Election's Canada investigating "Robocall" Guelph Riding (and other ridings).

[old-fart]

Most of those mean less than nothing.

"I had a complaint that someone phoned and was rude so it can't be our volunteers" is not even remotely evidence of vote tampering. It is infinitely more likely that someone on their campaign was in fact rude to someone. It happens.

Also "2 or 3 people were directed to the wrong polling station" could be a mistake by anyone, including one of their own volunteers. Good lord, people sometimes make mistakes, even Liberals or NDP'ers.

How about "people were told I spend 6 months a year in Africa but really I only spend one week there". Um, so people lie - is that your basis for complaint? If so, how about "we'll abolish, scrap, kill the GST"?

Most of these seem to be the opposition's attempt to drag every single complaint about a phone call they didn't like and attach it to "robo-gate" in an effort to make it seem like a widespread conspiracy to steal the election.

Back to my original point I think - if there was a specific issue with calling opponents supporters with false information around polling booths, this needs to be investigated and the hammer brought down on those responsible. That doesn't mean, however, that everyone that got an annoying phone call (their perception of annoying) was being subverted by some grand Machiavellian plan to steal the 2011 election.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Would you same for your home phone provider? Your cell company? Internet provider?



Agreed. This is why there is an Elections Canada/RCMP investigation. Buck will stop with the person(s) who committed the criminal act.



And <insert any car manufacturer> should be bear some blame for all the vehicles used to carry out crimes.

Not the same FL and you know it.

If my allow my phone to be used REPEATEDLY, over a lengthy period of time to make threatening or harassing call, I know I wouldn't be allowed to wash my hands of the matter by saying "I didn't know".

And rather than make the ridiculous claim that holding the owner of Racknine responsible for the robo-calls is the same as holding car manufactures responsible for crimes committed using their vehicles, acknowledge that our courts hold the owner of a motor vehicle responsible for breaches of traffic laws even when the owner is not the driver of the vehicle, when those breaches are captured by a traffic camera.

The owner of the Racknine has to have some responsibility for what is being disseminated through his system. He is after all, receiving compensation for it. I wonder if you'd have the same opinion if, instead of election related calls, he was allowing his system to be used to disseminate hateful anti-gay or anti-Semitic or other hate speech.

I think this case is analogous to the case made against the owners of file sharing websites. The owners of those sites were held responsible for providing a means to share copyrighted material, even though they didn't host it. IMO, the owner of the Racknine would or should have the same kind of responsibility.

He knew, or should have known that this system was being used for (potentially) criminal purposes.

Also, I may be arguing semantics, but rather than say "Buck will stop with the person(s) who committed the criminal act", I'd say "the buck will stop with the persons who planned, approved, funded and/or committed the criminal act."

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

I wonder if you'd have the same opinion if, instead of election related calls, he was allowing his system to be used to disseminate hateful anti-gay or anti-Semitic or other hate speech.

How/why would the topic of the calls change my position on this? What are you trying to suggest?

Also, I may be arguing semantics, but rather than say "Buck will stop with the person(s) who committed the criminal act", I'd say "the buck will stop with the persons who planned, approved, funded and/or committed the criminal act."

Agreed and RackNine didn't plan, approve, fund and/or commit the criminal act.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

An interesting take from a CPC insider.

Have we been accused of being aggressive and rough-and-tumble in the past? Of course. Did we go after Liberal leaders with everything we had? You bet. But did the campaign organize a widespread voter suppression exercise in the 2011 campaign? No way.

And yet, in a matter of only a few days, we’ve gotten to a place where any misleading or erroneous call by a campaign or individual anywhere in the country during 2011 federal election is being treated as the work of Conservative masterminds. But some things don’t add up.

What he really meant

Have we been caught red-handed lying to Canadians in the past? Of course? Did we get prosecuted for spending violations and lying about them. Sure! Did we lie about G8 spending. Sure! Have we altered documents presented to Parliament? Yes! Did we lie about Minister MacKay's helicopter rides? Well, yes. Have we mislead Canadians about the cost of many of our programs? Ummm, well, I guess we have.

We really want you to forget all about that. THIS time it wasn't us, it really wasn't, and we're really hurt that anyone would think we could do such a thing.

[old-fart]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

What he really meant

Cool! Now do the Libs and NDPs. The Greenies are irrelevant so don't bother with them.

You can start with "It was just a massage parlour" and "We'll kill, scrap, abolish the GST" and maybe "we stole $250M but don't worry, we paid back almost one million of it".

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by old-fart

Cool! Now do the Libs and NDPs. The Greenies are irrelevant so don't bother with them.

You can start with "It was just a massage parlour" and "We'll kill, scrap, abolish the GST" and maybe "we stole $250M but don't worry, we paid back almost one million of it".

Because past misdeeds by one party perpetually forgives current misdeeds by all other parties forever, right?

[old-fart]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Because past misdeeds by one party perpetually forgives current misdeeds by all other parties forever, right?

Not at all. Is it your contention that the Liberals and/or NDP never mis-lead or (heaven forbid) outright lie?

Or, perhaps, is it more likley that all politicians are generally scum and all political parties are lying SOBs? Calling out one particular party (that you don't like) while ignoring the transgressions of the other parties (including the one you do like) is more than a little disingenuous.

I'll say it yet again. All parites engage in "dirty tricks" during an election campaign. Those "dirty tricks" and the robo-gate are two different things and trying to mix them up together to make this some larger conspiracy is ridiculous.

[MarchHare]

Is it your contention that the Liberals and/or NDP never mis-lead or (heaven forbid) outright lie?

Of course not. It's my contention that past misdeeds by other parties have absolutely ZERO relevance to this conversation.

