Conservative 'Robocalls' tricked voters in last election
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
I like the idea that the Conservatives don't need to release their records, 'because they've done nothing wrong', yet every 'law and order' type bill they present is trying to allow the government access to all of our activity and information because, 'if you're not guilty, you have nothing to hide'.
Funny how it only works in one direction.
If the Conservatives are not guilty, they have nothing to hide, and therefore should release their records.
That would be the case if they had any ethics, but I haven't seen any member of cabinet that falls into that category. They make Mulroney's crowd look honest.
Funny how it only works in one direction.
If the Conservatives are not guilty, they have nothing to hide, and therefore should release their records.
That would be the case if they had any ethics, but I haven't seen any member of cabinet that falls into that category. They make Mulroney's crowd look honest.
As I mentioned this story has legs - regardless of Polls -
It appears more stink just surfaced like a dead rotting fish.
Robocall company payments not declared by the Tories, can't explain why | News | National Post
OTTAWA — Elections Canada investigators probing the robocalls scandal are interviewing workers on the Conservative campaign in Guelph, Ont., and trying to determine why payments made to an Edmonton voice-broadcasting company were not declared in financial reports filed with the agency.
In recent days, the agency has spoken to at least three workers from the campaign of Conservative candidate Marty Burke, including the official agent responsible for ensuring the campaign’s financial report was accurate.
Elections Canada wants to know why the costs of automated calls the campaign has admitted sending out never appeared in the campaign’s expense report, as required by law.
Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager, said he is co-operating with the investigation and handing over bills he received from RackNine Inc. for a series of robocalls promoting Burke events during the election.
The same company was used to transmit misleading Elections Canada calls on election day.
Meanwhile, Elections Canada is also investigating records at PayPal, an online payment and money transfer service, the Globe and Mail has reported, and is using a court order to ask the company to hand over information as a part of the Guelph investigation.
Burke’s unsuccessful campaign against Liberal incumbent Frank Valeriote was managed by Ken Morgan, a former candidate for city council in Guelph. Burke has not spoken publicly since the robocalls controversy and has not responded to emails requesting comment. Postmedia was unable to reach Morgan.
It is unclear why the Burke campaign did not report the costs Prescott said he submitted. Failing to declare campaign expenses is a breach of the Elections Act.
The detailed expense claims submitted to the Burke campaign included receipts for everything from local advertising costs, gasoline and pizza for campaign workers. But the Burke campaign’s accountant, Abdul-Qayum Ali, said he never received any invoices for RackNine.
Harper and Company are doing everything possible to show that the Mulroney crowd were honest and ethical.
All we need now is a party insider found dead in a motel room.
All we need now is a party insider found dead in a motel room.
Lust for scandal
Consensus media can’t turn Robocalls into Watergate
Good Lord, it’s the most repugnant and shocking political scandal since Louis-Napoleon carried out his coup in 1851, and President Nixon made a vicarious visit to Watergate.
Yes, a few low-ranking Tories totally unknown to anybody around the prime minister may or may not have made some phone calls to potential Liberal voters giving them false directions for polling booths. And presumably those voters were so stupid, old or physically handicapped that they could not find the real place to vote, and just span around in sad confusion for hours on end.
Seriously, it defies belief. Not that it may have happened, but that the consensus media is pretending this is particularly important. Politics is a dirty business and nobody knows this better than politicians and journalists, yet these are the very two groups being most dishonest about the whole thing.
Let’s give some context and history here. A leading Liberal MP once said in the House of Commons that because of the rise of the Reform Party, there were Klan-like crosses burning all over Canada. It was an utter lie.
Stockwell Day, one of the kindest, cleanest and most pro-Jewish men you could meet, was accused of being a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite. Tory candidates who dared to suggest that marriage was the union of one man and one woman were targeted by the media as being hateful of gays and wanting to make homosexuality illegal.
In this, some of the same journalists currently attacking the Conservatives over the so-called Robocalls scandal were taking their information directly from a radical group called EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, and even telephoning them to find out which Tory to attack.
Conservative politicians have been called racists, Islamophobes, fascists, homophobes and anti-Semites. Their private lives have been invaded, their families have been abused, their motives questioned, and their characters trashed. Again, by some of the same politicians and journalists now so ostensibly upset and hurt by the possibility of a few silly phone calls.
It may also be that former substitute drama teacher Justin Trudeau was involved in the Vikileaks scandal to a degree that demands intense investigation. Now this is genuinely serious. A minister of the Crown, Vic Toews, was personally attacked, his and his family’s private life exposed, because of the nastiness and thuggery of a paid Liberal staffer, who has since been forced to resign.
