Two years into the Trudeau 2.0 Minority Term, which day will Justin call the election that only he wants?

taxme

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Liberal MP George Chahal fined $500 for taking Tory election leaflet from front door
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Marie Woolf
Publishing date:Jan 25, 2022 • 11 hours ago • 1 minute read • 30 Comments
George Chahal, Liberal candidate for Calgary Skyview, speaks to supporters at his official campaign launch event outside Rio Banquet Hall. Sunday, August 8, 2021.
George Chahal, Liberal candidate for Calgary Skyview, speaks to supporters at his official campaign launch event outside Rio Banquet Hall. Sunday, August 8, 2021. Brendan Miller/Postmedia
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OTTAWA — MP George Chahal has paid a $500 fine after taking an opponent’s campaign flyer from a front door and replacing it with his own during last year’s election.

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The Liberal MP for Calgary Skyview was captured on a doorbell camera removing the Conservative flyer while he was going door to door as a candidate.

In a statement on Twitter Tuesday, the MP apologized for his mistake and said he had paid a $500 administrative penalty levied by the elections watchdog.


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The elections commissioner investigated the incident after the footage emerged of the MP and after receiving multiple complaints.

In findings posted online, the commissioner concluded that an aggravating factor was that candidates who fail to abide by rules adopted by Parliament could “contribute to a loss of public confidence in the integrity of members of the political class.” This risks increasing voter apathy, the commissioner said.

The commissioner added that the MP and his staff had co-operated fully with the investigation, which was a mitigating factor.

“The (penalty) was in the amount of $500 and is intended to address violations related to preventing or impairing the transmission of election advertising,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.

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The Elections Canada Act prohibits people from preventing election advertising from being communicated to the public. The commissioner is responsible for ensuring compliance with the act.

The elections commissioner’s office said it had issued the penalty to Chahal, and not Elections Canada, the body which ran the election, as stated in his tweet.

As one of only two Liberals elected in Alberta, Chahal was considered a possible cabinet contender. However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ultimately only selected Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault for cabinet, naming him tourism minister and associate minister of finance.

Chahal disclosed over the weekend that anti-vaccine protesters had gathered outside his house in Calgary waving placards while he was celebrating his wife’s birthday. The MP wrote on Twitter that the protesters were trying to “intimidate” him and his family.

The thief should be fired. How can this guy say that he stands up for truth and honesty when this same guy goes around and steals other people's property. How can anyone in their right mind trust a thief like him? Those leftist lieberals are always out there looking for ways to destroy everything decent and moral. This guy must be canned, man. (n)
 
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spaminator

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Federal election cost estimated $630M, but many First Nations had no polling station
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Marie Woolf
Publishing date:Jan 31, 2022 • 11 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation
An Elections Canada sign is seen near a polling station for the 2021 Federal Election at Robertson-Wesley United Church in Edmonton, on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
An Elections Canada sign is seen near a polling station for the 2021 Federal Election at Robertson-Wesley United Church in Edmonton, on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia
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OTTAWA — Last year’s federal election cost an estimated $630 million — more than the estimated $502-million bill for the 2019 poll — partly because of extra costs associated with the pandemic, according to Elections Canada.

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The official report on last September’s election outlined multiple obstacles those running the election had to overcome because of COVID-19, including finding people to staff polling stations.

The report revealed that many First Nations communities had no polling station at all on election day.

Of around 635 First Nations communities in Canada, only 57 per cent were assigned a polling station on their reserve. In some remote communities, the nearest polling station was a great distance away and inaccessible.

Elections Canada says it has apologized to voters in three fly-in Indigenous communities near Kenora, Ont., after they turned up to vote and found there was no polling station.

Susan Torosian, executive director at Elections Canada, said she was “deeply sorry” that some Indigenous electors could not vote. She said at a briefing on Monday that Elections Canada would carry out a review to make sure Indigenous voters, regardless of their location, have the chance to vote next time.

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The Elections Canada report says it had trouble finding staff for polling stations. In Toronto, 15 electoral districts had 448 fewer polling stations than last time in total.

To help recruitment, it gave a pay raise to election-day staff, who were responsible for enforcing social distancing rules and sanitizing surfaces.

