I know it’s going to be a rough week for the Conservatives, when there are election-levels of traffic coming to my blog for political information. I don’t know when I’ve had so many hundreds come through liblogs.ca, of all places, to my site. And that’s on the weekend! Canadians don’t care about politics on weekends outside of elections… or major scandals. What’s the scandal? Is it Vic Toews peeping at your ISP details? Vikileaks? Is it Poilievre driving through a Parliament checkpoint, vehicle unchecked? Nope, it’s the big one:
Where some mysterious figure(s) named Pierre Poutine, with apparently the Conservative’s voter information database at their disposal, caught calling thousands (to tens or hundreds of thousands) of Canadians with illegal, fraudulent details of moving election polls on May 2, 2011.
Read the following in the context of Jean Chretien, and Adscam:
At worst, he personally ordered it done and chose the people who executed the plan. At the very least, he fostered an attitude within the party […], chose the managers of the people who committed these crimes and completely and utterly failed to exercise any oversight, supervision or leadership.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter where [his] actions or lack of them fall on that scale. He is the leader and a leader is responsible for the actions of the people he leads.
If he had a right or honourable bone in his body, he’d admit that and resign immediately.
But what do we get?
Stephen Harper first claiming the Liberals did it and finally, if not in so many words, saying “Prove it, copper!”
Oh yeah, it’s not about Adscam, it’s about RoboCon. It could have been written about Adscam and Chretien by a Progressive Conservative, or a Reformer a decade ago. So, why is Harper getting a free pass from many True Blue Believers right now, when the Conservatives came to power on a supposed wave to sweep away Liberal staleness and corruption?
While taking Stephen Harper out to the woodshed wouldn’t do much to fix Canada’s democracy, the Green Party (smugly?) points out that Proportional Representation as an electoral system would have prevented this sort of nickel-and-diming voter suppression that the Conservatives are being linked to.
This other Woodshed is worth taking yourself to, however. The Rev explains exactly what is going on, and why Harper’s been rebuffed and refuted for his initial claims of non-involvement with Robocalls. As with Nixon (or Chretien for Adscam, to throw my more conservative readers a doggy biscuit), he’ll probably stay out of jail, but his reputation is forever tarnished. He wrote the blockquote above that I got you to read in a different context so you could easily see that he’s perfectly right.
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Hat tip to Edstock at TGB
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And it’s easy to lose sight of all of the other scummy things going on in government, while the scummiest story’s bubbles start to pop and settle a little. How can we shift focus to those other events, without steering our 1-track-mind-media away from the bigger problem?
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
Well I’m amazed. This insignificant Robo-call thing has become some kind of national scandal. It isn’t a scandal where I live, no one cares one bit here. But it seems to have become a scandal in Ottawa or perhaps Ontario.
For Canadian journalism, if its considered a scandal in Ontario then it must be a scandal in all of Canada.
Ontario is the true Canada after all.
Is this a scandal in Sask-Land too, Saskboy?
Yes Klem, it is. I do have to concede that a lot of Canadians are not yet aware of the illegal robocalls, but when the implications of them are explained, they get pretty angry at whoever conducted them. It’s certainly not an Ontario-only scandal, but as you say, it’s getting the focus because that’s where big-media is based out of. B.C has a lot of ridings in question now, and Lunn’s former seat was targeted in 2008 even it’s come to light.
And I take major exception to the claim that the scandal isn’t significant. Our democratic reputation is RUINED in the world. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of Canada’s reputation being flushed by some criminal cheats who supported the Conservatives. Don’t call our democracy and reputation “insignificant” again, please. I’m Canadian, so I said please, but I’m not smiling when I write it.
“Our democratic reputation is RUINED in the world.”
That’s a bit much. Look, this so called scandal hasn’t even been fully recognized in many other parts of Canada yet, I can guarentee you that almost no one anywhere else in the world has even heard about it. Our reputation is fine.
I have to give you credit for remaining consistently wrong, even in the face of easy to obtain evidence to the contrary of your position. Most people would have killed their soul by now to do that.
If it’s not a scandal where you live, it ought to be. Cheating is always wrong.