Toews, in a series of Twitter posts this week, questioned what Trudeau did to stop the personal attack and suggested the Liberal MP “discovered Vikileaks quickly for an innocent bystander.”
While Bob Rae was sincere if pompous in his apology, little Justin has some explaining to do, perhaps at an official level. But this is nothing compared to the regular physical intimidation conservative politicians and activists have to face as they campaign. Labour union heavies, leftist fanatics and student radicals have all occupied offices, shouted down Tory opponents and prevented free speech. When has a Liberal or New Democrat faced such harassment?
So please, in the name of integrity and sheer common sense, the political class and the consensus media must stop this painfully dishonest campaign and the pretend pain and shock. It doesn’t convince anyone at all, and it lowers even further the status of Canadian politics and the reputation of those who are supposed to know better.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/02/lust-for-scandal
Consensus media can’t turn Robocalls into Watergate
Good Lord, it’s the most repugnant and shocking political scandal since Louis-Napoleon carried out his coup in 1851, and President Nixon made a vicarious visit to Watergate.
Yes, a few low-ranking Tories totally unknown to anybody around the prime minister may or may not have made some phone calls to potential Liberal voters giving them false directions for polling booths. And presumably those voters were so stupid, old or physically handicapped that they could not find the real place to vote, and just span around in sad confusion for hours on end.
Seriously, it defies belief. Not that it may have happened, but that the consensus media is pretending this is particularly important. Politics is a dirty business and nobody knows this better than politicians and journalists, yet these are the very two groups being most dishonest about the whole thing.
Let’s give some context and history here. A leading Liberal MP once said in the House of Commons that because of the rise of the Reform Party, there were Klan-like crosses burning all over Canada. It was an utter lie.
Stockwell Day, one of the kindest, cleanest and most pro-Jewish men you could meet, was accused of being a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite. Tory candidates who dared to suggest that marriage was the union of one man and one woman were targeted by the media as being hateful of gays and wanting to make homosexuality illegal.
In this, some of the same journalists currently attacking the Conservatives over the so-called Robocalls scandal were taking their information directly from a radical group called EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, and even telephoning them to find out which Tory to attack.
Conservative politicians have been called racists, Islamophobes, fascists, homophobes and anti-Semites. Their private lives have been invaded, their families have been abused, their motives questioned, and their characters trashed. Again, by some of the same politicians and journalists now so ostensibly upset and hurt by the possibility of a few silly phone calls.
It may also be that former substitute drama teacher Justin Trudeau was involved in the Vikileaks scandal to a degree that demands intense investigation. Now this is genuinely serious. A minister of the Crown, Vic Toews, was personally attacked, his and his family’s private life exposed, because of the nastiness and thuggery of a paid Liberal staffer, who has since been forced to resign.
Toews, in a series of Twitter posts this week, questioned what Trudeau did to stop the personal attack and suggested the Liberal MP “discovered Vikileaks quickly for an innocent bystander.”
While Bob Rae was sincere if pompous in his apology, little Justin has some explaining to do, perhaps at an official level. But this is nothing compared to the regular physical intimidation conservative politicians and activists have to face as they campaign. Labour union heavies, leftist fanatics and student radicals have all occupied offices, shouted down Tory opponents and prevented free speech. When has a Liberal or New Democrat faced such harassment?
So please, in the name of integrity and sheer common sense, the political class and the consensus media must stop this painfully dishonest campaign and the pretend pain and shock. It doesn’t convince anyone at all, and it lowers even further the status of Canadian politics and the reputation of those who are supposed to know better.
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/02/lust-for-scandal
More and more the Conservatives are behaving like a party that is guilty of something
I think its time to have all release their phone records. I know a few people who got
calls. I think they never thought it would become a big deal but today we are dealing
with the new social media realm and the chickens come home pretty fast when the issue
appears on radar as it were. I would suggest that Elections Canada better deal with this
and soon, An inquiry is in order and if some are found guilty the punishment should be
by-elections in the riding where the offences took place and example must be set for the
fairness of future elections. It is also most important that all parties conform to the spirit
and the letter of the law.
I think its time to have all release their phone records. I know a few people who got
calls. I think they never thought it would become a big deal but today we are dealing
with the new social media realm and the chickens come home pretty fast when the issue
appears on radar as it were. I would suggest that Elections Canada better deal with this
and soon, An inquiry is in order and if some are found guilty the punishment should be
by-elections in the riding where the offences took place and example must be set for the
fairness of future elections. It is also most important that all parties conform to the spirit
and the letter of the law.