The report says that some were subject to abuse at polling stations, including voters who objected to wearing masks, and in some cases the police were called.

COVID-19 meant that many schools and community centres were not available as polling stations on election day, forcing Elections Canada to find alternative voting venues, including smaller sites, which led to queues of voters outside.

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The difficulty finding polling sites also led to delays sending out voter information cards. Usually voter cards would have been posted at the end of August, but most were posted a week later.

Around 26.4 million cards were mailed just before advance polls, and an additional 1 million were mailed by Sept. 15.

“Delays in mailing resulted primarily from the short election period and difficulties in finding suitable polling places,” the report said.

In Brampton East, in Ontario, 70 per cent of cards, with information on when and where to vote, were not mailed until after advance polling opened. Elections Canada let voters in Brampton East vote at advance polls without presenting their card, because of the error.

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In its preparations for a pandemic election, Elections Canada overestimated the number of people who would vote by mail-in ballot, predicting at first that up to 5 million Canadians might do so.

Of the 17.2 million people who did vote, 16 million voted in person. Over 5.8 million people — a record number — voted at advance polls before election day.

A record number of people also voted by mail in their own riding on polling day. But fewer than last time mailed in their vote from abroad and from outside their ridings.

There were a number of administrative problems involving mail-in ballots, including from prisoners voting from jails, and ballots that were put in the wrong place and not counted.

There were also problems with election materials in a few ridings, including misprints with incorrect lists of candidates.

Despite these issues, Elections Canada made efforts to ensure voters in Nunavut could access information. Elections agents translated materials, including the list of candidates, into Inuktitut, the Inuit language spoken by 70 per cent of residents.
 

taxme

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So is taking and replacing a flier from somebody's front door.

Not exactly the Reichstag fire.

One lefty liberal defending another lefty liberal thief. Way the go, chief. Just who's side are you on anyways? The criminals side? Of course, many liberals are well known for being nothing more than a bunch of thieves. Save the world from thievery. Arrest and jail all liberals. Works for me. (y)
 

Tecumsehsbones

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One lefty liberal defending another lefty liberal thief. Way the go, chief. Just who's side are you on anyways? The criminals side? Of course, many liberals are well known for being nothing more than a bunch of thieves. Save the world from thievery. Arrest and jail all liberals. Works for me. (y)
Not yours, x-meat.
 

spaminator

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Elections Canada: 205,000 mail-in ballots were not counted
Author of the article:postmedia News
Publishing date:Feb 01, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY PATRICK DOYLE /REUTERS
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Elections Canada says more than 200,000 mail-in ballots sent to voters in the last federal election were not counted, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

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Those ballot kits which were late, cancelled, or marked as lost in the mail, totalled 205,000 and were greater than the margin of victory between Liberal and Conservative candidates nationwide — 190,790 votes.

“We are deeply sorry for any elector who was unable to vote on election day,” said Susan Torosian, executive policy director for Elections Canada.

Report On The 44th General Election — tabled in Parliament — shows ballot kits were sent to 1,274,447 electors who asked to vote by mail. Only 1,068,543 were returned and counted.

Of the 205,000 uncounted ballots, 90,000 were “returned late and not counted” and another 114,583 were never returned.

The report also identified other issues.

For example, electors in 274 of 635 First Nation reserves had to drive to another town to cast ballots and Kenora, Ont. didn’t have any election day polling stations in three First Nations communities.

In the riding of Mississauga-Streetsville, 1,589 special ballots from electors were found in a commercial mail room outside the control of a returning officer. Since those ballots weren’t received until after a Sept. 20 deadline, they weren’t counted.

As of Dec. 14, Elections Canada has received 9,410 complaints regarding its conduct during the election.

“The majority of them were related to accessibility, voter experience, long lines and interactions with poll workers, and voting by special ballot,” said the report.
 
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Dixie Cup

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Elections Canada: 205,000 mail-in ballots were not counted
Author of the article:postmedia News
Publishing date:Feb 01, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY PATRICK DOYLE /REUTERS
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Elections Canada says more than 200,000 mail-in ballots sent to voters in the last federal election were not counted, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

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Those ballot kits which were late, cancelled, or marked as lost in the mail, totalled 205,000 and were greater than the margin of victory between Liberal and Conservative candidates nationwide — 190,790 votes.

