Canada's Conservatives Misled Voters With Massive Robocall Operation 401
choongiri writes "Elections Canada has just traced thousands of illegal phone calls made during the 2011 federal election to a company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country. The automated VOIP 'robocalls' appeared to be designed to stop non-Conservative voters from casting ballots in key ridings by falsely telling voters that the location of their polling stations had changed, causing them to go to the wrong location on election day. This news casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of Canada's Government. The Conservatives narrowly won their 'majority' by 6,201 votes in 14 ridings, with only 39% of the popular vote." For those as unfamiliar with the term "riding" in this context as I was, here's Wikipedia's explanation.
More disturbingly... (Score:5, Informative)
Some calls apparently were from people claiming to be with the Liberal party, acting rude, calling at very late/early hours, in an attempt to cause people who said they supported the Liberal party to not vote for them. These calls happened in multitudes of ridings (districts for you yanks) including Etobicoke Centre where the Conservative candidate won by only 26 votes. [www.cbc.ca]
Re:A great example of biast in the media (Score:2, Informative)
So, some illegal calls are just fine, then. And the media is being biased when they report about them.
I can't believe we have to debate this.
Re:Legitimacy? (Score:5, Informative)
They're the Corporate-Regressive party, our own home-grown copy of American neoliberal parties like the GOP. No real Canadian actually thinks they are legitimate.
Is this a variation of the "No True Scotsman" argument?
Re:Perish the thought. (Score:5, Informative)
This is also a government that was found guilty of contempt for parliament shortly before the last election... the first time *any* british parliamentary system has *ever* been found guilty of that, since the introduction of the british parliamentary system almost 1000 years ago. By rights, Harper should have been in jail during the last election, not on the campaign trail.
My Mistake! (But my overall points remain) (Score:4, Informative)
You're right! A quick search shows that there have been cases of voter fraud as you say. (My apologies).
However, an equally quick search checking a non-partisan site (http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/, second hit on Google) indicates that the republican response, not only far outweighs these violations but would not have served to correct them. In fact, as I said before, the only discernible reason for these measures were to disenfranchise voters who were poor and or minorities. These, of course, are in the Democratic demographic.
I said nothing about which party has historically oppressed minorities (but from the subliminal guilt in your response I'd be willing to make a large bet that you're white!). I am fully aware that the Republican party is the heir to Lincoln. However Lyndon B. Johnson knew what he was talking about when he passed the civil rights act that he'd "given the South to the Republicans for a generation". He could read between the lines. Can you?
Unfortunately, judging from the KIND of attacks on Obama it looks like its taking a lot longer than a single generation.
Re:This is currently an issue. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is currently an issue. (Score:5, Informative)
Illinois alone has had four governors go to Federal Prison.
Re:This is why religion should not be in govt. (Score:3, Informative)
The Republicans of Yesterday are not the ones of Today.
Stop resting on past laurels.
If you had any interest in accuracy, you'd note how the REAL opposition to Civil Rights was the Conservative Southern Democrats who made a massive exodus to the Republican Party upon the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
But no, you don't admit that.
BTW, Acorn wasn't convicted of anything, stop lying there. Or are you going to explain how the Republican Party wasn't convicted or anything while Charlie White was?
Re:More disturbingly... (Score:5, Informative)
Elections Canada runs all the elections. And they are is independent from Government.
Re:More disturbingly... (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, and under Liberal rule the country ran well. Under Conservative rule it went downhill very quickly: education, health care, prisons, foreign affairs, defense - all these have been chipped away by either federal or provincial conservatives and the damage never undone.
One quick example: when I went to school in the 70s high school had grade thirteen, which was optional but was, in a sense, like first year college, but free. The Ontario premier (a failed teacher) did away with this and found a way to save a few bucks by having school start early. This mean getting up at 5:30 to catch a bus in rural areas and kids are out by 2:30. That being enough out of sync with the 9-5 world of the parents that it caused problems oh an the results are in - kids don't learn well this way according to recent studies. Who would?
It's hard to keep crazies in mental hospitals now because of rules brought in by the same whacko, and he gutted the prison system - no more educational/training programs, no more daily legal services. You just rot there now. Recenlty a large federal prison near here in Kingston had to shit their farm down that has been in use for ages - they grew their own vegegetables. That got shut down even though the alternative - having food trucked in - was more expensive. Somebody got bribed, there isn't a single good thing to come of that deal for anybody but the company providing the food.
The conservatives a a pack of treasonous cunts who have absolutely decimated what Canada is and what Canada could have been if it were not for the mean spirited, greedy corrupt pack of not-very-smart-poeple we jokingly refer to as "the conservative party".