Bear,you should have del mastros job,you make about as much sense,if you don't think this is important,you'er just the kind of sheep steve is looking for
Bear - Mentalfloss is using the National Post vice the Globe and Sun and now you are using the Sun.:smile:
Can someone please help me understand, please.:smile:
I didn't write it. I just offered an Op/Ed piece that I found interesting, for perusal.
There aren't enough facts, nor evidence, on the table, for me to decide whether I believe the CPC is culpable in this.
I'm not using the Sun. I posted an Op/Ed piece I found interesting. I posted an article from the Star the other day. For the same reason.
Fair enough.
I just read this interesting Op/Ed about the Usual Suspects...
Anti-Harper crowd chase their tails
Once again, the anti-Harper crowd -- the opposition, the left-wing media in the Ottawa bubble -- are off chasing the latest shiny ball, hoping this one has more substance than glitter.
They love chasing shiny balls.
Their hatred of the Harper conservatives have had them chasing the insult of prorogation, the death of the long-form census, the so-called in-and-out scandal, the treatment of Afghan detainees, et cetera.
They might as well have been chasing their tails since Canadians obviously paid them no heed.
While no one in that anti-Harper, inside-Ottawa crowd knows anyone who voted for Harper, he was nonetheless somehow able to pull off an comfortable majority in the last election.
Must have been that latest shiny ball, his critics cry.
Must have been those robocalls.
Oh. My. God.
The election must be a fraud.
These are all media-led campaigns, of course. Neither the Liberals or the NDP have the brains to lead, so they follow the scent that the consensus media leaves as a slick.
It is getting them nowhere.
The latest Nanos poll, for example, which is post-robocall, shows national support for the Tories is still rock solid with a 35.7% approval rating, compared to 29.5% for the Liberals and 25% for the NDP.
The reason, of course, is that Canadians don't care what happens in the Ottawa bubble. They couldn't care less about the daily bullroaring in the House of Commons, or the latest shiny ball the parliamentary press gallery is chasing in its anti-Harper obsession.
Instead, Canadians care about the economy. They care about their jobs, their mortgage and their families.
They care what Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will do for them, or to them, in the March 29 budget.
They care about old age pensions -- one left-wing narrative which Harper's critics have given a bye.
Why? Too complex?
Over the weekend, Tory election campaign chairman, Guy Giorno, denied taking part in the robocall scandal, stating that suppressing a vote through robocalling was a "despicable, reprehensible practice," and that he would have known if there was a dirty trickster working under him.
He therefore had no qualms about Elections Canada's investigation.
Shiny balls are shiny balls.
Attractive yes, but hollow.
I wonder if Gomery would accept another request to delve into the muck of Canadian politics? That's what is needed. It wouldn't interfere with the RCMP and Elections Canada investigations, nor would there be any conclusions of criminal guilt. The only roadblock I think is that Harper doesn't seem to have anyone nipping at his heels for the job at the helm of the Conservative Party ship. An investigation would keep this in the public eye for some time, and that would not benefit the Conservatives.
It is really sad that the Conservatives are playing coy about this and not willing to produce their calls publicly, as the NDP and Liberals offered. It says to the public, they have something to hide..
It's now also come to light that they made payments to Racknine that they did not log, under the table.
It really sucks as the Liberal nor NDP will push for a stronger military presence in the Artic of Canada to defend our sovereignty. Also, we have one of the strongest economy's in the world, because of the Oil Sands, I am afraid if the Liberals or NDP get into power, they energy edge may be in jeopardy.
I wish the Conservatives would get their ducks in a row, point fingers and have someone fall on the sword already and bring this issue to a close..
I mean Robocall and Bill C-30 please, wtf. Haper, put the leash back on your dogs and lets get back to business.
It's now also come to light that they made payments to Racknine that they did not log, under the table.
It really sucks as the Liberal nor NDP will push for a stronger military presence in the Artic of Canada to defend our sovereignty. Also, we have one of the strongest economy's in the world, because of the Oil Sands, I am afraid if the Liberals or NDP get into power, they energy edge may be in jeopardy.
I wish the Conservatives would get their ducks in a row, point fingers and have someone fall on the sword already and bring this issue to a close..
I mean Robocall and Bill C-30 please, wtf. Haper, put the leash back on your dogs and lets get back to business.
Not necessarily, but I would like for them to make those records public.
It has? Can you expand on that or pass along a link.
