It’s just stuff like this that makes my eyes roll:
The Liberals need to prove that they didn’t make the calls themselves, but the Conservatives don’t have to prove anything at all? Maybe it’s just Del Mastro who is a complete and utter idiot, but…come on!
This whole mess is just insulting to all Canadians, regardless of party affiliation, and like it or not, it’s the Conservatives who have the power to fix the problem, but they seem reluctant to. It just drives me crazy - perhaps I’ve just been reading too many blogs and news sites today
I don’t know when you went to school, but this is absolutely not true, at least not anymore. Grade one is completely french, yes, and it’s mainly designed around building vocabulary and teaching the basic grammatical rules, but you get into a lot more detail on the grammar front, while still operating mostly in french, by IIRC grade three. And explanations and corrections were often made in english, if the concept was difficult. I also remember being taught what avoir and etre are in grade one. How could you possibly operate in the language without understanding what things mean, especially basic things like that? Either things have changed since you were in french immersion, or you had a series of really shitty teachers.
Both of those last things are probably true, to be honest.
But corrected in English? Really? Wow, that would have helped a lot. We absolutely were never, ever corrected in English, ever, nor were we permitted to speak it during the French half of the school day.
So, what you’re saying is that the Conservatives should be considered guilty until proven innocent. And that they need to release their own records although no warrant has been issued and no wrongdoing has been proven. This flies against your position that innocent web-surfing public should be subject to government inquisition without a warrant.
Double standard?
ETA: John Q. Public should not share records unless there’s a search warrant. A political party needs to show records although there’s no search warrant. Yeah. Get the evidence, and get a warrant or else stop being so damned hypocritical.
That is not what I’ve said - you’ve inferred things unsupported by my words.
I’m not clamouring for anyone at all to release records publicly or even to anyone without a warrant (or through whatever legal/procedural/governmental rules that may exist) - there is no double standard on that and I am not being hypocritical.
What is bugging me - and what is hypocritical - is Del Mastro (and the party position, from what I can see, but he’s doing most of the talking, so I’ll leave it at him for now) demanding that the Liberals and NDP release their data to prove that they didn’t do it while simultaneously saying that the Conservatives will not be releasing their information (to whoever…Elections Canada, the RCMP, the media, whoever needs to know). Either everyone does, or no one does. And since the Liberals and NDP have already said that they would, what are the Conservatives waiting for?
And as I’ve said before, this is not a partisan issue, but it is being handled as though it was. It is the behaviour and partisan stance on the whole story that is bugging me and that, IMHO, makes our government look bad - it makes Canada look bad.
I want to see the government - my government - work as a whole to protect the rights of Canadians rather than play pin-the-blame-on-the-politician. Enough pointing fingers. Find the one - or eight - or eight hundred - people involved in this story and deal with it.
No, they have actually said “The conservative party did not do anything wrong. We know this is true because we just said it.”
First though, they tried to blame “a lone operative” , and threw a 23 year old under the bus. When that didn’t wash…
The Conservatives then tried to blame the scandal on the Liberal party. I guess its’ OK to accuse a party before EC and the RCMP have investigated if it’s the OTHER party eh?
In a bizarre twist, conservative MP Maurice Vellacott then tried to claim the scandal was the FAULT OF ELECTIONS CANADA. No, I am not making this up. About the only one they have not blamed yet is Micky Mouse.
Funny you should ask that.
The conservative party has recently denied Elections Canada’s request to have the power to demand receipts for political parties’ election spending.
Last year the Conservatives would not vote for a bill that gave Elections Canada more powers to investigate crimes.
I think that EC should be able to look at the freaking receipts of election spending. What do you think?
This stinks. It is beyond pathetic. If the Conservatives are not guilty as hell, they are certainly doing a great impression of being guilty as hell.
The longer this robocall thing drags on, and the lack of hard evidence, apart from the rogue Pierre Poutine calls in Guelph, makes me think this is absolutely a non-issue. From the above link:
What exactly are supporting documents, and how was the 2008 election different than any other election in Canadian history? And how is the 2008 election associated with this issue at all? I can’t imagine in past elections that this power was available, and now, due to the robocall controversy the CBC is digging up this gem from 4 years ago? Lovely.
Now, it’s clear that the so-called 30,000 “complaints” are nothing more than form letters filled out at left wing websites.
To me, this is really starting to smell like a whole bunch of sore losers with time on their hands.
