Database and IP Records Tie Election Fraud To Canada's Ruling Conservatives

choongiri writes "Canada's election fraud scandal continues to unfold. Elections Canada just matched the IP address used to set up thousands of voter suppression robocalls to one used by a Conservative Party operative, and a comparison of call records found a perfect match between the illegal calls, and records of non-supporters in the Conservative Party's CIMS voter tracking database, as well as evidence access logs may have been tampered with. Meanwhile, legal challenges to election results are underway in seven ridings, and an online petition calling for an independent public inquiry into the crisis has amassed over 44,000 signatures. The Conservative Party still maintains their innocence, calling it a baseless smear campaign."

Re:Baseless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but when you repeat something enough, and suppress alternative voices, it becomes true in the minds of the masses.

I don't know if mass media in Canada are under the total control of the far right as in the U.S., Australia, and England, but I bet they have a strong hand at least. In the US, one of the major networks is owned by one of the major arms manufacturers, GE who also forced their employees to sit through right-wing propaganda videos narrated by Ronald Reagan.

The same things have happened in several elections in the US, all Republicans (although the Democratic party is pretty much corrupt right-wing corporatist too). No consequences. It is so bad that there are even laws being passed to suppress votes of folks not likely to support an extremist right-wing ticket. Same thing too, smoking gun evidence, a hand wave from the accused, and all is forgotten.

Canada is just as corrupt - or even more so

[Barbara, not Barbie]

We have the second-largest province by population basically run by the Mafia, and the RCMP wanting to keep the evidence away from an official inquiry [www.cbc.ca].

While we have students rioting in the streets because the government refuses to sit down and talk, we fine out the Education Minister took Mafia money [theglobeandmail.com].

The mob skims 5% off the top of all large construction projects, decides who will be "allowed" to bid, and how the contracts will be divied up. This has been going on for at least 40 years.

And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

The person you just described:

  I have a paycheck to paycheck job that I take the bus to get to. I use food stamps. I do not have the time nor the 10 to 20 usd to pay for a legal ID to vote but I've managed to get food stamps, a job, cash my paychecks, a bank account(?), get utilities for my place of residence and a bus pass without any sort of id whatsoever.

Your argument...no water does it hold.

Re:Baseless?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In the US, one of the major networks is owned by one of the major arms manufacturers, GE who also forced their employees to sit through right-wing propaganda videos narrated by Ronald Reagan.

GE recently sold NBC to Comcast. That's probably even worse for the country as a whole though.

Re:Whatever happened in Ohio?

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't shifted up into Canada, so much as certain Canadians are deciding to adopt the underhanded techniques that are routine in US politics. It's not even a hypothetical [www.cbc.ca]:

"McBain was working in the party's central war room for the campaign and says Sona contacted him to suggest a campaign of disinformation. Crawford, who worked on the Burke campaign in Guelph, said he overheard a conversation between Sona and another campaign worker about "how the Americans do politics," but didn't think Sona was serious."

That's pretty awful.

Re:Well, isn't that interesting.

[M. Baranczak]

The "oh, forget about it, they're all the same" attitude that a lot of people take is intellectual laziness which, if enough people adopt it, paves the road to power for real monsters.

Too many people have forgotten this. Objectivity means that you examine the facts without prejudice; it doesn't mean that you automatically give equal weight to both sides of an argument. When two people are taking two incompatible positions, chances are very good that one of them is more wrong than the other.

They stack the deck, be sure of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and that DID happen.

Generally Canada has two strong parties(CONS, LIBS), and two or three "weak" parties(NDP, GRN, OTHER) where the two strong generally had enough seats to "run" the country; but couldn't push a draconian law if all the other parties "voted" together. Therefore, if all the other parties voted against them the government would topple (we refer to a government on the edge like this as a Minority Government). So, a minority government is forced to make concessions, win support, etc from the other parties to ensure they do not topple AND to get any laws to pass. The problem with Canada is when we do get a Majority government (where the party doesn't need ANY other support) that basically gives one person a Dictactorship over Canada.

