Creekside: RoboCon Time Capsule

Or, What We Knew and When We Knew It.

Spoiler alert: Way back.

Pssst: If you don't have Creekside in your blog-roll or bookmarks, why the hell not?

Just because I can

Appealing. . .

I've had some recent experience with the legal system. I and some other long-term tenants fought our gentrifying landscum over our eviction. (Someday I'll tell the whole tale.) We lost at the kangaroo court known as the Landscum and Tenant Board.

We appealed. The advantage of this move is that one's case is heard by actual trained judges -- not by politically appointed stooges -- so we went for it. (Cost a bomb but sent landscum loco. That was satisfying.)

The disadvantage is that one is at the mercy of a) lying Big Swinging Dick Lawyers and b) incredible-til-one-experiences-it class bias in judges.

We lost.

Now, if we had dropped the appeal before it was heard, what would that have meant?

It would ^NOT have meant that we agreed to disagree with the landscum.

It would have meant that we accepted the decision of the kangaroo court.

It would have meant that we accepted that we had LOST.

Ah, but that's how it works for us little people.

Now looky here.

The Conservative Party of Canada has repaid taxpayers $230,198 for the "in-and-out" election financing dispute and dropped its appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The party, currently fending off allegations of wrongdoing in the 2011 election over misleading telephone calls to voters, notified the Supreme Court last Friday that it wouldn't proceed with its case against Elections Canada.

Remember the old 'In and Out' scandal? And its current iteration?

[The Contempt Party] won the case in a lower court ruling, but in early 2011, the federal Court of Appeal unanimously overturned that ruling, saying Elections Canada had every right to deny the expenses.

The Conservatives brought the case to the Supreme Court, which granted the party leave to appeal in October.

They had a date set in May, but now they've quietly -- on a Friday, natch -- dropped the appeal.

So that means the Contempt Party accepts the decision of the lower court, yes? Accepts that they LOST?

Of course not.

"This has been a long-standing administrative dispute with Elections Canada over whether certain campaign expenses should be counted as local or national," Fred DeLorey, Conservative party spokesman, said in a statement to CBC News.

"We are agreeing to disagree and will be dropping our appeal to the Supreme Court. We are amending our return under protest to reflect this."

Right. Fiddle the books, get caught, fight, fight, fight, lose, appeal, then drop appeal, pay back some dough, then claim victory.

Anyone have any doubt that this is how the current investigation will play out? Like in 2018 or so?

But telling, innit, that they've dropped the appeal now. Hmm. Maybe because they've got stinkier bigger fish to bury fry?

How Many Links to a Smoking Gun?

Maurice Vellacott had a little chat with The Hill Times and it wasn't about abortion.

But when Stevie Peevie gets a load of this, I think he'll open the Abortion Debate all by himself to distract the brainless big-mouth.

Further to Blame Game Move 5 (blame Elections Canada), Vellacott explains that EC sends voter lists to all parties, once early on in the campaign, and again three days before the election. Note: these lists do NOT contain the all-important telephone numbers.

Then what happens, Maurice?

Mr. Vellacott disclosed the Conservative Party’s central campaign matches the telephone numbers of identified voters, from a range of sources including electoral district information, with the Elections Canada voter lists.

“I don’t know how it works with everybody, but for the most part, because it’s such a massive job in such a short period of time, I would suspect that with most parties, I can’t speak for others, but I suspect it comes from the national party office, you know attempting to do that,” Mr. Vellacott said

“They’ve got all these 308 ridings across the country, but they do the match up for us. We don’t do it ourselves, in terms of the addition [of phone numbers]. I don’t know how it works for others, the new dump of stuff as it kind of progresses through the campaign and then trying to marry those numbers, that’s all done by our national office, at least within the Conservative Party.”

Liberals told The Hill Times on Tuesday their party does not maintain central control over campaign voting lists and voter identification numbers, and a senior NDP official, Brad Lavigne, recently told CBC’s The House that NDP electoral districts maintain their own voter lists.

Mr. Vellacott said he believes the Conservative Party manages the lists and matches voter identification telephone numbers centrally because it has the capacity and the expertise that the job requires.

Given Vellacott's intellectual capacity, perhaps this is just a kindness on CPC's part and done only for him.

We await further clarfication.

From the same article, an interesting tidbit:

Elections Canada confirmed to The Hill Times on Tuesday that for the first time in a federal election a representative of one of the recognized parties, the Conservative Party, had before the election requested that the initial voter list given to the parties at the beginning of the campaign include the location of polling sites. In response, Elections Canada provided the information to the Conservative Party and the other recognized parties.

Chief Electoral Marc Mayrand cautioned about the unusual request in a comprehensive report to Parliament last August.

Hence the warning from EC to parties NOT to give out polling station information.

“Because a polling site can be replaced by another at the last minute, and to ensure that electors always have access to the most accurate information regarding their location, Elections Canada indicated to political parties that the list supplied should only be used for internal purposes and that parties should not direct electors to polling sites,” the report said.

“Political parties were invited to refer electors to the Elections Canada website, their local Elections Canada office or their voter information card for locations, to prevent electors from being directed to incorrect polling sites. Some political parties did not comply with this request.”

It was the Contempt Party of Canada that requested the polling station locations, eh? For the first time, eh?

