Fraudulent phone call complaints allowed in Federal Court case to overturn six election results

PARLIAMENT HILL—The Federal Court has allowed last-minute evidence containing complaints of fraudulent telephone calls in 56 electoral districts during the 2011 general election to be filed as possible evidence in a bid by voters in six ridings to have those results overturned.

The evidence, consisting of sworn court affidavits from two Elections Canada investigators who probed the complaints that surfaced following a nationwide controversy over alleged voter-suppression tactics last February, will be filed in Federal Court on Friday, Dec. 7, under an order issued Thursday by a case management judge.

The affidavits consist of information sworn out by the investigators to obtain telephone call records from voters who reported robocalls or live telephone calls attempting to mislead them about the location of their polling stations during the May 2, 2011 federal election and could be pivotal in the Federal Court case that begins next Monday.

Eight voters, with legal costs supported by the Council of Canadians, challenged the election results for their ridings, all won by Conservative Party of Canada candidates, after Elections Canada appealed to the public last spring following an explosive Postmedia news report about alleged fraud in the electoral district of Guelph, Ont.

An Elections Canada investigation in that case continues, and the affidavits to be filed in court Friday related to several hundred complaints that surfaced in 56 ridings, from B.C. to Quebec.

The two affidavits, each legally known as an “information to obtain,” were sworn by Elections Canada investigators John Dickson and André Thoin as they attempted to track down the source of allegedly fraudulent calls directing voters away from their correct polling station locations.

The two investigators were seeking telephone call logs from Shaw Cable Communications in B.C, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, and from Videotron SENC in Quebec, that would enable them to discover originating telephone numbers for fraudulent calls received at voters’ homes leading up to voting day and on election day.

The investigators’ requests for court orders compelling the records were granted, but the results of any subsequent investigations have not yet been made public.

Admission of the evidence in Federal Court will likely be crucial in the hearings to begin next week.

“The applicants [voters challenging the results] have leave to serve and file, no later than Dec. 7, 2012, the affidavit of Fiona Campbell [containing the affidavit information] sworn Nov. 29, 2012,” says the order from the Federal Court case management judge, prothonotary Mireille Tabib.

The six ridings that are being contested are Vancouver Island North, B.C., represented by John Duncan; Yukon, represented Ryan Leef; Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Sask., represented by Kelly Block; Elmwood-Transcona, Man., represented by Lawrence Toet; Winnipeg South Centre, Man., represented by Joyce Bateman; and Nipissing-Timiskaming, Ont., represented by Jay Aspin.

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