“We are deeply sorry for any elector who was unable to vote on election day,” said Susan Torosian, executive policy director for Elections Canada.

Report On The 44th General Election — tabled in Parliament — shows ballot kits were sent to 1,274,447 electors who asked to vote by mail. Only 1,068,543 were returned and counted.

Of the 205,000 uncounted ballots, 90,000 were “returned late and not counted” and another 114,583 were never returned.

The report also identified other issues.

For example, electors in 274 of 635 First Nation reserves had to drive to another town to cast ballots and Kenora, Ont. didn’t have any election day polling stations in three First Nations communities.

In the riding of Mississauga-Streetsville, 1,589 special ballots from electors were found in a commercial mail room outside the control of a returning officer. Since those ballots weren’t received until after a Sept. 20 deadline, they weren’t counted.

As of Dec. 14, Elections Canada has received 9,410 complaints regarding its conduct during the election.

“The majority of them were related to accessibility, voter experience, long lines and interactions with poll workers, and voting by special ballot,” said the report.
Nothing like a news headline that is so out of context! Sigh...so what else is new?
 

taxslave

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Elections Canada: 205,000 mail-in ballots were not counted
Author of the article:postmedia News
Publishing date:Feb 01, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
A special ballot officer holds a box of ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY PATRICK DOYLE /REUTERS
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Elections Canada says more than 200,000 mail-in ballots sent to voters in the last federal election were not counted, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

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Those ballot kits which were late, cancelled, or marked as lost in the mail, totalled 205,000 and were greater than the margin of victory between Liberal and Conservative candidates nationwide — 190,790 votes.

“We are deeply sorry for any elector who was unable to vote on election day,” said Susan Torosian, executive policy director for Elections Canada.

Report On The 44th General Election — tabled in Parliament — shows ballot kits were sent to 1,274,447 electors who asked to vote by mail. Only 1,068,543 were returned and counted.

Of the 205,000 uncounted ballots, 90,000 were “returned late and not counted” and another 114,583 were never returned.

The report also identified other issues.

For example, electors in 274 of 635 First Nation reserves had to drive to another town to cast ballots and Kenora, Ont. didn’t have any election day polling stations in three First Nations communities.

In the riding of Mississauga-Streetsville, 1,589 special ballots from electors were found in a commercial mail room outside the control of a returning officer. Since those ballots weren’t received until after a Sept. 20 deadline, they weren’t counted.

As of Dec. 14, Elections Canada has received 9,410 complaints regarding its conduct during the election.

“The majority of them were related to accessibility, voter experience, long lines and interactions with poll workers, and voting by special ballot,” said the report.
We knew the Liberals cheated somehow. So along with general bureaucratic incompetence it looks like government union employees deliberately lost thousands of votes.
 

spaminator

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Chief Electoral Officer calls uncounted mail-in ballots 'unfortunate'
Author of the article:postmedia News
Publishing date:Feb 18, 2022 • 16 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A special ballot officer counts ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sept. 20, 2021.
A special ballot officer counts ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors that were received by mail during the federal election in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY PATRICK DOYLE /Reuters
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Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer says the record number of uncounted mail-in ballots — some 205,000 — in the last federal election was “unfortunate.”

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Stéphane Perreault added that Elections Canada will track those ballot kits, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“Obviously any late ballot is unfortunate,” Perreault told the House affairs committee.

“These are people who wanted to cast a ballot but we were not able to count them. We’ve never had such a large scale vote-by-mail operation. We are looking at every angle to see how it can be improved in the future.”

Mail-in ballot kits were asked for by a record 1.3 million electors in Canada and abroad for the Sept. 20 election and 123,000 kits were shipped on or after Sept. 13, leaving only a week for citizens to return them by mail.

Of the 205,000 uncounted mail-in ballots, 90,000 were “returned late and not counted” and another 114,583 were never returned.

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“The separation within the 114,000 between those who simply chose not to vote and those who chose to vote by another means is something we need to look into,” testified Perreault.

“To do that we have to pry open all of the bags coming back from all the parts of the country. That is a long process. I am confident we will be able to report on that.”

