Harper Doth Protest Too Much
Daniel D. Veniez
Huffington Post
Posted: 03/ 4/2012 11:55 pm
Some incredulous observers are saying that the "Robocall Affair" must be the work of a few over-zealous campaign workers. There's just no way that the Conservative party high command would ever permit, sanction, and be the driving force behind such conduct, they say.
In the House of Commons last week, Stephen Harper was fast off the mark and categorically rejected the notion that his national campaign organization had anything whatsoever to do with this situation and other alleged "dirty tricks." Harper jumped to his feet to broadly declare the complete innocence of his inner circle, as well as every single employee and contractor engaged by the Conservative party headquarters.
That is a massively sweeping statement, particularly since the organization is composed of literally hundreds of people working for the Conservative national campaign, directly and indirectly. How can Harper possibly know that all was "ethical and clean" without any meaningful internal review or investigation to confirm that it was? How can he be so sure that a staffer, staffers, or consultants engaged by CPC headquarters was not involved in dirty tricks and potentially illegal acts in some way, even peripherally?
Were we to expect anything different than a robo-wall of denial from Stephen Harper? No, prudence and sincerity would have prompted a much difference response, not the immediate leap to such absolute and decisive conclusions. Watching him in the Commons was eerily reminiscent of that infamous Bill Clinton finger-wagging moment when he declared with deep conviction in front of a global television audience: "I did not have sex with that woman..."
Harper's response was too quick, too defensive, too abrasive, and too angry to be credible. This is what senior Conservatives look and act like when they are circling the wagons. This was not a reflexive response, either. It was a strategic one, clearly designed to signal to Conservative staff and consultants that everything will be fine and they will ride this out so long as people stay with the script and don't talk. They are battening down the hatches and preparing for a very rough storm.
In his six years in power, and two more as party leader, we know one thing about Harper: he is not a delegator; he is a notorious micro-manger. He has an insatiable need to be the master strategist and tactician. He wants to know everything. And nothing is more important to him than the preparation for, and waging of, elections. Nothing. His entire governing ethos is fundamentally predicated on an overarching political calculus. We also know Stephen Harper well enough to know that he grew up in this party from its very beginnings; it his entirely his construct. Whatever is going on in his party, we can be sure he knows about it, and at the very least, inspired it.
In 2011, the most senior and trusted people in the office of the Prime Minister became the most senior and trusted people running the Conservative's national campaign. Harper has surrounded himself with people who execute on his insistence total control of the machinery of government and of the party. These are people who demand full control, total compliance, and unreserved loyalty of members of cabinet, the caucus, and their staffs.
That's why if something bad happened, the probabilities are that Harper and his senior team were at least aware of it.
We know that these people craved a majority. We know that they have a sophisticated target riding operation that was a war room within a war room. We know that these people share a deeply visceral and longstanding hatred for Liberals. And we know that dirty tricks are part of their established modus operandi. Killing the dreaded enemy is an end that justifies many of the means they employ.
So, it is beyond implausible that this is the work of a few rogue volunteer campaign workers and that the inner circle was completely oblivious. Harper's control is simply too tight and too disciplined. The Conservative campaign operations are too focused. These people are exceptionally good at what they do.
For them, this is war. They take no prisoners. The name of the game is winning. Nothing less will do. That mindset has become deeply ingrained in the mindsets of Harper, his front bench, and the senior people who run the party operations and elections. It is a culture that has enveloped the senior reaches of the paid staff of the party, its consultants, and the operations of the government itself.
This is now a criminal investigation. Last week, the former Chief Electoral Officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, reassured Canadians that Elections Canada would not rest until it gets answers; its full statutory and investigative weight will be aggressively applied to getting at the truth. I hope that Elections Canada will tool-up to deal with these and many more complaints.
Meanwhile, back in the House of Commons, the country was subjected to another painful and buffoonish spectacle. Conservative backbenchers and spokesmen on this issue, Dean Del Mastro and Pierre Poilievre, attacked the opposition indiscriminately with verbal Scud missile lobs. For his part, the NDP's Pat Martin is no better with his wild and unsubstantiated incendiary accusations and scorching rhetoric.
Surely, Canadians deserve better than this.
This is not a game and this is not Ottawa inside baseball. This is an incredibly serious matter that is of critical importance to the Canadian public. Bob Rae solemnly and correctly said that we are in "uncharted territory." Indeed we are.
Members of the House of Commons must take great care to exercise their fiduciary role in a responsible and measured fashion. This is not the time for partisan gamesmanship and political opportunism. We are at a very delicate moment in our history. The very integrity of our democracy may have been under attack. We must find out what happened. The national interest must unequivocally trump partisan interests. Every parliamentarian has a duty to Canada, first. They must methodically, soberly and honourably discharge their duty to the country and get to the bottom of this.
