[We learned,] thanks to confirmations by chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand, that Conservatives have been slowing down the criminal probe into robocalls — keeping investigators cooling their heels for months, scheduling interview appointments that get cancelled and making key people unavailable for questioning.
You don’t need a degree in psychology to ask: Is this how people act when they’ve got nothing to hide?
That’s about as scathing as our timid, little, professional, neutered media can manage. Continue reading →
With the Federal Court recently confirming in law that the Conservatives’ access controlled CIMS database was utilized by conspirators to commit election fraud, there are still some Conservative bloggers willing to put their reputations on the line in defense of not only the Conservative Party of Canada, but of the election fraudsters the CPC’s database supported.
(smalldeadanimals.com/archives/robocalls-anato.html)
The judge in Federal Court had limited evidence on hand to gauge the sheer volume of fake calls made to Canadians in most of the country. Had all phone records been obtained from the phone companies utilized by robocall companies to make the fraudulent calls the Court found existed, he’d have had the means to reason that many more were made than were reported by citizens to the Court. The phone logs would not lie, and it’s not technically difficult to count the calls from the same phone number as the one(s) that phoned the people the Court ruled had been called by criminals with misleading information about polling locations. This would give a true count of the fraudsters’ impact, and allow the Court to have made a more accurate impact assessment.
Election fraud is justified if:
-The victim should know better!
“I would question anyone who actually listened to, and believed what they heard about moving polling places. If they did, they are complete idiots and shouldn’t have the right to vote in the first place.
Posted by: Rick”
-The media doesn’t like government corruption:
“McGregor is also one of the rats behind the attacks on Duffy [for Duffy's fraudulent housing expenses] [...], I think McGegor is totally lacking in professional ethics[...].
Posted by: LindaL”
-Exposure of a national crime against Canada’s democracy is an opposition tactic to elect Justin Trudeau:
“a faux scandal[...]
This Alinsky-style guerilla tactic has kept the CPC on the defensive for over a year,which I believe was the object of the exercise in the first place.
The Left believes that if they keep battering away at the public with scandals real and imagined,eventually the voters will be swayed away from the corruption and fascism of the Conservatives,and into the loving arms of Saint Justin, who won a boxing match,and has nice hair and teeth.
It might work.
Posted by: don morris”
-The words of the Conservative Party can be presented as if the Court wrote them:
“The Conservatives issued a statement [...]. The statement also blasted the advocacy group that bankrolled the challenge.
“The Council of Canadians court challenge was a transparent attempt to overturn certified election results simply because this activist group didn’t like them,” the statement said.”
So Jethro wrote:
“Key sentence is this one [about the CoC].
People with any sense of propriety or shame would be devastated by such a rebuke, however it won’t phase this group one bit.”
[I dunno Jethro, but I really don't think a rebuke from the party of election fraud, is going to phase the Council of Canadians, or other democracy supporting Canadians.]
-The “Liberals did it First”(TM):
“No mention in the article that the only confirmed case of robocalls involved the Liberals. [...]
Posted by: Aviator”
How’s that obsolete lie working out for you, Aviator? The Federal Court ruling confirms there were pro-CPC, illegal, robocalls made, it just doesn’t name who it thinks used the Conservative-only database. Did you also forget about the “reprehensible” fraudulent robo-directed calls into Irwin Cotler’s riding by Conservatives?
Stephen Taylor was confused this morning. If he read my blog instead of dismissing me as a bother, he wouldn’t be so confused. He thought the Federal Court Robocalls judgement was saying that no Conservative could have been involved, because the judge had said he’d seen no evidence suggesting that. I can’t factually explain why the judge couldn’t make the logical inference that a secure database controlled tightly by the CPC, could only be used by authorized and known individuals. The judge ruled CIMS was the database used for election fraud in 2011. It is not a leap to conclude that unknown senior Conservatives were involved in election fraud.
.@stephen_taylor The judge can only consider evidence presented in court for the six ridings, not Guelph where @MichaelSona worked. #RoboCon— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 24, 2013
Taylor went on to ignore the fact that Guelph was not among the six ridings challenged by citizen applicants with the assistance of the Council of Canadians in Federal Court.