To add insult to injury, the number of 205,000 uncounted mail-in ballot kits was more than the 190,790-vote margin of victory on election day.

“The number that weren’t returned on time, there was a significant number,” Conservative MP Eric Duncan (Stormont-Dundas, Ont.) told the House affairs committee.
 

spaminator

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LILLEY: MPs across the country vote to maintain an unfair electoral system
This shouldn’t be a left vs right thing between parties but a question of right vs wrong.

Author of the article:Brian Lilley
Publishing date:Mar 07, 2022 • 15 hours ago • 3 minute read • 149 Comments
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It seems that the MPs we send to the House of Commons believe that some parts of the country deserve to have a greater say in running the country.

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Faced with a proposal to make the system a bit fairer when it comes to allocating the number of MPs per province, the majority said Quebec should have more say than Ontario, Alberta or British Columbia.

Last week, the Commons voted in favour of a Bloc Quebecois motion which rejected the proposal that Quebec lose a single seat in the House when Elections Canada redistributes seats based on population. The motion also said that any proposal that would “reduce Quebec’s political weight in the House of Commons” be rejected.

It also called for the formula for distributing seats based on population be amended to protect Quebec.

This motion, which says some provinces are more equal than others, passed 261 in favour and 66 against. The only opposition came from 65 Conservative MPs who voted against the motion along with a single Liberal from Ontario, John McKay.

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Every other Liberal, New Democrat, Green and, of course, Bloc member voted for this.

The impetus for the Bloc motion was a proposal from Elections Canada that would see Quebec drop from 78 seats to 77 seats. The proposal would also see Ontario and British Columbia get one extra seat each and Alberta be granted three more seats, but all three provinces would still be underrepresented based on population.

If these provinces were granted the same representation as Quebec based on population, then Ontario would get 134 seats instead of the current 121, British Columbia would have 47 rather than the current 42, and Alberta would have 40 instead of the current 34.

That kind of arrangement was deemed unacceptable to Quebec and to MPs across the country regardless of party affiliation. If you live outside of Quebec and your MP voted for this motion, then you should ask them why voters in Quebec deserve a greater representation than others.

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We’ve been muddying our electoral system for a long time now.

There’s the “Senatorial clause,” which guarantees that no province will have fewer MPs than Senators — hello Prince Edward Island. There’s also the “Grandfather clause,” which grants extra seats to Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Finally, there’s the “Representation rule,” which only benefits Quebec at this point and says that if a province was overrepresented at the last redistribution, they will continue to be overrepresented.

If Quebec were held to the same rules as Ontario, the province would have 71 seats at best rather than the current 78 or the proposed 77. What is shocking is that 103 MPs from Ontario, mostly Liberal but also New Democrats and some Conservatives, voted in favour of this unfairness.

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Who votes against their own people?

Some 48 MPs from Western provinces voted in favour of this perversion of democracy including 33 MPs from B.C., 10 from Manitoba, four from Alberta, and one from Saskatchewan.

You can’t even find a coherent reason for voting for the move among Conservative MPs. Current party leader Candice Bergen, a Manitoba MP, voted in favour as did former leader Erin O’Toole of Ontario.

Beyond that, there were supporters of leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre voting for and against the motion, though Poilievre himself was absent. There were so-cons voting for and others, the so-called Red Tories like Michael Chong, voting against the motion.

This shouldn’t be a left vs right thing between parties, nor should it be a fight within parties between different factions. This should be a question of right vs wrong.

Granting such special privileges to Quebec is effectively telling voters in the rest of the country that they don’t matter as much. If MPs in provinces outside of Quebec feel that way, then they should clearly say so to voters in the next election.

blilley@postmedia.com
 
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spaminator

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Toronto MP Kevin Vuong co-operating with Navy over charge; yet to decide on court martial
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Marie Woolf
Publishing date:Mar 11, 2022 • 12 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
MP Kevin Vuong says he will sit as an independent MP after winning his seat in Spadina — Fort York.
MP Kevin Vuong says he will sit as an independent MP after winning his seat in Spadina — Fort York. PHOTO BY BRYAN PASSIFIUME /Toronto Sun
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OTTAWA — Independent MP Kevin Vuong says he is co-operating fully with the Royal Canadian Navy, which has charged him for failing to disclose he was charged with sexual assault in 2019.

