A Scandalous Opinion

Kelly McParland’s article title intrigued me at first.
“A scandalous absence of scandal in robocalls scandal”
However, while reading it, I got angry. It wasn’t about the scandal behind how many people are brushing off this severe perversion of our democracy. Kelly’s one of those people brushing it off! And he blames the Liberals for his apathy (not that he’s alone in that feeling)!

It’s possible my inability to get excited results from six years … oops, make it seven .. of the Liberals leaping to their feet every 18 seconds to accuse the Conservatives of plotting to pervert Canadian values, undermine democracy and display their contempt for the laws of the country.

I feel honestly bad for journalists who have lost their way to the point where they brush off the seriousness of electoral fraud in their own country (no matter how prevalent the incidents are, be they One up to Thirty One Thousand+).

I have a confession to make. I have not been following the robocalls “scandal” with all the fervency it calls for.

Worse, is when they admit they haven’t been closely following this major crime, and threat to our democracy, and then go on to demonstrate their ignorance, while the National Post implies we should care what their opinion is.

Would a nation-wide exercise in disruptive phone calls have any chance of going undetected?

That’s the wrong question, Kelly. Change “undetected” to “unpunished” and you’ll start to get somewhere. Ask Saanich Gulf Islands voters if they got justice after a “detected” fake NDP robocall took place almost four years ago. And could the Conservatives, who raise millions of dollars, and were convicted of overspending their 2006 campaign budget by $1.3M, afford a $52,000 fine? Maybe ask your finer Postmedia colleagues who broke the RoboCon story in February, after obtaining details of a secret Elections Canada investigation into the robocalls from RackNine, almost a year after the crime, to get you up to speed?

Because man, you’re lacking in a lot of critical knowledge about RoboCon to be writing for a national newspaper about the subject.

So, no conspiracy, no cover-up, no real outpouring of national rage. No untainted evidence that telephone hijinks were anything but a local oddity, and in a riding where the Liberals were using the same weapons. No sign that voting patterns were seriously affected, no evidence that turnout was suppressed.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!

If it was a “local oddity”, why do we know Poutine recorded multiple messages with fraudulent voting locations, and these calls were reported in areas more than just Guelph? If there’s no conspiracy, how did local rogues in Guelph get access to a secure voter information database (databases?) without national campaign staff noticing or asking what they needed all those phone numbers for?
No coverup? If Poutine has confessed, as Postmedia sources indicated, why is his identity being protected during the course of the Elections Canada investigation, instead of announced to the public with charges for impersonating Elections Canada, and intentionally misdirecting voters away from their polls?

Thank God [or just thank the Internet] there is the Sixth Estate, because some parts of the Fourth Estate are being woefully inadequate in their duty. Do your research, then write. Don’t make it so easy for snarky bloggers to tear your professional opinions to pieces, while we’re on our lunch break.