Judge Mosley himself praised the eight applicants for their virtue, while chastising the Conservative MPs. “It has seemed to me that the applicants sought to achieve and hold the high ground of promoting the integrity of the electoral process while the respondent MPs engaged in trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits.”
More shocking, Taylor floats an alternate theory that “Chinese hackers” could have been involved in the 2011 election fraud!
@RunnertheFirst it could have been Chinese hackers. Point is, there's no clear evidence that points to anyone.— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) May 24, 2013
His theory is more shocking than the Conservative Party participating in widespread election fraud. He’s suggested that a foreign government (or foreign citizens) have conspired with (or against) the Conservative Party of Canada, to conceal the identity of specific Conservatives involved in telling citizens incorrect addresses of polling stations, in order to prevent Canadians from voting. Surely the politicians in charge of the Government of Canada would launch a full scale investigation to rule out this insane, severe, and remote possibility?
@FredDeLorey @pmoharper Are you pleased court found systematic fraud? If you cared about democracy, you'd demand an inquiry to get answers.— Elizabeth May MP (@ElizabethMay) May 24, 2013
[Justice Mosely wrote,] “I am satisfied that it has been established that misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country, including the subject ridings, and that the purpose of those calls was to suppress the votes of electors who had indicated their voting preference in response to earlier voter identification calls,” and that “the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC [Conservative Party of Canada], accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court.”
To recap, #CPC database used to commit electoral fraud, but records wiped by high level admin, so individual guilt can't be proven. #cdnpoli— Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 24, 2013
CIMS used for electoral fraud. Then someone w admin access erased the records. #CPC may have gotten away w it, but aren't innocent. #cdnpoli— Ethan Cox (@EthanCoxMtl) May 24, 2013
Debate over the F-35 may make the debate over the NFA/CF-18 pale by comparison. When the dust settled on the CF-18 decision, there was a strong collective sense, both inside and outside of government, both inside and outside of the Department, that the right aircraft had prevailed in the NFA competition. Such a prompt and strong consensus could prove elusive in the case of the F-35, although the Department is convinced that the F-35 is the right choice for myriad reasons. Some issues, such as the merits of one engine versus two, will till familiar territory, but others – most notably those related to price (which is effectively beyond Canada’s control), performance (i.e., a fifth-generation fighter versus 4.5-generation alternatives) and process (not strictly sole-sourcing, but certainly not NFA-style tendering) – could prove somewhat more controversial. The F-35 decision, for example, quickly drew strong endorsements from the National Post and the Globe and Mail, but also drew blistering attacks from Michael Byers and Jeffrey Simpson. From a governmental perspective, criticisms from former Associate Deputy Minister Alan S. Williams over process, and from internationally respected aviation journalist Bill Sweetman over price and performance, could prove somewhat more challenging to deflect.
Thank you National Post, and the Globe and Mail for your steadfast, and reliable defence of Canada’s democracy. You’re rivaled only by Stephen Harper and the fine men and women in charge of the DND.
I went to the latest Design Regina public forum Tuesday night, at Artesian on 13th Ave. That building is quite impressive inside, including a clever use of bathroom space downstairs. Check it out sometime.
Anyway, at the meeting the city gave its perspective on what was discussed at the consultations, and the crowd was mostly accepting, with some of us wondering what happened to the education component provided by the Real Renewal Citizens’ Circle, and the urban agriculture. There were lots of public comments on recycling, and pedestrian and cycling safety as well. I pointed out after the meeting that the city has bylaws that hamper urban ag., including the livestock bylaw (no chickens allowed, while NYC can have them!), and the tendency of the City to let snobby neighbours determine that no one can grow food in their front yard, and must spray commercial chemicals to control “weeds” like dandelions.
