Robogate: Another Explosive Revelation From The Star

As I noted in my last post, a pattern is emerging in the voter suppression crimes owing to the consistency of the telephone script received in upwards of 30 ridings in the last federal election.

The Star has just made another startling discovery: Automated phone calls that directed people to the wrong polling stations in the last federal election overwhelmingly targeted older voters, all born between 1947 and 1949, directing them to the wrong polling station.

Even more damning, most of those who received the misdirecting calls say they were previously contacted by the Conservative Party and indicated that they would not be supporting their local Tory candidate.

As noted in the article, this kind of information suggests the existence of a database that goes far beyond the names and addresses provided by Elections Canada to all political parties and campaigns.

And of course everyone knows which political party is obsessive in maintaining databases that go well beyond the norm.

Voter Suppression Crimes: A Pattern of Centralization Emerges

While the Harper regime has been busy casting aspersions on those who are claiming foul over their alleged tactics during the last federal election, a pattern is beginning to emerge that makes their protestations of outrage and innocence especially suspect.

According to the latest news, voters in the Toronto-area riding of York Centre say they received misleading robo-calls before the 2011 federal ballot with the same script as the ones that Elections Canada is investigating in the Southwestern Ontario city of Guelph.

That brings to a total of almost 30 ridings where voters allege receiving fraudulent calls with the same basic script as Guelph, reports compiled by the NDP and Liberals suggest.

Meanwhile, the ever-truculent Tories, trying desperately to maintain their offensive against these allegations, have arranged for a party spokesman to label these crimes as “exaggerated allegations” ... warning they “demean millions of voters who cast legitimate votes in the last election.”

In fact, it is the entire democratic process that has been demeaned, not the citizens who cast their votes in good faith. Sadly, that will continue until the government comes clean about what it is responsible for.

Election Fraud Rally

For those living in or around the Toronto area, please consider attending Sunday's rally to protest both the voter suppression crimes committed during the last federal election and the 'strange' unwillingness of the Harper government to support the search for the truth.

It begins at 2:30 p.m., Yonge-Dundas Square. We will then march to the cenotaph at Old City Hall on Queen Street at 3:30pm.

Criminal Activity in Joe Oliver's Campaign?

The Star is reporting that Natural Resources Minister Joe ('radicals are threatening the tarsands') Oliver's riding of Eglinton-Lawrence may have been the scene of another electoral crime, this one involving the last-minute rush of previously unregistered voters who cast ballots in the last federal election.

Veteran Liberal MP Joe Volpe lost the riding to Conservative Oliver by 4,062 votes, but the problems is that at least 2,700 applications for late registration to vote... failed to provide addresses or gave false or non-residential addresses. Nonetheless, contrary to Election Canada rules, they were allowed to vote.

With this latest evidence of well-organized electoral fraud, one wonders when the revelations will end, and if they can ever be successfully and definitively investigated and resolved.

A Tale of Two Newspapers

The Globe and Mail and its sundry propagandists (excepting the principled Lawrence Martin, of course) continue their Sisyphean task of defending the indefensible by issuing almost daily dismissals both of the seriousness of the voter suppression crimes and of those who see those crimes as part of the pattern of Harper malfeasance evident since dear leader assumed office.

By contrast, The Toronto Star has consistently displayed its journalistic integrity and independence through relentless coverage and commentary that doesn't insult the intelligence of its readers. The latest example is to be found in Bob Hepburn's piece entitled Brian Mulroney: I owe you an apology, in which the writer argues that many of the ills of our democracy are directly attributable to Stephen Harper, who has so lowered the level of Canadian politics through his crimes and misdemeanours that huge numbers of citizens have opted out of the political process entirely.

It is an article well-worth reading, as Hepburn demonstrates what happens when an individual and his party puts winning above all else, including the good of the country.

While The Globe and Mail Is Busy Doing PR for The PM ...

...it appears that The Vancouver Observer is actually doing some journalism as it unearths the details of the campaign school that John Fryer wrote about last week in his letter to the Globe and Mail.

As far as I know, the Globe did no followup of Fryer's explosive allegations. Hardly surprising for the self-proclaimed 'newspaper of record'.

H/t @yvonne4tn

A Little More G20 Justice

In one of the more despicable acts of police brutality during the G20 Summit in Toronto in June of 2010, a paraplegic man, Gabriel Jacobs, was “dragged” from his motorized wheelchair, thrown into the back of a police cruiser and left on the floor of a temporary G20 detention centre where he defecated on himself because guards refused to help him.

Jacobs, who had been seeking $100,000 for his mistreatment and humiliation from the Toronto police, has reached a settlement which, like so much else about that notorious weekend, must remain confidential. And of course the police are not about to shed any light:

When asked if the settlement could be seen as an admission of guilt by the police, Mark Pugash, the director of corporate communications for the Toronto police, said “settlements, by definition, do not involve any admission of any kind.”

So much for openness and transparency, eh, Chief Blair?