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peoplestandupca liked a video
(3 days ago)
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OTTAWA More than 31,000 reports about robocalls duri...
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OTTAWA More than 31,000 reports about robocalls during the May federal election campaign are under review by Elections Canada.
The agency says complaints have been pouring in over the last few weeks as the result of MPs and political parties calling on the public to send information.
The flood began after details were made public about an Elections Canada investigation into voters in Guelph being told to go to polls that didn't exist.
The volume of complaints to Elections Canada is so high that the agency may end up calling in extra help — including the RCMP — to examine people's concerns. The agency said it will also report to Parliament on the matter.
The Conservatives have acknowledged there was a problem with the campaign in Guelph. A party staffer connected to the campaign there resigned.
But on Friday, the Tories continued to suggest they are being unfairly attacked when it comes to the bulk of the calls.
"We've got all of the evidence on our side to indicate that we had absolutely no involvement in any of the allegations that the opposition has brought forward," said Dean Del Mastro, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister. "We've been clear this is an unsubstantiated smear campaign."
But Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae called the volume of complaints unprecedented.
"Unless the prime minister and his associates want to say there are 31,000 Canadians and more who are participating in a smear campaign, he's going to have a hard time simply dismissing these concerns," Rae said.
In Hamilton Friday, NDP leadership candidate Thomas Mulcair and two local MPs, David Christopherson and Wayne Marston, were alarmed at the growing controversy. They reiterated their party's stand the issue needs to be investigated by a public inquiry, like the one that investigated the sponsorship scandal.
Mulcair didn't mince words in his belief that Conservatives were behind the incidents, saying interfering with people's right to vote is the "is an attack on democracy itself."
"They are going to lie," said the Quebec MP. "They are going to twist. The only way to get to them is to put them under oath before a commission of inquiry."
Christopherson rejected the suggestion voters will think all parties pull tricks during elections and that this affair was much ado about nothing.
"The fact remains that if this proves to be true this makes the sponsorship scandal look like Romper Room," the Hamilton Centre MP said. "This is dangerous. This is the willingness of a political operative to interfere with a Canadian's right to cast a ballot. It doesn't get much more serious short of doing it at the end of the point of a gun."
He believed a public inquiry would be the best format to get to the bottom of the affair because it would provide witnesses better protection before the law. He didn't believe, however, the Conservative government will approve a public inquiry unless there is a huge public outcry.
"I feel confident if we continue to see more drip, drip, drip and those drips turn out to be facts ... and there is enough critical mass from the Canadian public, it can be forced," Christopherson added. "We did get Gomery (the sponsorship inquiry) from a sitting prime minister."
The Canadian Press
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peoplestandupca uploaded a new video
(4 days ago)
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Complaints about bogus calls to voters during the 20...
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Complaints about bogus calls to voters during the 2011 federal election are under investigation by Elections Canada.
On Feb. 27 the House of Commons passed a unanimous resolution calling on its members to provide Elections Canada and the RCMP "with any and all information they have on voter suppression and illegal phoning during the last election."
The stories began on election day (see sidebar), but took off last week with a report by Stephen Maher of Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen's Glen McGregor that revealed some of the findings of an ongoing Elections Canada investigation.
Elections Canada is investigating reports that voters in many ridings received bogus calls on election day that falsely told them that where they should vote had changed. Information officer Adrian Loree puts up posters at a Toronto polling station as it opens on May 2, 2011. Elections Canada is investigating reports that voters in many ridings received bogus calls on election day that falsely told them that where they should vote had changed. Information officer Adrian Loree puts up posters at a Toronto polling station as it opens on May 2, 2011. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)
The investigation named a firm from which automatic phone calls — robocalls — to voters in Guelph had been traced. It also said that fraudulent calls had been made to voters in at least 37 ridings.
Those calls gave voters false information on where to cast their ballots. Other voters reported getting harassing or mischievous calls and messages from live callers
By Feb. 27, opposition parties had identified at least 40 ridings where voters received suspicious calls and the issue became the subject of intense debate during Question Period.
Here's a look at some of the names that have been mentioned in news stories and in the House of Commons since the controversy erupted last week
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peoplestandupca liked a video
(1 week ago)
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Conservatives Linked To Election Fraud
During the fed...
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Conservatives Linked To Election Fraud
During the federal election in May, Liberal supports reported receiving mysterious phone calls with an automated message saying that their polling station had been moved.
Of course, no polling stations were actually moved, meaning these phone calls were an attempt to disenfranchise non-conservative voters. Elections Canada began an investigation a week later, after the damage was already done; while all the other parties denied their involvement.
Yesterday, Elections Canada announced that they had traced the calls to Racknine Inc., an Edmonton call centre that at the time was under contract by the Conservative Party of Canada's national campaign, as well as the campaigns for nine individual ridings, not the least of which was Stephen Harper's Calgary South.
