Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski fingered Byrne as the figure ultimately responsible for the party’s surreptitious and deceptive telephone campaign in Saskatchewan in a dispute over the changing of riding boundaries. We can bet loyalist Lukiwski didn’t speak without the prior approval of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Around Ottawa, Byrne has never had a reputation of spending too much time on the moral high ground. She directed the 2011 campaign, the one for which the Tories are under investigation by Elections Canada for allegations that they ran a robocalls campaign aimed at sending voters to the wrong polling stations.
But it would be a stunner if she resigned, given her close working association with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and all the top Tory brass. There’s an old saying about the fish rotting from the head down. The fear would be that the volatile Byrne, who joined the Reform Party way back when she was a teenager, might take others down with her.
To date, the Conservatives have tried to pass off any dirty tricks onto ‘rogue’ actors or junior party people like Michael Sona from the riding of Guelph, which is at the centre of the robocalls controversy. Sona in turn has alleged that what happened in Guelph was not isolated but part of what he termed a massive scheme.
Given the ongoing Elections Canada investigation, the Conservatives’ running of this calling operation in Saskatchewan — one designed to create opposition to a redistribution plan the Conservatives dislike — is hard to fathom. How could they tempt fate that much? They can only hope that, as with all their other instances of abuse of power, any public anger will subside.
The Saskatchewan calls, ones in which the party did not identify itself, are not as serious as the election campaign robocalls. There have been, as the Tories claimed, isolated incidents of other parties using these so-called ‘push polls’. But they are a duplicitous practice and the fact that the Conservatives initially denied making them signals that fact.
There is also a seeming connection, as revealed by Postmedia reporters, between these calls and a voice recording from a company used to send out calls under the name Pierre Poutine in the last election.
Interest in the robocalls controversy appeared to be petering out, but the Saskatchewan development has reignited it. More media are now likely to take an interest in the story, one which has been left primarily to the digging of a couple of intrepid reporters.
But the Conservatives may have a life raft coming their way. The Federal Court heard a case against robocalls financed by the Council of Canadians in December. It was a weak case and the likelihood is that, in a decision expected within the next month or two, the judge will throw it out.
That will buy the Tories time — but the Elections Canada report is still to come. The agency is investigating allegations of illicit robocalls from dozens of ridings. Internal Elections Canada emails have been published targeting the Conservatives. To this, and to the events in Saskatchewan, add the fact the Conservatives were caught in what the Speaker of the Commons called a “reprehensible” phone campaign against Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler.
I asked Guy Giorno, Harper’s former chief of staff, if, in spite of all these developments, he still held to his initial categorical denial that the Conservatives engaged in such activities. Giorno did not respond.
Jenni Byrne issued a statement last year saying that “the Conservative Party ran a clean and ethical campaign and would never tolerate such activity … Voter suppression is extremely serious and if anything improper occurred those responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
That so-called clean and ethical campaign saw voters being marched out of Conservative rallies for having suspected minor ties to other parties — and a bogus leak from a senior Tory strategist trying to tie Michael Ignatieff to planning sessions for the Iraq war.
Byrne has always been a fierce Harper loyalist. That’s why Tom Lukiwski’s words came as such a surprise yesterday. “Ulitmately the buck stops with her,” he said. “She would take full responsibility.”
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca
Author: Lawrence Martin
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