I’ve known many of the Harper crowd since the 80s at the U of C. They were “the ends justifies the means” types back then and they still are today. There is no moral high ground when you lie, cheat and steal. They are motivated by a visceral hatred of Liberals, Canada, government and and an extreme aversion to non-political jobs—most of the Harper cabal are career politicians or political hacks who’ve never held a real job yet they don’t for a moment think of how hypocritical they really are. Don’t do as I do. Do as I say.
I agree CuJoYYC. I do feel bad for the honest Conservative voters who felt they were doing Canada and themselves a service by sweeping out the Liberals (or Lieberals as Klem possibly calls them), but the sympathy has to stop when their actions have actively put people into power who are benefactors of (as of yet uncaptured) election criminals. We recently spent $5M in Haiti to stop these sort of crimes!
Why isn’t “WANTED Pierre Poutine REWARD $5M” on every milk carton and government website?
Well the news media is trying their damnedest to make it a scandal where I live, but no one seems to care as far as I can tell.
If the Liberals or NDP had been accused of this Robo-call thingy, still no one would care. Its’ just not sticking here, its getting no traction.
You haven’t been reading enough of the Glop and Pail then, where Ibbitson made a fool of himself recently kissing the boots of Giorno.
That’s this guy:
Hey Duffus….you better turn down the volume a bit and stop DIRECTLY blaming the Conservative party for this Robocall deal or you might end up in the same courtroom with that airhead Pat Martin. (I might ad that it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, I dearly hope and pray that they stick it up his ass and break it off)
When Elections Canada can complete their due diligence and PROVE the Conservatives were behind this then you can blow your brains out….but….until that happens you should use better judgement….you are starting to sound like Leftdog…and you don’t want a reputation like that.
You should know that your comments are being noted and I don’t think your pockets are deep enough to play with the big dogs !!
So Mr. Holmes cool your jets or you’ll end up with shit on your face Sherlock !!
If the guilty parties who supported the Conservatives are foolish enough to sue a little old blogger from Regina who hasn’t named anyone in particular as ordering RoboCon, then they’ll only draw more attention to themselves as I make a scene over it. I haven’t said anything untrue, or not already available through logic and publicly accessible documents. True that didn’t save Caroll of Vikileaks, but that saga isn’t over either, and the Conservatives won’t come out smelling too rosy if they press that line of attack either.
Also, your mock concern, as a concern troll, is concerning. You can’t sincerely think that I’d take your cautionary words as legitimate concern after you call me “duffus” [sic].
And the only time Leftdog has been threatened with a lawsuit, publicly, the Green Party ended up in their first national debates, and the matter was dropped. If that’s the kind of result that comes from attempting to SLAPP Regina bloggers, BRING. IT. ON. PUNKS.
You can’t tell me that by writing about bad things that bad people are doing, it is going to make them mad at me. Duh! Good people would stand with the truth and the facts, not tell the truth tellers to sit down and shut up.
Can’t say that its a big issue here although finding a Lib or NDP in these parts is like finding common sense in Del Mastro’s head. I’m not sure this is as big a deal though as the media is making it. I’ve been to Europe several times. We barely register on their radar. Concerning, for sure. Massive rep-ruining scandal? Not so sure about that one.
WSJ has already written about it. It’s also just getting started :-(
You’re not sure, because you haven’t looked at enough evidence. If you read all of my RoboCon posts, I guarantee you’ll have enough source documents and analysis to come to a more informed conclusion.
Do you have a link to this quote?
At worst, he personally ordered it done and chose the people who executed the plan. At the very least, he fostered an attitude within the party […], chose the managers of the people who committed these crimes and completely and utterly failed to exercise any oversight, supervision or leadership.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter where [his] actions or lack of them fall on that scale. He is the leader and a leader is responsible for the actions of the people he leads.
If he had a right or honourable bone in his body, he’d admit that and resign immediately.
But what do we get?
Stephen Harper first claiming the Liberals did it
I see the CTV link is dead now, they removed the robocalls story I’d linked to a year ago.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22At+worst%2C+he+personally+ordered+it+done%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Google has this quote in many places popping up again in reference to the Duffy, PMO scandal.