Racknine is playing dumb, saying that their system is automated and they do not monitor the calls that their clients are making. The company does not monitor outgoing calls made by customers through the automated service, Meier said. He estimates 10 million or more phone calls from about 200 accounts went out during the campaign.
For their part, the Conservatives have said that they are running an internal investigation to determine if they had anything to do with it.
Late last year, the Conservative Party of Canada plead guilty to another form of campaign fraud in relation to the 2006 election, in which they exceeded campaign spending limits.
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peoplestandupca uploaded a new video
(1 week ago)
http://www.people...
Conservatives Linked To Election Fraud
During the fed...
more
http://www.people...
Conservatives Linked To Election Fraud
During the federal election in May, Liberal supports reported receiving mysterious phone calls with an automated message saying that their polling station had been moved.
Of course, no polling stations were actually moved, meaning these phone calls were an attempt to disenfranchise non-conservative voters. Elections Canada began an investigation a week later, after the damage was already done; while all the other parties denied their involvement.
Yesterday, Elections Canada announced that they had traced the calls to Racknine Inc., an Edmonton call centre that at the time was under contract by the Conservative Party of Canada's national campaign, as well as the campaigns for nine individual ridings, not the least of which was Stephen Harper's Calgary South.
Racknine is playing dumb, saying that their system is automated and they do not monitor the calls that their clients are making. The company does not monitor outgoing calls made by customers through the automated service, Meier said. He estimates 10 million or more phone calls from about 200 accounts went out during the campaign.
For their part, the Conservatives have said that they are running an internal investigation to determine if they had anything to do with it.
Late last year, the Conservative Party of Canada plead guilty to another form of campaign fraud in relation to the 2006 election, in which they exceeded campaign spending limits.
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peoplestandupca favorited a video
(1 week ago)
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Election fraud allegations raise doubts about N.S. r...
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Election fraud allegations raise doubts about N.S. riding results
OTTAWA — Two Nova Scotia ridings are tied to an investigation of widespread election fraud in the 2011 federal election.
Liberal officials in Cape Breton have confirmed they had complaints from supporters who received automated calls directing them to the wrong voting locations.
A joint Postmedia-Ottawa Citizen report revealed Elections Canada and the RCMP are investigating complaints from 18 ridings across the country where voters received harassing or misleading calls.
The phone messages were tracked to the Edmonton voice-broadcast company RackNine, which has done extensive work for several Conservative candidates, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In some cases, voters got late-night or early-morning calls purporting to be from the Liberals apparently attempting to alienate that party's supporters.
Other messages claiming to be from Elections Canada falsely told voters their polling stations had been changed.
The Conservatives have denied any knowledge of the calls but have started their own internal investigation, according to Post media and the Ottawa Citizen.
Opposition parties are calling it Canada's Watergate and demanding a public inquiry.
One of the ridings in question was Sydney-Victoria, where the Conservatives invested heavily in the hopes that Cecil Clarke would unseat Liberal incumbent Mark Eyking. Stephen Harper visited the riding twice during the campaign.
Eyking said Thursday members of his team knew something was wrong on election day when they started getting "disturbing" calls from supporters.
Some voters were complaining about incessant phone calls, even though the Liberal communications team had only contacted them twice, as is routine. Others said they were sent to polling stations that were incorrect or did not even exist.
"They were complaining to our office, saying why would you send me to the wrong place?" said Eyking.
"Our local offices knew something was up. Somebody on the other side was playing a really nasty game here."
Eyking ended up edging out Clarke by just 860 votes to hold onto the riding. His team never followed up on the suspicious calls.
Conservative national campaign manager Jenni Byrne said the party was not involved in the automated calls and said any rogue employee found to be tied to them would be fired.
"The Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign and would never tolerate such activity," Byrne said.
"Voter suppression is extremely serious and if anything improper occurred, those responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
That didn't stop opposition parties from alleging a Conservative plot that went straight to the top. NDP MP Pat Martin said the controversy raises doubts about whether the Conservatives fairly won the 2011 election or if they cheated their way to a majority.
"It's outrageous, it's disturbing, it's as offensive as it can possibly be if you care a damn about the electoral system," said Martin.
He accused the Conservatives of trying to steal eight ridings across the country wherein the NDP discovered suspicious activity tied to automated dialing, sometimes referred to as "robo-calls." One riding was South Shore-St. Margarets, where NDP candidate Gordon Earle lost to Conservative Gerald Keddy.
Angus Fields, the NDP's official agent in the riding, said he remembers receiving "two or three calls" from supporters who were mysteriously directed to the wrong location to vote.
There was also an issue of some voters being deluged with pro-NDP automated calls. Earle's office was swamped with complaints for three days, but officials were never able to rule out that it was an internal mix-up at NDP election headquarters.
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