Allegations of voter suppression in Canada's last election.

[BigBallinStalin]

People always ask Who stood to benefit? People should ask Who actually benefited?

Pre-election every major poll and conventional wisdom saw a Tory victory. The Conservatives had little to nothing to gain by misdirecting a few thousand Liberal votes spread across several non-competitive ridings. The opportunity cost, however, would be extremely high. Placing several thousand obviously fake phone calls made it a foregone conclusion that the subterfuge would be discovered. The price the Tories would be forced to pay in eroded prestige and diminished public confidence would be high.

Keeping in mind political campaigns don't exist in neatly bookended calendar segments like the general public perceives - this is the 2011 federal election, this is the 2016 federal election, etc. - in the grand scheme of things who is actually benefiting from this right now? The answer to that should ID the responsible group.

I knew it! It those Democrats and their devious ways!!

[Baron Von PWN]

Stories have been comming out over the past week of a voter supperession effort in key contested ridings during the last Canadian federal ellection.

Liberal supporters and other voters were targeted by callers impersonating either elections canada officials or Liberal party volunteers.

They were either told that their polling station had moved(sending them to the wrong place) or were harrased(called late at night, rude) by people claiming to be Liberal campaing workers.

Already one conservative staffer has reseinged as a result. I wonder what the Elections Canada enquiry will turn up? Some by-elections in Canada's future?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... affer.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... urday.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/24 ... -liberals/

Talk about getting RonPauled out of nowhere! I heard Canada swung FAR right this last election. How far did yall swang?

Well the only conservative party won a majority government, mainly due to vote splitting(Though possibly with the help of some electoral fraud?). To be fair due to the nature of our multi party system all majority governments get elected due to vote spliting. Which is why I favour electoral reform.

Anyways the cons have a majority in Parliament which means they control government. Parliament is like your congress/ president rolled into one entity. We have a senate but it mostly just helps out parliament (reviews laws, participates on committees) . Technically they could stop a bill from passing but since they are an appointed body on the rare occasion this happens it triggers a constitutional crisis (you could count the number of times this has happened on your fingers).

To give you an idea of how regressive this government is they've introduced mandatory minimum sentences. A policy which is pretty much proven to be a failure.

[keiths31]

To give you an idea of how regressive this government is they've introduced mandatory minimum sentences. A policy which is pretty much proven to be a failure.

I agree that some of the minimum sentence situations may be too much, but all in all I am in favour of this. Maybe it is because of where I live (off and on the murder capital of Canada), but so many times when an arrest is made in a murder, armed robbery, etc almost always the person is known to police or out on parole. If keeping them in jail longer means keeping them off my streets then I am okay with that. Our system currently isn't working.

And in regard to the robo-calling, I think when all is said and done there is going to be more than one party with some explaining to do.

[Baron Von PWN]

To give you an idea of how regressive this government is they've introduced mandatory minimum sentences. A policy which is pretty much proven to be a failure.

I agree that some of the minimum sentence situations may be too much, but all in all I am in favour of this. Maybe it is because of where I live (off and on the murder capital of Canada), but so many times when an arrest is made in a murder, armed robbery, etc almost always the person is known to police or out on parole. If keeping them in jail longer means keeping them off my streets then I am okay with that. Our system currently isn't working.

And in regard to the robo-calling, I think when all is said and done there is going to be more than one party with some explaining to do.

I don't want to go to far off topic in the thread discussing the merits of minimum sentences or even the merits of the current gov. So for now I will just say I don't think minimum sentences are an effective method of crime reduction. Maybe I will start a thread on the topic.

Maybe more than one party will be implicated maybe they wont, regardless I think there should be a public inquiry into the matter.

[Timminz]

I think there's some confusion over the robo-call issue. Lots of candidates employed robo-calls to campaign, but the ones of issue are the ones that were fraudulently telling non-conservative supporters that their polling station had moved.

[Timminz]

But on all the core issues like taxes nothing will change.

Just this week, the issue of adding GST to basic necessities like groceries has come up. If implemented, that would be a pretty significant change in taxes.

[keiths31]

I think there's some confusion over the robo-call issue. Lots of candidates employed robo-calls to campaign, but the ones of issue are the ones that were fraudulently telling non-conservative supporters that their polling station had moved.

There were those ones, which so far haven't found a source who initiated the call (which in today's world seems odd). If these are found to come from a candidate or initiated by a candidate then the law needs to be involved. There is also a Liberal MP Frank Valeriote sending out calls in regards to a Conservative candidate and breaking the laws regarding advertising.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/03/12/pol-election-calls-guelph.html
For the amount of candidates and parties using this I am sure there will be more incidences of wrong doing.

[Baron Von PWN]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le2379712/

The notorious "Piere Poutine" asked a robo-call company associated with the conservatives to impersonate the Liberals.