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The sexual assault charge was later dropped and Vuong denies wrongdoing, but as a reservist he was supposed to tell his commanding officer about the charge.

The Navy says the MP has not decided whether to face a court martial or a summary trial, which is less formal and designed to deal with relatively minor offences in the service.

Vuong says he has been aware for months that charges may be brought and he has been co-operating with the inquiry through his lawyer.

Vuong was dropped as the Liberal candidate for Spadina-Fort York last year after it emerged he had not told the party he had previously been charged with sexual assault.

He was, however, elected in the Toronto riding and now sits as an Independent MP.

Vuong is a naval reservist and holds the rank of sub-lieutenant. He wore his white naval dress uniform when he met the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2017 to accept a leadership award.
 
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spaminator

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Liberal promise to explore three-day polling day took Elections Canada by surprise
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Marie Woolf
Publishing date:Mar 27, 2022 • 8 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation
An Elections Canada vote sign is seen at the University of Alberta during the 2021 Federal Election in Edmonton, on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
An Elections Canada vote sign is seen at the University of Alberta during the 2021 Federal Election in Edmonton, on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. PHOTO BY IAN KUCERAK /Postmedia
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OTTAWA — The body in charge of administering Canada’s elections was taken by surprise by an announcement that there could be major reforms coming to the way people vote, including a three-day-long polling day.

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The Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement, in details revealed on Tuesday, said the government would work with Elections Canada to explore ways to make it easier for people to vote, including possibly extending election day to three days.

It comes just weeks before Stephane Perrault, the chief electoral officer, is poised to present a detailed report on the 2021 election to Parliament, with recommendations for improvements in the future.

The text of the Liberal-NDP accord also said the government would explore improvements to the way mail-in ballots are processed, and consider allowing people to vote at any polling station in their riding.

At the last election, some voters complained their mail-in votes were not counted because they did not arrive on time or were lost.

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Elections Canada said in a statement it “had no prior knowledge of the Liberal party and New Democratic Party commitments related to the agency’s mandate.”

Perrault, who is in charge of administering Canada’s elections, has been busy preparing his own recommendations for improvements.

“For any future changes to the (Elections) Act, it will be important to take time to properly consider their potential implications for the administration of future elections,” said Matthew McKenna, a spokesman for Elections Canada. “The (chief electoral officer) would look forward to discussing those possible changes with parliamentarians, and sharing his expertise about the administration of federal elections.”

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NDP MP Blake Desjarlais, who won his Edmonton seat from the Tories after working hard to boost voter turnout in the riding, said three-day polling would benefit many voters, including working-class people with multiple jobs who might find it hard to carve out time to vote.

He said expanded polling is “appropriate considering how large our country is,” adding that many Canadians fly to get to work and might not be home on a single polling day.

“We have seen apathy at an all-time high,” he added. “We need to combat apathy in this country and restore trust in our democratic institutions.”

In October 2020 Perrault gave evidence to a Commons committee about extending voting days in a pandemic election.

He told MPs that an entire weekend could be devoted to voting, but said it would be tricky to find large numbers of people to staff polling stations on Monday as well. He also said that some polling stations might not be available on Monday.

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“Let’s say we have access to a school in a certain area over the weekend. We will not be able to use it on Monday and will not be able to continue voting,” he told the Commons procedure committee.

The chief electoral officer also suggested that advance voting could be held on the Thursday and Friday before an election weekend, so there are two days of advance voting during the week.

Perrault’s report to parliament on the most recent election is expected to contain proposals to stop hate groups from getting tax breaks and lists of voters’ names and addresses by registering as political parties.

The safeguards would make it harder for extremists to gain access to benefits, including broadcast time, designed for political parties.

Recommendations on making it easier for Indigenous voters to vote — after it emerged that some First Nations did not have access to polling stations on election day — will be included in a separate Elections Canada report.
 

Ron in Regina

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It came upon us rather suddenly, but all things considered, it was surely no surprise. I refer to the joyous political nuptials of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who are still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship.