Re:This is currently an issue. (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, what a bunch of garbage spewing from your mouth. The election of 1980 in whyich Trudeau used that mandate to create the National Energy Program was done by Trudeau's government who didn't get elected in a single riding west of Manitoba. Not to mention the Constitution explicitly states that natural resources are provincial jurisdction. Add to this the fact that bankrupcies in Alberta rose 150% immediately after the National Energy Program was instituted. Not to mention the thousands that went homeless because they could no longer afford their mortgages due to the national energy program.
Easterns love to spout the kind of crap like you just spouted. This just shows the ignorance of eastern canada and how they really have no idea why the west has the mindset it does.
Also, how did Harper support the Bush wars? He wasn't in power at the time and Chretien made the decision to go into Afghanistan and not go into Iraq. Both of those decision had literally NOTHING to do with Harper.
Also, oil sands are expensive. It is not worth developing unless the price of oil is very high, like it is now. The prices you quote are an impossibility. If those are the prices, the oil sands are not in production.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Not a single thing you wrote has any truth to it or connection to reality.
Re:This is currently an issue. (Score:3, Informative)
- The reform party never won an election. They were never even the official opposition
Reform party won official opposition status in the 1997 election:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1997
Re:This is currently an issue. (Score:5, Informative)
- The reform party never won an election.
So what? They won seats, and split the vote on the right so much the conservatives were down to two seats. It was either fold up a very old political party or merge with reform. They did the latter. See Wikipedia: "Reform had also failed in 1997 to establish itself as the clear right-wing alternative to the Liberal Party. The Progressive Conservative Party, which had been steadily rebuilt under Charest, enjoyed a modest revival in the 1997 election. It won 20 seats, up from the dismal two it had won during in the 1993 election. The split in the right-wing vote between Reform and the PCs allowed the Liberals to win a second majority government with only 40% of the vote, the combined vote of the Reform and the PCs in 1997 equalled the same amount. Political observers noted that it was a divided right which allowed the Liberals to gain a second majority government, and claimed that if the two parties did not put away their differences, the result would repeat itself."
The NEP was actually enacted between the years of 1980 and 1985. Canada never say "twenty-five cent a gallon gasoline", despite this fine program.
If you look at the top 5 oil producing nations in the world, only Canaa charges its citizens full retail. Given the staggering rise in heating oil costs (ie, what use to cost $750 a season now costs $5000, many poeple have given up their homes because of this) and the trend towars national policy, not provincial, being in charge of that kind of oil gives some wiggle room in a country where the government subsidizes home, heat and shelter for poeple in its safety net. Or we could just run the thing like a US business, which is where Harper et al want to do for some reason. I'm sure that they're one of the most clueless and corrupt parties in Canadian political history is just a coincidence.
Again, from Wikipedia:
The NEP was introduced in the wake of the energy crises of the 1970s. Because of high oil prices, several economic problems that were beginning to manifest themselves through the 1970s were accelerated and magnified. Inflation was most commonly between 9 and 10 percent annually[1] and prime interest rates over 10 percent.[2] Unemployment was epidemic in the eastern provinces.[3] The NEP was designed to promote oil self-sufficiency for Canada, maintain the oil supply, particularly for the industrial base in eastern Canada, promote Canadian ownership of the energy industry, promote lower prices, promote exploration for oil in Canada, promote alternative energy sources, and increase government revenues from oil sales through a variety of taxes and agreements.[4] The NEP's Petroleum Gas Revenue Tax (PGRT) instituted a double-taxation mechanism that did not apply to other commodities, such as gold and copper (see "Program details" item (c), below). The program would "... redistribute revenue from the [oil] industry and lessen the cost of oil for Eastern Canada..." in an attempt to insulate the Canadian economy from the shock of rising global oil prices[5] (see "Program details" item (a), below). By keeping domestic oil prices below world market prices, the NEP was essentially mandating provincial generosity and subsidizing all Canadian consumers of fuel.[6]
- The "oil sands" were a benefit, but did not substantially increase Canadian oil production. Oil production in Canada has been rising at a fairly steady rate for the past 50 years
Yeah and it dropped in 72 and didn't recover until 95 again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canadian_Oil_Production_1960_to_2020.png [wikipedia.org]
blah blah blah... It was a blatant attempt by the Liberal party to buy votes.
Clearly the oil industry still has some Wikipedia edits to make to bring history in line with their "official" version.
We have always been at war with Oceana, too.