Screaming "BUT THE SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL!!!11" is not a useful or applicable response to the issue of whether or not illegal violations of the Elections Act were committed by one or more Conservative Party staffers in the last election.

[old-fart]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Of course not. It's my contention that past misdeeds by other parties have absolutely ZERO relevance to this conversation.

Screaming "BUT THE SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL!!!11" is not a useful or applicable response to the issue of whether or not illegal violations of the Elections Act were committed by one or more Conservative Party staffers in the last election.

But changing a quote from a Conservative in a clearly biased fashion obviously does?

And I'd suggest the question shouldn't be "did Conservative Party staffers break election law in the last election" but rather "were any election laws broken in the last election, and if so by whom"?

If someone, anyone, called a single person and knowingly sent them to the wrong polling station in an attempt to surpress their vote they should be punished to fullest extent of the law.

If someone made a call to someone at dinner time and annoyed them... well... perhaps that person should unplug their phone at dinner.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Of course not. It's my contention that past misdeeds by other parties have absolutely ZERO relevance to this conversation.

Screaming "BUT THE SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL!!!11" is not a useful or applicable response to the issue of whether or not illegal violations of the Elections Act were committed by one or more Conservative Party staffers in the last election.

Just as past misdeeds by this party has absolutely ZERO relevance to this conversation.

Screaming "G8 SPENDIGN!!!11" is not a useful applicable response, etc. etc.

Somehow, you've ended up defending this argument.

[MarchHare]

Just as past misdeeds by this party has absolutely ZERO relevance to this conversation.

Screaming "G8 SPENDIGN!!!11" is not a useful applicable response, etc. etc.

Agreed completely. You'll note that I have said nothing about G8 spending in this thread.

[Slava]

The only past misdeeds which seem relevant to this discussion is that this is the second election in a row that the CPC has been accused of violating the election laws. That is a disturbing trend, which has nothing to do with partisanship IMO.

[old-fart]

If I'm not mistaken, the Liberals have also been accused of the same past mis-deeds in elections, including funding irregularities.

You are correct, that is a disturbing trend.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by old-fart

If I'm not mistaken, the Liberals have also been accused of the same past mis-deeds in elections, including funding irregularities.

You are correct, that is a disturbing trend.

I don't know why you want to make this a partisan issue? We get it. no party is perfect. Lets just leave that aside for the time being.

I'm more concerned that the current government has now alleged to have broken the election laws twice in a row. If the Liberals had this same record I would be just as concerned. Its one thing to have a different opinion politically than someone, but a whole other thing to try to screw around with elections laws and fairness.

[Wronskian]

If people are stupid enough to believe these "robocalls" and not go online and double check their polling station they probably don't deserve the vote. Plus most are in the east so who cares.

[CaptainCrunch]

the sad thing is that all of the parites have tried to subvert the democratic process, the only one that hasn't done it from a position of power is the NDP.

They're all in the same boat, I would hope that at some point there would be a concerted effort to clean things like this up, but its not going to happen.

I still have my doubts that this is linked to the Conservative party as a whole symptomatic system. I think in terms of fairness, maybe they do need to rerun the election in Guelph, but the standing MP is a Liberal, so it would be a huge risk for him.

I don't really see similarities yet in the other complaining areas yet.

[automaton 3]

When I first heard/read about this issue I was deeply concerned. Now that I've read the actual complaints I am somewhat less concerned. As others have said, if there in fact attempts made at voter suppression and misdirection those responsible must be made fully accountable.

It wouldn't surprise me if many of the calls in question simply involved overzealous or just plain rude volunteers.

And the Liberals should be careful what they ask for, a by-election in Guelph may not be in their party's best interests.

[EddyBeers]

Originally Posted by old-fart

If I'm not mistaken, the Liberals have also been accused of the same past mis-deeds in elections, including funding irregularities.

You are correct, that is a disturbing trend.

I am pretty sure the Liberals were never accused of the money laundering scheme that the Tories were accused of.

The interesting thing on the robocall situation is that there are probably only 10 people maximum in the Conservative Party that have access to the CIMS system so that they can actually send out targetted calls on a multi-riding basis. Even within a riding there is probably only 1 or 2 people max that have access to the full system, most volunteers are merely data input people, they cannot go on the system to find out what voter is identified with what party. Party's usually guard that information fairly closely for fear that a mole will steal the information. So if or when this ties back to the Conservatives, it will almost certainly be tied back to fairly senior people in the campaign.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I think the actually company making the calls must assume some sort of responsibility. While the "National Do Not Call List" is a bit of a joke, I would think any telemarketing company in Canada should be aware of the restrictions since they are bound by them. And since that is the case then allowing anyone with a fake name to record and send any message they want to any set of numbers they supply sounds like gross negligence.

While we are at it do we think Hewlet Packard should be responsible for any homophobic or bigoted crap people print on their printers?

This company rents out an automated call center, they have nothing to do with what their clients use it for, all they should be expected to do is cooperate fully with the investigation.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by EdWard

I am pretty sure the Liberals were never accused of the money laundering scheme that the Tories were accused of.

The interesting thing on the robocall situation is that there are probably only 10 people maximum in the Conservative Party that have access to the CIMS system so that they can actually send out targetted calls on a multi-riding basis. Even within a riding there is probably only 1 or 2 people max that have access to the full system, most volunteers are merely data input people, they cannot go on the system to find out what voter is identified with what party. Party's usually guard that information fairly closely for fear that a mole will steal the information. So if or when this ties back to the Conservatives, it will almost certainly be tied back to fairly senior people in the campaign.

I consider the whole of Chretian's term of office one glorified money laundering scam, I'm NDP incidently.