When the coalition — a word of some distaste to the parties that have publicly … what is the word … convened (Liberals are unsurpassed conveners) — came together and the parties put their fortunes and futures in each other’s hands, there was originally some curiosity about what it all meant. But surely that was obvious.

It gave both leaders a path to “correct” the results of Trudeau’s COVID election. It is now known that when the strategy wizards in the Prime Minister’s Office first suggested the idea of this grossly premature election, the auguries consulted gave promise of a majority government.

 
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spaminator

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Almost 100,000 mail ballots in federal election not counted, most arrived late
Elections Canada says there was an 82 per cent increase in the number of mail-in ballots at last year's general election, which took place during the pandemic, compared to the 2019 poll.

Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:Jun 22, 2022 • 15 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation

OTTAWA — A report published today by Elections Canada says almost 100,000 mail-in ballots were not counted in the federal election, most because they arrived after the deadline.


The body that administers Canada’s elections says 99,988 special ballots were set aside and not counted.

They include postal votes sent by Canadian expats living overseas, people living in Canada but away from their home and members of the Armed Forces.

Elections Canada says there was an 82 per cent increase in the number of mail-in ballots at last year’s general election, which took place during the pandemic, compared to the 2019 poll.

It says more than 1.1 million special ballots were received, a record number, but many arrived late, with others set aside because they were not filled in properly or signed, while a few people tried to vote twice.

Canada’s chief electoral officer Stephane Perrault recommended this month that Parliament extend the period for registering for a special ballot to make it easier to vote by mail.
 
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Dixie Cup

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As long as they don't allow voting by mail for people residing in their particular constituencies I'm fine with the extension but would rather have another way of voting for those outside of the country. Mail in ballots are too easily lost, the timing can affect it's receipt (as in this case) and it's easier to cheat. Other than that, I don't have an opinion. ;)
 

spaminator

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Beijing may have tried to discourage Canadians from voting Conservative: Federal unit
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jim Bronskill
Publishing date:Jun 23, 2022 • 15 hours ago • 5 minute read • 66 Comments

OTTAWA — A federal research unit detected what might be a Chinese Communist Party information operation that aimed to discourage Canadians of Chinese heritage from voting for the Conservatives in the last federal election.


The Sept. 13, 2021, analysis by Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, which tracks foreign interference, says researchers observed Communist party media accounts on Chinese social media platform Douyin widely sharing a narrative that the Conservatives would all but sever diplomatic relations with Beijing.

The report, obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act, was prepared just a week before Canadians went to the polls.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals emerged from the Sept. 20 national ballot with a renewed minority mandate, while the Conservatives, led by Erin O’Toole, formed the official Opposition.

O’Toole, who is no longer leader, claimed on a podcast recorded this month that the Conservatives lost eight or nine seats to foreign interference from China.


Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, based at Global Affairs Canada, produces open data analysis to chart trends, strategies and tactics in foreign interference.

Its work supports the G7 RRM, an initiative to strengthen co-ordination to identify and respond to threats to the major industrial democracies.

The analysis of messaging about the Conservative party was part of RRM Canada’s effort to monitor the digital information environment for signs of foreign state-sponsored information manipulation in the general election.

Conservative MP Michael Chong, the party’s foreign affairs critic, said in an interview the analysis is “another piece of evidence that the Communist leadership in Beijing interfered in the last general election by spreading disinformation.”


Asked to comment on the analysis, the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa said: “China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”


RRM Canada says it manually reviewed Chinese social media platforms including WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, Xigua and Bilibili, and conducted open-source forensic digital analysis using website archives, social listening tools, and cross-platform social media ranking tools.

The analysts first noticed the narrative about the Conservatives in two articles published Sept. 8 by the Global Times, a state-owned media tabloid.

RRM Canada believes the Global Times coverage was prompted by a story in the Ottawa-based Hill Times newspaper that examined Canadian parties’ positions on Canada-China relations. The analysis says it is likely that the Global Times was the first Chinese publication to pick up on the Ottawa publication’s content, with its two articles getting over 100,000 page views apiece.


RRM Canada notes the timing coincided with the first federal leaders’ debate and increasingly close poll numbers. Similar pieces published by major Canadian media outlets earlier in September, as well as the Conservative party platform released in August, elicited no response from state-controlled media in China, the analysis says.

