CONS misleading voters? Say it ain't so. RCMP involved

[steven lloyd]

And none of them remember that we are their employers, and they are hired to represent us and work on the issues that matter to us.

Unfortunately, in reality they represent the people they are beholding to for funding their rise to power - and unfortunately, that is not usually "us" ( as in you or me or the typical average Canadian ). Look at our own "Liberal" government selling off all our revenue producing, once publicly owned assets to their "friends" ( without any mandate to do so ). That is criminal malfeasance, and we - the electorate - allow them to get away with it ( some even making excuses for it ). We are sheep.

[Urbane]

The latest:

‘Pierre Poutine’ set to admit to role in robocalls scandal, sources say
Postmedia News Mar 11, 2012

OTTAWA — The news that Elections Canada investigators are aware of the IP address that “Pierre Poutine” used to set up the Guelph, Ont., robocall account has convinced a suspect to step forward and accept responsibility for the deceptive calls, sources say.

Whoever set up the account that sent out the election day message that deceived opposition supporters in Guelph was careful to cover his electronic tracks.

According to sworn affidavits from Elections Canada investigator Al Matthews, and sources close to the investigation, whoever sent the fake recorded message used a prepaid credit card to buy a prepaid cellphone, registered an account under a fake name and address with robocall provider RackNine, and used a different fake name and address — Pierre Poutine of Separatist Street, Joliette, Que. — to set up his cellphone.

But the CEO of RackNine, Matt Meier, was able to trace Poutine’s electronic trail back to a specific IP address, which is apparently assigned to a single home. Sources say that revelation has now convinced someone to step forward and own up to the scheme.

Someone with knowledge of the affair is expected to share information with Elections Canada on Monday.

The young campaigners most often associated with the Guelph campaign in media reports have both repeatedly publicly declared their innocence.

Campaign communications director Michael Sona left his job working for Conservative MP Eve Adams after the story broke, but a few days after leaving, he told CTV News he had no involvement.

“I have remained silent to this point with the hope that the real guilty party would be apprehended,” he said.

A woman who identified herself as Sona’s mother cast doubt on the fairness of investigation on Sunday.

“To me, it’s been of a setup from Day 1,” she said, without elaborating.

During a brief conversation with the Ottawa Citizen, she also referred to reports about Meier tracing the Internet address used with the RackNine account. “It’s interesting that Matt Meier found the code when he’s working for the Conservative party.”

Sona stayed at his family’s home in Guelph during the campaign but wasn’t living there now, she said.

Deputy campaign director Andrew Prescott, who had an account with RackNine that he used for other campaigns, has also said that he had nothing to do with the calls.

After the Ottawa Citizen sought comment from him on Sunday, he sent out a tweet, under his handle ChristianConsrv: “Getting media requests for a story from people who just days ago suggested it implied wrongdoing on my part. An apology first maybe?”

Others who played a role in managing the campaign, including campaign manager Ken Morgan, have not returned repeated messages seeking comment. Riding association president John White could not be reached for comment.

Since the Ottawa Citizen-Postmedia News investigation into fraudulent political calls last month, opposition researchers have been tracking down reports of similar calls in other ridings.

The reports, which have not been independently confirmed, say that opposition supporters outside Guelph also recall receiving a recorded message from Elections Canada advising them that their polling station had been moved.

A source familiar with the investigation said Sunday that Pierre Poutine may be asked about that.

“Where did he get the script?” the source said. “He didn’t come up with the same script in 30 ridings.”

Elections Canada has set up an online form for voters to report misleading calls they received in the last campaign, and has reportedly hired extra investigators to track down the reports.

Investigators have made inquiries into reports from several other ridings.


Jason Franson National Post


Postmedia News and Ottawa Citizen

[Merry]

I hope, for everyone's sake, that they really are going to be able to identify the culprit behind these misleading 'phone calls. And that the punishment is sufficient to act as a deterrent to any potential future perpertrators of similar kinds of offenses.

[Al Czervic]

Slowly the truth is now coming out...

A scandalous absence of scandal in robocalls scandal
.

I have a confession to make. I have not been following the robocalls “scandal” with all the fervency it calls for.

It’s possible my inability to get excited results from six years … oops, make it seven .. of the Liberals leaping to their feet every 18 seconds to accuse the Conservatives of plotting to pervert Canadian values, undermine democracy and display their contempt for the laws of the country. There’s this old morality tale about a kid who cried “wolf” too many times, so when a real wolf showed up, no one believed it any more. Maybe that’s why I have a hard time believing this is the real wolf.

It could also be that I find the premise hard to accept. To wit: a top-level conspiracy of Conservative grandees to steal the election by disrupting the vote, sending voters to incorrect polls or discouraging them from turning up at all. This would indeed be a major scandal if it was true, but think about it: Would a nation-wide exercise in disruptive phone calls have any chance of going undetected? Does anyone really believe (outside the fetid confines of the Toronto Star) that the senior ranks of any sane government would take such an extreme risk going into an election it expected to win anyway?

I could see some local bozos getting it into their heads that robocalling the opposing candidate’s supporters might be a great idea, but your cynicism has to be a lot deeper than mine (which would take some doing) to believe anyone could get to be Prime Minister, or his national campaign chairman, and still be either dumb enough, irresponsible enough or reckless enough to sign on to such a plan. And since both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his top campaign official, Guy Giorno, have categorically denied any knowledge or involvement, neither would appear to fit any of those three categories. The determination of some camps to keep pretending the whole thing was a plot anyway rests on the argument that, yeah, well, they’re probably lying… and besides, the Tories have so many other tricks that robocalls fits their modus operandi.

