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.

Another Kind of Power Abuse

Although the political abuse of power is endemic in this country, especially at the federal level, it is sadly not the only one in which innocent people are victimized.

While I have frequently written on police misuse of power, the instances of that abuse, and the difficulty in bringing the perpetrators to account, seem only to be growing. Both Susan Clairmont, of The Hamilton Spectator, and The Star's Rosie DiManno, in an especially hard-hitting piece, offer some important insights into the obstacles faced by those seeking to bring rogue authorities to justice.

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.

Rob Ford's Influence Grows

Rob Ford, long known for his antipathy towards those pedestrians and bikers and other eco-freaks who have conducted a war on cars, may have found an ally (or perhaps a relative) in Florida.

One wonders if he regrets not sending Gary Webster on a junket there.

The Spirit of the People is not Dead in Toronto

For someone who believes in the potential power of the people, this small demonstration against Rob Ford's brutish abuse of power is heartening.

More on Election Fraud

For anyone concerned about the rapidly deteriorating system we call democracy, I urge you to read Dr. Dawg, who has done his usual excellent job of putting the pieces together, this time on Conservative criminal acts that appear to have compromised the last federal election.