Despite the rationalizations of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the bluster of cabinet minister Gerry Ritz and earlier denial of responsibility by MP Tom Lukiwski, there's no excuse for the anonymous automated calls made by the Conservative party to discredit the work of the federal boundaries commission.
That it took until Liberal MP Ralph Goodale filed a complaint with the CRTC and Postmedia News enlisted the help of an audio expert to identify the voice on the robocall message before the Conservatives finally claimed ownership of the calls is a sad commentary on a party that took office with the promise of transparency and accountability in government.
Mr. Goodale's blog describes the tone of the calls as "abusive, suggesting those who agreed with the new (boundaries) map - including the majority of the commission - were betraying Saskatchewan values."
Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey's explanation that "an internal miscommunication" was to blame for the message being sent out anonymously seems a stretch at best, given the circumstances.
The outgoing message to homes in Saskatoon and Regina was initially identified as coming from Chase Research, a company that isn't known in Saskatchewan. Postmedia News has identified the voice as that of Matt Meier, owner of Rack-Nine Inc., a company that has done work for the Conservatives and was used by the person who made the infamous "Pierre Poutine" robocalls during the 2011 election.
This isn't the case, as the prime minister claimed during question period Wednesday, of his Conservative party participating in the democratic process by providing feedback to the independent boundaries commission.
Rather, it was an undeserved attack on the commission. The automated message tried to get the public to agree that the proposed new boundaries threaten Saskatchewan's unity, and that it's too divisive to have citizens of the two largest cities represented by MPs dedicated solely to urban interests - as residents of every other Canadian city do.
Mr. Lukiwski told CBC Radio on Wednesday that responsibility for the push poll lies with Jenni Byrne, the Conservatives' director of political operations, and that he'd expressed his displeasure to the party. It's difficult to take the PM's words about democratic participation seriously when his own MPs are seemingly blindsided by party operatives.
As for Mr. Ritz's attempt to portray the robocalls as simply reflective of the majority opinion of Saskatchewan residents, it lacks veracity. The 75 per cent of submissions to the commission Mr. Ritz cited as being in favour of the current split urban-rural ridings is highly misleading because, as the commission's final report notes, much of it consisted of pre-formatted postcards distributed to supporters by Conservative MPs.
The Conservative MPs and their supporters, along with other parties and citizens, shared their views at the commission hearings. Last week's robocalls weren't an attempt to provide further input. They were simply an attempt to anonymously undermine a commission whose recommendations don't suit the Conservative party's interests.
Scaring and misleading urban voters into retaining an electoral map that does nothing to serve their interests isn't democratic participation. It's a prelude to gerrymandering, and it's intolerable.
The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper's editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.
Original Article
Source: thestarphoenix.com
Author: The StarPhoenix
That it took until Liberal MP Ralph Goodale filed a complaint with the CRTC and Postmedia News enlisted the help of an audio expert to identify the voice on the robocall message before the Conservatives finally claimed ownership of the calls is a sad commentary on a party that took office with the promise of transparency and accountability in government.
Mr. Goodale's blog describes the tone of the calls as "abusive, suggesting those who agreed with the new (boundaries) map - including the majority of the commission - were betraying Saskatchewan values."
Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey's explanation that "an internal miscommunication" was to blame for the message being sent out anonymously seems a stretch at best, given the circumstances.
The outgoing message to homes in Saskatoon and Regina was initially identified as coming from Chase Research, a company that isn't known in Saskatchewan. Postmedia News has identified the voice as that of Matt Meier, owner of Rack-Nine Inc., a company that has done work for the Conservatives and was used by the person who made the infamous "Pierre Poutine" robocalls during the 2011 election.
This isn't the case, as the prime minister claimed during question period Wednesday, of his Conservative party participating in the democratic process by providing feedback to the independent boundaries commission.
Rather, it was an undeserved attack on the commission. The automated message tried to get the public to agree that the proposed new boundaries threaten Saskatchewan's unity, and that it's too divisive to have citizens of the two largest cities represented by MPs dedicated solely to urban interests - as residents of every other Canadian city do.
Mr. Lukiwski told CBC Radio on Wednesday that responsibility for the push poll lies with Jenni Byrne, the Conservatives' director of political operations, and that he'd expressed his displeasure to the party. It's difficult to take the PM's words about democratic participation seriously when his own MPs are seemingly blindsided by party operatives.
As for Mr. Ritz's attempt to portray the robocalls as simply reflective of the majority opinion of Saskatchewan residents, it lacks veracity. The 75 per cent of submissions to the commission Mr. Ritz cited as being in favour of the current split urban-rural ridings is highly misleading because, as the commission's final report notes, much of it consisted of pre-formatted postcards distributed to supporters by Conservative MPs.
The Conservative MPs and their supporters, along with other parties and citizens, shared their views at the commission hearings. Last week's robocalls weren't an attempt to provide further input. They were simply an attempt to anonymously undermine a commission whose recommendations don't suit the Conservative party's interests.
Scaring and misleading urban voters into retaining an electoral map that does nothing to serve their interests isn't democratic participation. It's a prelude to gerrymandering, and it's intolerable.
The editorials that appear in this space represent the opinion of The StarPhoenix. They are unsigned because they do not necessarily represent the personal views of the writers. The positions taken in the editorials are arrived at through discussion among the members of the newspaper's editorial board, which operates independently from the news departments of the paper.
Original Article
Source: thestarphoenix.com
Author: The StarPhoenix
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