If they cannot bring themselves to doing that, the only way to get at the truth and to restore the faith that we must have in our electoral process is a full public inquiry.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Harper: Too angry to be credible.
Robocalls in real time: "Ignored by most media"
I was the first robocalls victim
By Briony Penn March 5, 2012 3:59 PM
My name is Briony Penn — I am a journalist and lecturer, and I ran as a political candidate in the 2008 federal election. My other claim to fame is apparently being the first “victim” of illegal robocalls.
We tried to warn Canadians what was coming up in the next election, but our complaints were inadequately investigated by Elections Canada and ignored by most media. If they had been investigated properly, then the outcome of the 2011 election may well have looked very different.
Back in 2008, I was running as a federal Liberal candidate in Saanich Gulf Island trying to defeat incumbent Conservative minister of natural resources, Gary Lunn. This riding was a logical choice to try out new electoral approaches — reform or irregularities — as it is as far from Ottawa as you can get and likely to receive less attention. The riding’s strategic location on the Pacific also put it at the heart of the national debate over whether bitumen should or could be safely distributed here via tankers and pipelines.
The NDP, the Greens and the Liberals had all asked me to run, so electoral reform was my preference — an informal coalition for progressive voters, to avoid splitting the vote and allowing Lunn to win again with only 37 per cent as he had in 2006. Our strategy for coalescing the vote appeared to be successful and after the NDP candidate stepped down in the last week of the campaign, I was leading the polls. The same poll listed the NDP’s share of the vote at one per cent.
That’s when strange things started to happen.
On the eve of the election, Oct. 13, 2008, the last of a series of irregular activities took place. A robocall went out to NDP supporters, purporting to be from the campaign office and urging them to vote for their candidate. No mention was made in the call that the candidate had stepped down, nor that his withdrawal was too late to have his name removed from the ballot. On election day, my 25,367 votes were 2,621 below Lunn’s. The difference was less than the 3,667 votes for the non-existent NDP candidate who finished at nearly 6 per cent of the vote. That this might be an illegal activity affecting an election outcome crossed many people’s minds.
Complaints were filed with the RCMP by Bill Graham, president of the NDP local riding association, and the official impersonated in the call. Nothing came of those investigations. We received dozens of emails, letters and phone calls encouraging us to make an official complaint to Elections Canada while academics, Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch and Will Horter of the Dogwood Initiative waded in to express their concerns for the dangerous precedent.
Our riding association, led by law student volunteer Sebastian Silva, put together a formidable complaint package to Elections Canada on Feb. 5, 2009. It included alleged breaches of the Canada Elections Act and the Criminal Code for both the robocalls and third-party Conservative advertising which we believed were linked, though we had no evidence.
On March 2, 2009 legal counsel for Elections Canada, John Dickson responded, “Our investigator found no one who had actually been influenced in their vote because of the purported telephone call. Nor was he able to identify the source of the person or persons who actually made the calls. As a result of the foregoing, our investigation has now been concluded.” With regard to the third-party advertisers, Dickson wrote, “it is within the discretion of the Political Financing and Audit Directorate to refer the matter to the Commissioner for his consideration.”
We reiterated our concerns to Elections Canada and the press, with little uptake. Conacher publicly pointed out the evidence of collusion between the third-party groups and that it was illegal under the Elections Act to induce someone to vote or not to vote regardless of whether they were successful or not. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former chief electoral officer until 2007, confirmed this in interviews last week. Both Conacher and Horter had written that the failure to fully investigate had ramifications for future elections. Conacher wrote “If they are allowed to get away with this (in SGI) what happens if there’s a case where the candidate is still there? Someone could do bulk calling on behalf of whichever candidate you think will split your candidate’s vote.” Horter wrote in his blog on March 28, 2009, that “if someone with subpoena powers doesn’t step up with some investigative muscle, I predict many more Karl Rove like black-op operations in future elections.”
Meanwhile, the NDP ethics critic in March of 2009 called for Lunn to step down with regard to the third-party allegations while investigations were underway — except that no one had any way of knowing if the investigation was even underway. Our riding association and the citizen’s groups continued to push Elections Canada for over a year. My last personal email inquiry elicited this response in March of 2010: “In this case, this Office examined thoroughly the complaints received and advised the complainants that there is no evidence that the Canada Elections Act has been contravened.”
No follow up was ever sent and the riding association was told the case was closed. Conacher’s recent analysis of Election Canada’s enforcement of the Canada Elections Act since 2004 reveals “that the main problem is no one can tell whether Elections Canada has been enforcing the law fairly and properly because it has failed to report details of how it has investigated and ruled on 2,284 complaints in the past years.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come out on the offensive, characterizing people like myself as sore losers. Yes we are all sore losers when we lose our democracy to petrostate-like politics where illegalities are the norm. These transgressions rank up there with stealing ballot boxes, more typically associated with unstable regimes. From my experiences, we must demand an international review of this structured attack on democracy, because our current internal watchdog institution is either incapable of dealing with this issue, or has been instructed to ignore our concerns from the top.
