A few minutes ago, the Conservatives issues the following release:
Statement by Conservative Member of Parliament Dean Del Mastro on harassing and misleading phone calls during the 2011 federal campaign
“The Conservative Party is calling on anyone with any information about harassing calls or calls giving inaccurate poll information to come clean immediately and hand it over to Elections Canada.
My own campaign in Peterborough was the victim of dirty tricks phone calls, with Conservative supporters harassed by late night abusive calls, and our Party condemns these acts. We are providing this information to Elections Canada.
We call on Elections Canada to investigate and get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible so the truth is known.”
The cynical might wonder:
a) When Del Mastro says “We are providing this information to Elections Canada”, what information is he referring to?
b) Did Del Mastro file complaints or go public with these complaints back in May, after the election?
There is is this, from the Peterborough Examiner of May 4, 2011, in which Del Mastro takes responsibility for some phone call funny business his Liberal competitor claimed was aimed at him: Automated calls not a prank against Leal.
Has someone reported this?
Does elections Canada cover Provincial elections?
My, I have a lot to learn.
Funny these calls are reported right now, and not in May. The timing is uspicious and, frankly, unbelievable.
So you are calling a robo GOTV call “phone call funny business”? REALLY?
This is why Canadians tune out the PPG. The sky is ALWAYS falling.
So apparently if Mr. Del Mastro didn’t report these incidents to anyone at Elections Canada last May, they are not believable now?
And yet when Pat Martin and Bob Rae report about new ridings that now say, “Oh, by the way, we had that too.” … that those reports are uncritically accepted?
This posting is beneath you, Mr. Akin.
well its simple have a redo in all the ridings affected and let the cards fall where they may ….
Phone call funny business. Come on. I received similar automated phone calls here in Ajax, from both the Conservative and Liberal campaigns.
Dean Del Mastro won by a huge margin.
No point being a sore winner.
Sore losers on the other hand who rush like mad to claim that robocalls took place in their riding without any evidence …
Known partisan voters who say
“yeah me too! A Tory pranked me!!”
Well that’s just accepted uncritically and without proof even though there is a clear motive for lying – partisanship.
So far it looks like this only ever happened in Geulph.
Everywhere else followers jumped on a bandwagon to bash the Tories and make them look bad and the media played right along.
Shameful.
So… he knew about this in May but didn’t report on it until now a week after his party has been slammed for numerous democratic misuses of power….
I had been wondering how the Conservatives were going to deflect the attention from themselves. Brilliant job guys!
(from the Hill Times May 2011) “Ten Liberal campaigns in Ontario, including Ms. Bennett’s, also complained of harassing phone calls made to their supporters purporting to be from them when they were not. Some were in the middle of the night or made repeatedly. Candidates feared the scheme was done deliberately to annoy their supporters and suppress the vote. The CBC reported that some calls were reportedly traced to American area codes and to a Canadian call centre doing some legitimate Liberal calling that denies it.
The CBC also reported that one of its journalists had talked to NDP and Conservative supporters who had experienced the same kinds of phone calls.
Well Kieran, that just demonstrates that he didn’t think it was a concern. However, now that the MSM/PPG/Opposition parties are starting to try to take a strip out of the Tories’ hides with this latest wafer chase, why not put everything on the table. Afterall, its okay for this stroy to conveniently rear it’s head AGAIN 9 months after the election.
No, what is really happening here is that poor loser Liberals have lost a third of their caucus in every election since 2004 and it is driving them crazy. So now they want a do-over in all the close ridings that THEY say were effected. Which, if they had their way, might reduce the government to a minority status, suiting them just fine, because that would give them another chance to get their coalition in line to oust the government òn their pretense of “corruption“. There are already Tory voters coming forward saying that they received robocalls as well. Just like over sized cheque logos, Bennett`s body bags, Olympic logos, and communion wafers (etc, etc, etc), this latest Opposition pathetic attempt at scandal mongering is going to fail and backfire big time.
With all the voter suppression tactics coming to light it is especially distasteful to remember how many times the Cons and those who support them have mocked Canadians by saying things like, “if you don’t like it, you should have voted” since May 2nd. Maybe a little montage of those clips would be in order?