The Fair to Poor Elections Act

All through the Senate scandal debacle and the Ford follies last year, I was thinking, keep your eye on the prize. These are all petty diversions to keep everyone's attention away from the really serious stuff that could harm the governing party's electoral prospects in 2015. In my view, the serious matter is the voter fraud/suppression methods used in the last election by the Conservatives to get themselves elected to a majority. We have heard of individual instances of minor irregularities, like the Del Mastro case I wrote about in the last post, but the really big case, the massive, centrally organized telephone campaign of voter misdirection/suppression, remains unattributed to anyone. The fact that there was just such a massive, centrally organized campaign in the 2011 election, that it was conducted through the telecom facilities of the supplier of such services retained by the Conservative party, that it used the electoral database maintained by the Conservative party, that it targeted voters who had signalled in this database that they did not support the Conservatives, is not in question. It was declared a matter of fact, based on evidence, by a federal judge in the case brought by the Council of Canadians, to wit:

"I am satisfied that is 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.

[245] In reaching this conclusion, I make no finding that the CPC, any CPC candidates, or RMG and RackNine Inc., were directly involved in the campaign to mislead voters. To require the applicants to identify the perpetrators of the misleading calls would impose an impossibly high standard of proof. I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information
used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court. There is no evidence to indicate that the use of the CIMS database in this manner was approved or condoned by the CPC. Rather the evidence points to elaborate efforts to conceal the identity of those accessing the database and arranging for the calls to be made.

[246] I find that the threshold to establish that fraud occurred has been met by the applicants."

So an electoral crime was committed, but the perpetrators have not yet been identified. And so it has stood for nearly four years now, with only one charge laid, against the hapless Michael Sona in Guelph. Whatever investigative bodies we have in these matters, and whatever investigative means they have at their disposal, have failed to bring to justice the persons or organizations who have committed the most serious crime against our democratic electoral processes in our country's history. Again from Justice Mosley:

"There may have been isolated instances of electoral misbehaviour in the past but, as noted above, incidents of voter suppression of the nature discussed in these reasons have not been known in this country prior to the 41st General Election. For that reason, I don’t doubt that the confidence rightfully held by Canadians has been shaken by the disclosures of widespread fraudulent activities that have resulted from the Commissioner’s investigations and the complaints to Elections Canada."

So, rather than waiting for the other show to drop, the Conservatives go on the offensive, as ususal, and launch "The Fair Elections Act". I think it is "fair" only in the sense that "fair" is a rating between "poor" and "good". More on this tomorrow.