In fact, given all the craters that have opened under the conspiracy theory, about the only way you can go on believing it is via an a dislike of the Tories so intense it overwhelms all other critical faculties. Kind of like this. The notion that only Conservatives engage in this sort of chicanery was shot down when one of Bob Rae’s finest toddled off to help himself to Vic Toews’s divorce papers, then surreptitiously released them to the press. And confirmed when Frank Valeriote, the Guelph MP whose riding is ground zero in the whole affair, admitted he too engaged in surreptitious robocalling, with a smear job on abortion as his topic of choice.

The intimation that a cowed government was doing everything in its power to prevent further details of the matter becoming known ran into some heavy weather when the Conservatives voted en masse to hand greater powers to Elections Canada. The vote — which passed unanimously, 283-0 — would require parties to hand over more financial information on their activities, and make phone companies register with the elections organization if they work for any of the parties during an election. Similarly, Elections Canada itself put a gaping hole in the notion that Canadians were so upset by election-eve shenanigans that they lunged for their phones to share their outrage.

Turns out most of the 31,000 messages it received — the figure that turned the whole affair from a local curiosity into a national scandal — were actually form letters sent via automated online systems set up for that purpose, and didn’t actually spell out any specific complains about robocalls. Most came after MPs started encouraging supporters to feed the rhetoric on Parliament Hill by contacting Elections Canada if they could suddenly remember a complaint, and there’s no telling what proportion of the number came from opposition-affiliated organizations or support groups.


“I can tell you that at this point we know that the majority of the contacts, because we’re still calling them contacts, have been made via automated forms or online form letters. These would include political action groups like Leadnow.ca, [political] parties were doing it, as were media outlets,” Elections Canada communications director John Enright told The Hill Times Monday.
.
So, no conspiracy, no cover-up, no real outpouring of national rage. No untainted evidence that telephone hijinks were anything but a local oddity, and in a riding where the Liberals were using the same weapons. No sign that voting patterns were seriously affected, no evidence that turnout was suppressed. As scandals go, the absence of scandal is virtually scandalous.

National Post

[Bagotricks]

Slowly the cons are spinning it, sure Al.

[Al Czervic]

Slowly the cons are spinning it, sure Al.

No spin....just facts....and as usual the facts show the leftist sleaze...

[Bagotricks]

No spin....just facts....and as usual the facts show the leftist sleaze...

Generally the only "sleaze" I see around here is the constant slurs from the right, almost as if "schoolyard rules" holds water or something.

[Al Czervic]

Removed due to personal attack - Jennylives

[twobits]

So, no conspiracy, no cover-up, no real outpouring of national rage. No untainted evidence that telephone hijinks were anything but a local oddity, and in a riding where the Liberals were using the same weapons. No sign that voting patterns were seriously affected, no evidence that turnout was suppressed. As scandals go, the absence of scandal is virtually scandalous.

National Post

Seems there is smoke but no gun. Must be coming from a cpl of tightly rolled fatties.

[econovan64]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/17/pierre-poutine-robocalls-grounds-for-huge-investigation-former-top-harper-aide/

The fraudulent calls that misdirected voters across Canada are grounds “for a f–king huge investigation,” Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff said in an email to a reporter this week.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lard *bleep* disguised himself as a pool table and Harper came in and racked his balls.

[twobits]

The fraudulent calls that misdirected voters across Canada are grounds “for a f–king huge investigation,” Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff said in an email to a reporter this week.

Does that mean an efin huge investigation to uncover who the rouge Conservative supporter is or are you trying to imply some complicity of Harper et al in some way is being questioned by even a former aide? Anyone who thinks the upper ranks of the party would knowingly get even close to a lame rouse such as this is also still searching for the second shooter on the grassy knoll.

[Bagotricks]

Anyone who thinks the upper ranks of the party would knowingly get even close to a lame rouse such as this is also still searching for the second shooter on the grassy knoll.

So "the upper ranks" didn't know a thing (they really were playing fair, with the media fences and Facebook profiling - they weren't being "pushed" for a majority - not at all) -

...and that magic bullet shot from a old rifle really did change directions in mid-air after passing through 2 bodies a few times.

It gets windy in Dallas I guess.

[econovan64]

Does that mean an efin huge investigation to uncover who the rouge Conservative supporter is or are you trying to imply some complicity of Harper et al in some way is being questioned by even a former aide? Anyone who thinks the upper ranks of the party would knowingly get even close to a lame rouse such as this is also still searching for the second shooter on the grassy knoll.

Why don't you read the article and see what it says?

[steven lloyd]

Anyone who thinks the upper ranks of the party would knowingly get even close to a lame rouse such as this is also still searching for the second shooter on the grassy knoll.

Are you suggesting they've stopped looking for the second shooter ????

[econovan64]

Misleading robocalls went to voters ID'd as non-Tories

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/15/pol-investigation-.html

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand announced Thursday that he now has "over 700 Canadians from across the country" who allege "specific circumstances" of fraudulent or improper calls. CBC News examined 31 ridings where such calls have been reported and found a pattern: those receiving those calls also had previous calls from the Conservative Party to find out which way they would vote.

Elections Canada says it never calls voters at all. However, it is only now emerging that calls impersonating Elections Canada followed previous calls by Conservative workers asking which way voters were leaning. That suggests that the "Elections Canada" calls, which are illegal, came from people with access to data gathered by the Conservative Party, which carefully controls access to it.

Asked about that, party spokesman Fred Delorey had no comment and declined an interview.