As I left the meeting, feeling good about how the night was going, and eager to bike home to talk more with Mr. LaRue of RoboCon investigatory fame, I checked to see if I could throw my bike onto a bus. Then glancing down at my bike locked to a stop sign, I noticed it had no seat. I’d not taken my seat with me, so this was quite an unwelcome surprise. Two years ago, someone quick-released my front wheel, and now my original seat will also need replacing. Thieves are getting my bike one piece at a time. It will no doubt cost me about 250 dimes. I roamed the neighbourhood in search of some hooligan carrying only a bike seat, but saw no one fitting that description, so I caught the #4, and went home.
Suddenly feeling much better about things. Political things.
If one honest man with the most known knowledge of RoboCon, is feeling good about how the truth will come out, then I’m hoping the guilty find it a little harder to sleep. They deserve less sleep than LaRue’s been getting while fighting serious illness and massive government corruption.
Other people with more pieces of the RoboCon puzzle who’ve been reporting their brains out the last month include these bloggers and journalists you simply must follow:
** This list can and must grow, please send your blog address in the comments if you’re a RoboCon blogger (or read one not listed) too.
*** Bonus points if you can find a Conservative blogger calling for justice regarding RoboCon, without them also suggesting it was people/party for who there is no evidence to support an accusation, let alone a suspicion.
==
Tuesday night I also got some underwhelming photos of northern lights.
As we near a month since the RoboCon/Robocalls scandal burst onto the blogosphere and main stream media in a big way, there are no signs of it fading. When the breadth of the scandal is known to more Canadians, it will result in a change of government, I’m sure of that.
For some reason unknown to this point, serious violations of the Elections Act all over the country were minimized, ignored, dismissed, and forgotten by most people and the authorities entrusted to uphold the crucial machinery of our democracy. A select few journalists and bloggers have helped keep this scandal under the spotlight like it deserves, and I’m certain Pierre Poutine may be but a minor supporting character in the mess. He’s only made famous by his ridiculous alias, and for being the first to draw attention of investigators.
As you can see from any of the lists built by political parties, news sites, and bloggers, there was widespread fraud, voter harassment, and misdirection, all highly illegal acts during an election. The media goes nuts when signs are knocked down, or pamphlets are stolen, and neither of those prevents people from going to their poll. Why isn’t the media “flipping shit”?
Take a look at this list of crimes in [Toronto,] Ontario. To put it bluntly, this is the sort of crap that I never expected to see in Canada, in my lifetime. It’s profoundly disturbing, since it shows how impotent our authorities really are to protect us from corrupt political parties. An inquiry is certainly required, if not a whole lot more. I don’t expect heaven to help us, but what else can when men and women have failed so spectacularly?
A collective “Oh, shit/merde!” is possibly going quickly out of the mouths of anonymous Conservatives in Ottawa. They’ve basically involved the party in the Robocalls that Poutine sent out from Guelph through RackNine, while trying to minimize image damage! Providing non-public evidence of electoral fraud to “select journalists” and not secretly to Elections Canada for followup, seems an odd strategy.
Sixth Estate figured it out, they say. Terry Milewski, and umpteen bloggers are asking similar questions. That means that by Monday, the Main Stream Media might catch on and realize the Conservatives are in an extremely awkward position now. Ask a few pointed questions of them.
Ivison of the National Post didn’t seem to realize [or maybe didn't bother to point out] the major implication of his overly-fair article with some leaked details that were supposed to distance the Conservatives from the other fraudulent live-calls and other illegal robocalls made around the country.
“[Poutine's] call that claimed to come from Elections Canada was sent out to 5,053 recipients[...]
“The database makes mistakes. We try to fix the supporters side but no-one pays attention to the non supporters side — the data is not maintained,” said one source.
The Conservative Party has been trying to find out who Pierre Poutine phoned, in order to confirm suspicions that calls from Guelph spilled into other ridings. They have not been able to access those phone records — until now.
Did someone leak this information to the Conservatives before they leaked it to the media?
So straightforward logic leads us to Sixth Estate’s damning point:
Where did the Conservatives get this evidence in the first place?
These phone records, if they’re legit, are evidence of election fraud. The proper place for these records is in the hands of Elections Canada investigators. The fact that the Conservatives have them can only mean one of three things:
The Conservatives got the records directly from Racknine. I’m not sure how that squares with Racknine’s previous claims that they are a non-partisan organization and that the call order in question didn’t come from the Conservative Party (which would mean, presumably, that they shouldn’t be sharing the records with an unconnected third party).