In fact, I personally know people who received calls (not in Guelph) who have complained to EC. These people do not have a clue who Avaaz.org is, nor are they “left-wingers”. They are Canadians who are pissed off that they received phone calls in the last election that specifically directed them to a polling station that did not exist. They did not complain before because they thought at the time it was an error. Now they know that it was part of an orchestrated campaign.
Your attempt to smear Canadians who received fraudulent calls as “left-wingers” is directly out of the Conservative playbook. Good job. “Snoozy” Rob Anders might have a job for you. Why don’t you say that they’re all Putin supporters while you’re at it?
Before, you were saying “lets wait for an investigation”. Now you’re dismissing the investigation when it has just begun. Pathetic. And typical.
My impression on the RoboCall scandal is somewhat down the middle: I think there was in fact some bad behaviour going on by the Conservatives, but that the extent and severity of that bad behaviour has been inflated by the other parties seeking to make hay while the sun shines (so to speak) and organizing/encouraging people to make complaints, the validity of which are now impossible to check (calls from years ago, remembered). It would be contrary to human nature if the hoopla did not have the effect of creating a lot of, shall we say, somewhat convenient complaining.
The problem is of course that the flood of complaints, the majority of which are likely to be impossible to substantiate, will tend to obscure the actual wrong-doing. By making too big a deal about it, the other parties are risking losing public credibility concerning the scandal.
Left wing was the term used in the linked article: not mine.
And I stand by the use of my terms “makes me think this is absolutely a non-issue” and “starting to smell like a whole bunch of sore losers.” I’m not dismissing any further investigation; I welcome it. My personal opinion is that the investigation will not find any proof of any concerted and sanctioned effort to defraud voters of their right to vote by the Conservative Party.
Various conservative candidates who did not win seats in the previous election are saying that their campaigns were used by the federal party to move money through (in and out - link is in French, I’ll look for an English one) to pay for RMG contracts - one of the call centres tied up in this whole mess. RMG is the firm where a former employee claims to have been told to make misleading calls and where she deviated from the script because she wasn’t comfortable with what she was being asked to say. It’s unclear just what services this money was being used for (by that I mean that while there were certainly very legitimate services, the candidates aren’t really sure what they were paying because they, themselves, received very little or nothing in particular back).
There is so much information coming out, so much to filter, but I think it’s silly to claim that this is just all made up in some sort of smear campaign. That just doesn’t even make much sense - the opposition has much more to lose than they would have to gain if this were to backfire on them, which it would following a thorough police investigation.
I think calling concerned people “sore losers” is disrespectful. I would be just as riled up about this if this was tied to the party I voted for. “He did it too!” is not and will never be a valid defence. I do not support criminals in my preferred party, and I will not support them in any other party. If any Liberals or NDP or anyone else took part in any of this, then I expect them to be punished with the full force of the law as well.
I think it’s more reasonable to assume that no one has (or had) any idea how to flag issues to Elections Canada (EC). In that vacuum, given the accusation is against the Conservatives, non conservative interest groups would fill the record generating vacuum.
Look - no plot, no “left wing” conspiracy but at the same time a large number of inconsistent complaints due to the vacuum EC inadvertently created.
That said, the Conservatives behavior in the In and Out scandal, the intentionally misleading calls in Irwin Cotler’s riding, the immediate and incorrect accusation that the calls came from the Liberals has done nothing to change a narrative that the Conservatives will do anything to win. Couple that with Anders’ and Towes’ recent idiocy and the pool of available good will is even smaller.
Since I’m sure you think that the CBC is the home of socialists and leftists, here’s an article that explains more, by that noted left-leaning media source, theNational Post
Note that the National Post has actually been the media source that has been chasing this story, and actually investigating. Nice try at dragging the CBC (every conservative’s favorite whipping boy) into it though.
What a surprise.
Oh, and about the horrible American leftist site that has been used to lodge protests? Well EC has finally unveiled an online site here where Canadians can send them complaints. I wonder why the public had to turn to different place to lodge complaints a few days ago, hmmm?
Because you’re acting like a Harper Government apologist.
The reason that the Harper Government did not want Elections Canada to have the power to order documents to verify party expenses was to “save costs?” Do you expect the public to buy that? Seriously? They only have cost savings in mind, nothing else. Do you want to go with that?
You are aware that those that oversee the provincial elections already have these powers, yes?