So, to recap. At least one Con says the telephone numbers were added by the national campaign and that the lists were centrally controlled. Said telephone numbers were used to misinform voters about the location of their polling stations -- locations requested by the Contempters.

Not much, I agree. But the links are there. We've gotta keep at it.

Gotcha!

As my long-suffering friends and relations will tell you, I'm kinda tedious on the subject of how the Internet is changing politics.

Well, look who agrees. Antonia Z.

Call it the hive mind, swarm intelligence, maybe collective consciousness.

Really, what’s happening online with the so-called “robo-call” scandal is all about crowdsourcing the story.

Posts and comments on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, alternative websites and even corporate media are bouncing off each other, adding to the mass of allegations of election wrongdoing by the Conservative party.

And it's not just what's happening now.

She pointedly points out that bloggers have been on this since the minute the polls closed, citing the Essential Alison and in particular, her blogpost on the margin of victory from May 5, 2011.

Continuing on with how the story is now being amplified, she quotes -- ooooo! -- DJ!'s own deBeauxOs.

For example, when news of Elections Canada’s investigation of the “deceptive robo-calls” hit the headlines, it took over Twitter.

“Those of us who had tried to flag these U.S.-styled tactics (last year) responded with tweets linking to previous news stories and our blogs,” says Ottawa blogger DeBeauxOs of Dammit Janet.

Each fed off the other and boom. The story exploded.

And the feeding continues. Antonia has the grace -- a substance lacking in most MSM stenographers -- to credit the indefatigable Sixth Estate for his excellent ongoing compilation of reports and commentary thereon.

There is a quibble from Alice Funke of the Pundits' Guide. She says that all this yammering on the Tubz may be 'muddying the waters'.

Um. No. We are propelling the War Canoe.

Funke worries that muddying and confusion is playing into the Stevie Peevie's evil plans.

Plan? This is planned?

Ha. The Contempt Party is in full-bore panic and scramble mode. (See: Del Mastro, Dean, passim.)

The upshot? As my friend and relations can tell you -- Utopia.

OK. Not quite.

That said, [Internet strategist and broadcaster Jesse] Hirsh thinks this scandal is just the beginning of crowdsourcing political news.

“What we’re seeing is a clear marking of this is how things are now done, and this is how things will be done going forward,” he says.

“And this may even be the last major political scandal because the only lesson a politico can take from all of this is, you’re going to get caught.”

Unlikely. But the blogosphere and twitterverse will have a grand time hunting the evil-doers down.

Stevie's Alleged Electoral Fraud

Go read Alison at Creekside: Steve's Margin of Victory - revised for the latest figures on those critical ridings that allowed PMSHithead and his CONtempt Party to grab his 39% "majority" government.

And then go to Dr Dawg's for a good howl.

As one of the commenters at DJ! said: "Harper's "prove it" response in the House. All he sees is the opposition parties attacking him, not the Canadian people wanting answers. No leadership, no class."

Aaron Wherry observes how Stevie Spiteful goes on a Baird-like bullying bombast in the House of Commons.

Added: This picture from @0lddutch in answer to question "What do you get when you cross a Con with a root vegetable?"

Illegitimate Majority = Illegitimate Legislation

The Sixth Estate is doing its usual fabulous job of keeping track of the (at the moment, 48) ridings where 'unprecedented' allegations of electoral fraud have been reported.

By my count, 32 of the 48 were won by Cons, in some cases narrowly. Dr Dawg does the math on how Stevie's long-lusted-for majority is constructed.

The majority, as we are all aware, that he is using to shut down debate and ram through legislation that Canadians do NOT want -- like online spying. (And the dissolution of the Wheat Board, destruction of the long-gun registry, etc., etc.)

Clearly, the Contempt Party is praying for Canadians to ignore the current outrage as they've pretty well ignored the whole slimy Con track record of abuse of democracy and accountability.

Let's help keep this pot boiling, shall we?

Illegitimate majority = illegitimate legislation.

Not short and snappy, alas. We welcome improvements to it.

Legacy

The Harper Government is well on its way to being the Government of Firsts.

First, contempt of Parliament.

The contempt finding is unique in Canadian history. In a wider context, it is the first time that a government in the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations has been found in contempt of Parliament.

This morning on The House, former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley was asked what the penalty for electoral fraud is. He said, 'a fine of $5,000 and/or a prison term of up to five years'. Asked whether anyone had ever gone to prison, he said not to his knowledge. But then added: 'But there's a first time for everything'.

There's a legacy for ya, Stevie.

ADDED: Niles asked in the comments but others may have the same question: Who orders an investigation?

As I understand it from this morning's radio program, the Commissioner of Elections Canada orders an investigation by Elections Canada staff who then take the findings to the Director of Public Prosecutions, currently this guy, who decides whether there is a case to bring. Note date of appointment. Yup, 2007, post-Harper.

Viral, Baby!

This is cool. The number of signers of this RoboCon/RoboScam petition stood at just over 2300 when I signed at about 3:30. Just two hours later, it's now at nearly 5100.

My good friend Connie at Free Dominion is on it.

Can we get 100,000 by the end of the weekend?

UPDATE: 8:30 p.m., over 8600.