The Conservatives got the records from Elections Canada. This would suggest either that the Conservatives have a mole on the investigation team, or that Elections Canada is under political control by the very party that it’s currently supposed to be investigating.
The Conservatives got the records internally. This would suggest they already know who the perpetrator is — and may have known all along.
You can choose which of those options seems most palatable.
The other day while I was out having a fantastic day meeting new people, my Great Aunt Inez had passed away. I learned about her death when I returned home, and didn’t feel as sad as I expected I would, because she’d been unwell for more than a year after a stroke, and when I’d saw her last year she knew she wasn’t herself anymore. How am I supposed to feel for the passing of someone who lived a long and mostly happy life, into their 90s, living with their husband until their natural end? Somberly nostalgic perhaps describes the mourning feeling.
I remember some things about Aunt Inez from when I was 5 and on a cross-country van ride. We stayed at her home for a few days, and Uncle Gerry took me fishing where I caught my first fish. In my twenties I again traveled to Nova Scotia a few times, stopping to see them. Last year I went with my wife, and it was the last time I saw her. The sadness I do feel is for my uncle, who fortunately has family living nearby to comfort him. And for their kids and grandchildren, I feel sad for how they must feel too, to have lost family uniquely special to them each. It’s difficult knowing that the old people you grow up with, are not still here to talk with when you become an older adult.
–
RossK talks about his feelings of loss for his blogger friend, BC Mary. I hope to be a stronger writer as the years wear on, and when I’m eventually gone in 70+ years (if my consciousnesses isn’t transferred into a robot or something) I’ll have to settle for my blog archives being what I leave behind online for people from the future. I hope they’ll find it as interesting and useful as BC Mary’s work was.
** I wrote the first part of this blog post a couple days ago, and the story is very significantly updated, so I felt it should get the full attention of readers so they have better context for what the Prescott tweets from the other day probably meant. **
There was speculation swirling in the media about why the Blogging Tory known as Christian (Canadian) Conservative, Andrew Prescott, sent out warning messages about “Anti-CPC” calls, on April 30th, 2011. Most of the well known robocalls were on May 2nd, 2011. This doesn’t prove anything about Prescott regarding the illegal robocalls, but shows he certainly had his finger on the pulse of #robocalls before most Canadians were aware of the fake-EC illegal ones that misdirected voters, and days before Elections Canada issued an alert to the media.
UPDATE March 10: I think we’ve explained Prescott’s tweets prior to May 2nd, so long as the calls in Halton he mentioned, were connected to the ones the Liberal campaign in Guelph has admitted to. Obviously, someone in Guelph is still (co)responsible for the clearly illegal fake Elections Canada, misdirecting robocalls. Those calls are not related to the Liberals’ robocalls regarding abortion, which is an election issue presented in an unethical manner (anonymously). The Liberals claimed to have cleared the ads with Elections Canada, which is believable since EC seems overwhelmed that it wouldn’t pursue an investigation into a call where the caller is anonymous/with-alias, but it’s just another dirty attack ad [link has audio inside].
The NP headline for this article is wrong: “John Ivison: Guelph robocall also attacked Tories, listen to it here”. The word “also” implies that it’s the same robocall as the Poutine message. Did the Liberals send this “Anti-CPC” robocall to identified Conservatives only? The famous illegal robocall, is distinctly different, and clearly illegal in two ways; fraud and misdirection. The Liberal robocall missed identifying itself as a Liberal call, which was an “oversight” and the Liberals asked for forgiveness from Elections Canada, who apparently granted it.
It’s interesting that the recording surfaced now, since Prescott lawyered-up, and refused to co-operate with the Elections Canada investigation on Thursday when he was going to meet with them. He must be breathing a sigh of relief since his tweets from last April don’t look quite so damning now. So the search for Poutine/Jones should continue with my suggestion already, if they haven’t yet. They’ll serve Poutine up on a platter very soon if they do use it.
*Canada: 0 Days Without Election Fraud*