Now, we had (something like 15 years worth) of Minority governments so no party was "really" bad; we got to skip all those idiotic and draconian laws the US had since the elected government could not get enough other parties to agree to bring those laws in.... YEAH! However, in the last election a shit storm occurred; the Liberals seemed to go out of their way to really become assholes supreme and really pushed their supporters into a position of "having to switch to another party" (I wonder if this was US involved as the Leader seemed to come out of nowhere and really didn't connect at all with Canadians -- and rumor said he lived most of his life in the US -- the US really wanted us to have a Majority government (see reason below) so decimating one party in order to give a majority to another doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities). Unfortunately, the party options were CONS and NDP (biggest of the three "smaller" parties); and a large number of those voters went to the NDP, but enough went to the CONS to give the CONS a majority. And now that the CONS have that majority, all those draconian laws the US wants us to have (thanks to trade agreements, etc) are now coming out full swing... and no surprise! (Note: When I voted I didn't care who won, I consider all the parties about the same, all I wanted was another minority as I believe that is the only government good for Canada).

So yes, Canadians voted for the third party, but enough still went with the last "big" party to screw us all over unfortunately.... What is really dismal is if you look at the popular vote (individual tally of votes rather than as "seats"). I believe (last time I looked) the CONS really only had 35-40% of the popular vote (of all those that voted) so they got a majority with a minority of the voters (I do believe the NDP have more of the Popular vote). Now, toss in the fact the leading party (CONS at time, even with a minority) can control (to some extent) the boundaries for the seats and the robo-call scam and it really does seem like we have a government with much less than 30% of Canadians voting for them...)

So, in the end, it just didn't matter :( And we got another 3 years to go with our supreme leader (doesn't matter what name, any party that got a Majority would be doing the exact same thing since; in my opinion, the political agenda is pushed by the US and corporations, not Canadians....) So, I guess I should be thankful, at least we, as Canadians, have one "good" thing left for us: The ability to vote in a Minority government... But if Canada is reduced to only two parties, then even this last bastion of safety will be gone :( And, just a few months ago, the CONS removed the funding from parties (each party got paid a certain amount for each seat they won each election so that way they had money to support themselves -- this has been allowing for things like the Green Party (usually 1 to 2 seats), and Others (usually 1 to 2 seats), and NDP (usually 10-20 seats) -- The NDP is now larger, but Liberals are in the NDP position (with 15 or so seats)....

Anyways, some scary trends are developing.... and I expect we'll be down to a two party system by the time the next election comes around (which will pretty muc

Re:

[shutdown -p now]

The question is, will Canada actually do anything about it? If they don't, then how is it really different from e.g. the recent elections in Russia?

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Baseless?

[theshowmecanuck]

And if anyone cares to notice, since 60 Minutes (CBS flagship "investigative news" show) was sued over the tobacco whistle blower story, they haven't done almost any investigative journalism. I certainly haven't seen any in years. It's all most interviews and fluff pieces. i.e. stuff we already know about. Investigation isn't really part of the show any more. Mind you they may have some investigative pieces still, but as I said, I can't say I've seen any that rank with what they used to do in their heyday in the 70s and 80s. It's obvious their bosses don't like people prying into things that may upset their friends.

Fricking Right On

[tjwhaynes]

I'm glad to see that there are other people out there who share my despair at the Canadian political scene. When I watch the current Conservative government repeal six pieces of environmental legislation in a budget bill, I know things are seriously out of whack. I'm just waiting for the Copyright reform bill to reappear - the last draft was pretty much written end to end by the MPAA/RIAA pundits, despite the claims that this was a "Made in Canada" production. Oh, and I'm also glad to see someone who hasn't bought into the rebranding of the Alberta Tar Sands as the "Oil Sands". Go stick your hand in the damn stuff - it's pretty dry sandy tar. Just you can fractionate the more volatile elements of out it doesn't change the facts - this is a bitumen heavy cockatil.

Re:Baseless?

[currently_awake]

Until the last election the NDP was a third party, now they form the opposition party. Things can change. "Throwing away" your vote gets noticed if many people do it, then the major parties start changing their policies to capture those lost votes.