Several popular Canada-focused WeChat news accounts began engaging with the Global Times narrative on Sept. 9, copying the content and form without crediting the publication, “obscuring the narrative’s point of origin,” the analysts found.

Accounts also added commentary about the Tories to the articles, such as “Chinese are frightened by the platform,” and questioned whether “Chinese compatriots should support the Conservatives if they use this rhetoric.”


“Unless otherwise credited, WeChat users would not know that the narrative about the Conservatives and O’Toole originated from the Global Times and would assume the articles were original reporting from the Canadian WeChat accounts.”

Many WeChat news accounts that serve Canadians are registered to people in China and despite being well-established news sources, “some may have unclear links” to Chinese Communist Party media groups, the analysis says.

The researchers were “unable to determine whether there is co-ordination between the CCP media that originally promoted the narrative and the popular WeChat news accounts that service Chinese-speaking Canadians that are now amplifying the narrative,” the Sept. 13 analysis cautions.


“RRM Canada is also unable to determine whether there was inauthentic activity that boosted user engagement with the narrative as Chinese social media platforms are completely non-transparent.”

However, Communist party media accounts on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, published videos that repeated a Sept. 8 Global Times headline, the analysis says. For instance, the Douyin account of Xinhua, China’s state press agency, shared a video saying the Conservative platform mentions China “31 times” and that an “expert” says the party “almost wants to break diplomatic relations with China.”

Among the Conservative platform planks in the election campaign were promises to stand up to Beijing on human rights issues, diversify supply chains to move them away from China, adopt a presumption against allowing Beijing’s state-owned entities to take over Canadian companies, and work toward less global reliance on critical minerals from China.


Chong says it’s clear that proxies were spreading disinformation on behalf of Beijing in the federal election.

“It’s hard to measure whether that was the reason for the loss of some Conservative MPs. But I think we can safely say that it was a contributing factor.”

If Beijing comes to the same conclusion, China “may very well be emboldened to do something much bigger in a future federal election, undermining our democratic process,” Chong said.

Under a federal protocol, there would be a public announcement if a panel of senior bureaucrats determined that an incident — or an accumulation of incidents — threatened Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election. There was no such announcement last year.

Speaking to reporters Thursday in Kigali, Rwanda, Trudeau said Canada had taken “significant steps” toward countering foreign interference in elections, citing a need to trust the institutions that monitor the process. “Countries around the world look to Canada’s institutions as models and examples for how they can strengthen their own democracies.”


At a House of Commons committee meeting early this month, Bill Blair, public safety minister during the election campaign, said while “we’ve all heard anecdotes and various opinions,” he had not directly received “any information from our intelligence services” that provided evidence of foreign interference in the campaign.

Deputy minister Rob Stewart told the meeting there were, “as you would expect,” activities on social media that would constitute disinformation and attempts to influence votes. “There was no threat to the overall integrity of the election.”

The Canadian Election Misinformation Project, which brought together several academic researchers, found Chinese officials and state media commented on the election with an apparent aim to convince Canadians of Chinese origin to vote against the Conservative party in 2021.


“Misleading information and information critical of certain candidates circulated on Chinese-language social media platforms. However, we find no evidence that Chinese interference had a significant impact on the overall election.”

The Conservatives “could have done a better job” of countering such messaging, Chong said. “Clearly we didn’t, and that’s a lesson learned.”

Even so, the federal government needs to actively counter foreign disinformation between election campaigns, Chong said. During campaigns, the government should make analyses from the Rapid Response Mechanism immediately available to inform the public, he added.

Fen Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University who closely watches China, agrees that more transparency would be beneficial.

He argues for broadening the analytical process, perhaps through creation of a centre that includes non-governmental players, gathers information from various sources and regularly publishes reports about apparent foreign interference.

“That takes it out of the domestic political arena, which is always going to be highly charged.”
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Round#4? Honestly, truthfully — election talk is starting up again in Ottawa. As in, a federal election. As in, commencing in the month of November

We know, we know. It makes no sense. Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh did their Axis of Weasels deal in a smoke-free backroom, and agreed no election for another three years, give or take.