With the loaded pistol in his hand, he felt the events of the previous year sweeping over him, flooding him with grief. Named and shamed — in his estimation — by his own party as the culprit in the notorious 2011 election robocalls scandal, named in court documents, his religious beliefs shaken, abandoned by people he thought were his friends. Unemployed, disgraced and alone.
“One minute it was, ‘I can’t do this’, and then I felt within myself a tidal wave of everything I was dealing with and it changed to, ‘I must do this,'” he recalled.
“People say it’s the easy way out. But it’s never easy and sometimes it’s the only way out. I didn’t think about it. I cocked the hammer back, put the .45 to my head, and pulled the trigger.
“This wasn’t a cry-for-help moment. This was an ‘I want it to be over’ moment.”
Instead of oblivion, Sona found himself drifting — but conscious. Time seemed to be operating differently, but he was still here on earth, very much alive. How could that be?
His accidental survival notwithstanding, Sona has no doubts about the reasons he had for squatting in a bathtub with a loaded gun pressed to his temple, with most of his life still unlived.
It was all related to the case. I was emotionally broken. False reports from Elections Canada that had to be corrected by them. I never called anyone to ask how I could make misleading phone calls. You get to a point where you can’t go any further. It’s one thing if you push yourself to that point, but it’s another if someone else does the pushing.”
Sona was by then — and remains to this day — the first and only person to be convicted in the robocalls scandal, the scheme which saw some 6,700 automated phone calls placed on the morning of the 2011 federal election — largely to voters in Guelph, Ont. — wrongly telling them that their polling station had been moved to another location.
“Working in politics is not something I’m looking to do,” Sona said. “Being a machinist is fine with me.”
Looking back, Sona remains “hugely shocked” that the judge in his case “completely ignored everything that we said.
“We didn’t (call witnesses) because we thought we won. (Norm) Boxall (Sona’s trial lawyer) played it smart. He did everything he could. Norm even looked in on my family when I was inside.”
The judge acknowledged points made by the defence on cross-examination, and ripped into the Crown’s star witness, Andrew Prescott, describing him as self-serving and non-credible. But in finding Sona guilty, the judge said that Sona had convicted himself through what witnesses claimed he told them about his part in the crime.
Sona remains disconsolate about the fact that he has spent most of his twenties entangled in the still-unresolved events of the robocalls scandal. He says he doubts that the matter will ever end in justice without a public inquiry (though he does appear in Peter Smoczynski’s smashing film-in-progress about the robocalls affair, telling his side of the story).
“How is it possible that any investigation into what happened in Guelph did not include an investigation of CPC Headquarters staff?” Sona asked. “It’s the same with the Duffy story. How could there be an investigation into him taking place without an investigation of the PMO?”
“I see the way guys were treated who were supposed to be on the same team. There was no loyalty, no honour. I had to lay low, they said, I was toxic. Other people were allowed to continue, the ones higher up the food chain.
“Yeah, I feel betrayed.
https://ipolitics.ca/2016/05/17/im-...ocalls-his-suicide-attempt-and-the-road-back/
“One minute it was, ‘I can’t do this’, and then I felt within myself a tidal wave of everything I was dealing with and it changed to, ‘I must do this,'” he recalled.
“People say it’s the easy way out. But it’s never easy and sometimes it’s the only way out. I didn’t think about it. I cocked the hammer back, put the .45 to my head, and pulled the trigger.
“This wasn’t a cry-for-help moment. This was an ‘I want it to be over’ moment.”
Instead of oblivion, Sona found himself drifting — but conscious. Time seemed to be operating differently, but he was still here on earth, very much alive. How could that be?
His accidental survival notwithstanding, Sona has no doubts about the reasons he had for squatting in a bathtub with a loaded gun pressed to his temple, with most of his life still unlived.
It was all related to the case. I was emotionally broken. False reports from Elections Canada that had to be corrected by them. I never called anyone to ask how I could make misleading phone calls. You get to a point where you can’t go any further. It’s one thing if you push yourself to that point, but it’s another if someone else does the pushing.”
Sona was by then — and remains to this day — the first and only person to be convicted in the robocalls scandal, the scheme which saw some 6,700 automated phone calls placed on the morning of the 2011 federal election — largely to voters in Guelph, Ont. — wrongly telling them that their polling station had been moved to another location.
“Working in politics is not something I’m looking to do,” Sona said. “Being a machinist is fine with me.”
Looking back, Sona remains “hugely shocked” that the judge in his case “completely ignored everything that we said.
“We didn’t (call witnesses) because we thought we won. (Norm) Boxall (Sona’s trial lawyer) played it smart. He did everything he could. Norm even looked in on my family when I was inside.”
The judge acknowledged points made by the defence on cross-examination, and ripped into the Crown’s star witness, Andrew Prescott, describing him as self-serving and non-credible. But in finding Sona guilty, the judge said that Sona had convicted himself through what witnesses claimed he told them about his part in the crime.
Sona remains disconsolate about the fact that he has spent most of his twenties entangled in the still-unresolved events of the robocalls scandal. He says he doubts that the matter will ever end in justice without a public inquiry (though he does appear in Peter Smoczynski’s smashing film-in-progress about the robocalls affair, telling his side of the story).
“How is it possible that any investigation into what happened in Guelph did not include an investigation of CPC Headquarters staff?” Sona asked. “It’s the same with the Duffy story. How could there be an investigation into him taking place without an investigation of the PMO?”
“I see the way guys were treated who were supposed to be on the same team. There was no loyalty, no honour. I had to lay low, they said, I was toxic. Other people were allowed to continue, the ones higher up the food chain.
“Yeah, I feel betrayed.
https://ipolitics.ca/2016/05/17/im-...ocalls-his-suicide-attempt-and-the-road-back/
