Voter Suppression: Canadians Continue To Vent Their Fury

While the rogue Prime Minister continues to deny his party's involvement in voter suppression, Canadians continue to vent their fury.

The Tory Strategy of Fostering Voter Disengagement

I have long believed that a good part of the Conservative strategy to become Canada's natural governing party rests on a strategy of disenfranchisement. By lowering the tone of public debate, by acting in high-handed and undemocratic ways, by hobbling data-gathering apparatuses, and by employing a myriad of other tactics very ably outlined recently by Lawrence Martin, Harper and his wrecking crew have been systematically convincing more and more people that politics is not worth their time, and that their vote doesn't count. As I have written previously, that leaves the voting field open for Conservative true-believers to wield a disproportionate influence on election outcomes.

Tim Harper has written an important piece on this problem in today's Star, must-reading for those concerned about this very dangerous trend.

The Star Continues Digging into Tory Voter Suppression Crimes

While Canada's so-called newspaper of record continues doing only a perfunctory job in its coverage of the voter suppression crimes that may very well have affected the outcome of the last federal election, The Toronto Star continues to dig deeply and widely, bringing readers a very comprehensive picture of what one would like to hope will be the beginning of the end of the Harper regime.

Today's coverage, for example, confirms that attempts at election-rigging were not restricted to a putative rogue party functionary in Guelph. Indeed, the crimes seem to have extended all the way to the West Coast, where Ken Hancock was told that his voting location had been changed from the usual location — a local school not far from his Pender Island, B.C., home — to the municipality of Saanich on Vancouver Island.

The supposed new location meant that Hancock would have to drive to the ferry dock at Otter Bay on the northwest side of Pender Island, take a 40-minute ferry ride south to Vancouver Island, and then drive another 30 kilometres to Saanich to cast his ballot.

As citizens of this country, we have a responsibility to commit the time and effort necessary to educate ourselves fully into the extent and range of these very serious crimes. Fortunately, The Star is doing much of the legwork for us.

The Sound of Subversion - A Robocall Recorded

So this is what subversion sounds like. The Star has obtained a voice recording of one of the fake calls in Guelph, giving instructions to the recipient to go to the wrong polling station.

What is that old saying about the banality of evil?

The Harper Conservatives: A Scapegoat For Every Occasion

I just finished reading a thoughtful piece by Michael Ignatief's former chief speechwriter, Adam Goldenberg, suggesting that those Tory functionaries who are scapegoated for the government's crimes often go on to their reward - reinstatement within the party hierarchy.

A reposting of a reader's comment following the article speaks volumes:

I am 91 years old and have voted for the Conservative Party all my life. I fought over in Europe during the second world war to defend Canada's freedoms from tyranny, and now the nazi jackboot is descending on Canada. Some of my friends died in battle long ago as I live to watch Canada being slowly turned into nazi Germany by this group in Ottawa that I voted for. I hope I live long enough to see them out of power. These people in Ottawa are dangerous to our cherished freedoms and are a danmation to those who died preserving Canada's freedoms from people like them.

For Anyone Inclined to Give Harper The Benefit Of The Doubt...

I urge you to read Lawrence Martin's damning assessment of his dirty operations.

John Ibbitson's Faith In Stephen Harper

While acknowledging the seriousness of the voter suppression crimes being uncovered, The Globe's John Ibbitson writes the following:

... we can be reasonably certain that Mr. Harper, who is Leader of the Conservative Party as well as Prime Minister, knew nothing about what was going on in Guelph or elsewhere. Campaign officials protect their leaders from that sort of direct knowledge.

To put it mildly, his is not a faith I share.

Is That Pungent Odor Coming From A Smoking Gun?

If the Canadian media and the Oppositions parties do their jobs, perhaps we'll soon have an answer.

The following is reported in today's Star:

Callers on behalf of the federal Conservative Party were instructed in the days before last year’s election to read scripts telling voters that Elections Canada had changed their voting locations, say telephone operators who worked for a Thunder Bay-based call centre.

The story goes on to report that three employees of a call centre in Thunder Bay, operated by Responsive Marketing Group Inc., were very concerned about the nature of their scripts; one of them, Annette Desgagné, 46, was so distressed over the fact that the calls were misdirecting voters to the wrong polling stations that she reported her suspicions to her supervisor at the RMG site, to the RCMP office in Thunder Bay and to a toll-free Elections Canada number at the time.

Desagne's response from the RCMP is troubling. She was told by an officer whose name she can't recall that there was nothing they could do. Nobody else followed up with her.

Given the politicization of the federal police that has taken place under Harper, one senses there is much more to ferret out here under the heading of Harper crimes and misdemeanors.

Let's hope that both the press and the polticians have the fortitude to follow this through.

You Know The Conservatives Are In Trouble When

....they start losing some of their biggest cheerleaders.

Harper's War On Democracy

Whether or not one believes that Stephen Harper had a direct hand in the robocall efforts to subvert the last election, one thing is perfectly clear: given his well-known contempt for our democratic traditions, he needs to recognize his responsibility in setting a tone that is odious to most Canadians, a tone in which dissent leads to ridicule, dismissal and muzzling, and results in a demoralized population less inclined to participate in the electoral process, thereby giving undue influence to the true believers turning out at the polls.

The Star has an excellent editorial today, putting the blame squarely at the Prime Minister's door, where it justly belongs.