Briony Penn is a journalist and consultant who lives on Salt Spring Island.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/first+robocalls+victim/6253162/story.html#ixzz1oHRLmQ90
Precious Kinsella wants me to play in someone else's "sandbox"
In keeping with Kinsella's "sandbox theme", how's this for juvenile behaviour:
Warren Kinsella posts on his blog:
Robocon Con question
March 5th, 2012, 2:18 pm
Federal Liberals did well, in May 2011, in any locale where a post-secondary education institution is located.
Therefore, this logical question: how extensive were vote suppression efforts in those areas? Anyone know?
Trust me, the question isn’t academic.
Comments:
cheena graham says:
Given that studies have shown that Conservatives/Republicans are not well educated and male, that in itself answers the question, doesn’t it?
Brent Fullard says:
Yeah and based on the same type of irrelevant surveys in the US, we are to believe that Republicans enjoy their sex lives more:
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/News/story?id=180291
Like who really cares and what does it matter?
Not sure what spurious argument that you are on the verge of constructing Mr. Kinsella, but it sounds pretty lame so far, but I will reserve judgement until I see it in tomorrows Sun.
Maybe Harper will allow you access to his Canada wide voter profile database (complete with voter by voter ethnicity break downs and other forms of socio-religious-economic pigeon-holing) now that it rivals StatsCanada’s, after Harper rendered that agency useless. Just suggesting. No?
Warren says:
Hey, Brent, piss off. Go play in someone else’s sandbox. You’re not welcome in this one.
Brent Fullard says:
You mean I can’t be part of your unpaid research staff? Lucky me!
You give new meaning to “open source” and “short fuse”. LOL
Globe and Mail on forefront of suppressing voter suppression story
This is what you get when the country's national news organ is owned by some reclusive billionaire, i.e David Thomson. I guess that billionaire baby doesn't want to look dumb for endorsing a crook (Harper) in the last two elections, so he get's his paid scribes to write crap like this. Can't wait to hear what nonsense that Margaret Wente comes up with. (March 6th update: true to form and as predicted, here's Margaret Wente's pathetic attempt to provide Harper with cover: Robo-calls? Get a grip. We’re Canadian)
Ibbitson, Globe and Mail: The case against a Conservative conspiracy
Curry, Globe and Mail: Tory support steady despite robo-call, e-snooping uproars: poll
Grenier, Globe and Mail: If robo-calls were meant to keep voters away, they failed miserably
Note to Monte Solberg
In response to Solberg's article: Robocalls put serious business on hold:
Nice try Monte Solberg at attempting to diminish the importance of getting to the bottom of this obscene robocall scandal, For Monte Solberg's edification: No issue is more important than getting to the bottom of this scandal. Repeat: No issue
BTW: Are you the same Monte Solberg who lied to Canadian voters in the 2006 election when you (as CON finance critic) said you "would never tax income trusts", and when in office did that very thing using the fabricated argument that income trusts cause tax leakage?
Thought so. You have zero credibility on this or any other issue.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Memo to Stephen Harper: Conviction in GOP voter-suppression scheme
Conviction in GOP voter-suppression scheme
By Steve Benen
Washington Monthly
December 7, 2011
Last November, there was a fairly competitive gubernatorial race in Maryland. Late on Election Day, robocalls targeted more than 100,000 Democratic households, telling voters to “relax” and not bother voting because Dems were going to win. It was one of the most blatant examples of GOP voter-suppression tactics in a long while.
Fortunately, those responsible got caught. Yesterday, a jury convicted the Republican ringleader.
Paul E. Schurick, the 2010 campaign manager for former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., was convicted Tuesday by a Baltimore jury of four counts stemming from a robocall that prosecutors said was intended to suppress the black vote.
The call, which Schurick acknowledged authorizing, was placed on Election Day to 112,000 voters in Baltimore and Prince George’s County, the state’s two largest majority-African American jurisdictions. Recipients were told by an unidentified woman that they could “relax” because Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) had been successful.
Fortunately, other members of the former Republican governor’s team will also stand trial for their role.
Obviously, there’s a problem when Republican officials believe the best way to win an election is to suppress political participation. But the larger issue here is that GOP officials keep pushing the “war on voting,” putting new hurdles between voters and the ballot box, ostensibly because they fear the scourge of fraud.
The irony is, the fraud Republicans are worried about is imaginary, while the real-world fraud is coming from their side of the political divide.
Steve Benen is a contributing writer to the Washington Monthly, joining the publication in August, 2008 as chief blogger for the Washington Monthly blog, Political Animal.
