have resulted in soaring legal costs, as the council has been assisting all eight voters who have applied for a ruling that the elections in their ridings should be annulled.
“That’s been the killer for us financially,” Ms. Barlow told The Hill Times. “Nobody had any idea they were going to throw one roadblock at us after another, to keep it out of court. It’s costing us a fortune.”
The council has so far raised $300,000 in contributions to pay the legal fees, but expects the costs to top $600,000 by the end of the week.
The ridings being challenged were won by Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan (Vancouver-Island North, B.C.), Conservative MP Jay Aspin (Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont.), Conservative MP Kelly Block (Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask.), Conservative MP Joyce Bateman (Winnipeg South Centre, Man.), Conservative MP Lawrence Toet (Elmwood-Transcona, Man.) and Conservative MP Ryan Leef (Yukon).
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
No comments:
Post a Comment