Monday, April 14, 2014

The Unfair Elections Act and the Republican Connection



He has always been more of an American style politician than a Canadian one.

The closest thing to Richard Nixon and his dirty trick Republicans this country has ever seen.

He brought their disgusting attack ads to Canada.

And his foul Unfair Elections Act is right out of the Republican playbook.

Stephen Harper would make a good governor of Arizona. In addition to the lies and sleaziness his government has been serving up during its majority, its sickening reliance on marketing over truth, its dishonest use of technology in political matters, and its shameful abuse of language, the prime minister is blighting democracy in the name of political advantage.

Because in Arizona and other states the Republicans have mounted a  campaign to try to suppress the vote. For the same phony reasons the Cons are using in Canada. 

Like a lot of Republican states, Arizona claims the legislation is designed to battle massive voter fraud.

Except there has been no massive voter fraud, not in Arizona, not in Texas, not in Kansas, nowhere in the United States. The only fraud is the legislation itself, passed by nine Republican states since 2013 looking ahead to congressional elections, and ultimately to the presidential election of 2016.

And as Obama pointed out the other day, making it harder to vote.

Last Friday, the president of the United States spoke out against the real reason these Republican states are passing restrictive electoral reform — to suppress the vote in swing states for political advantage. Obama told the National Action Network Convention that the right to vote in America was gravely “threatened” under state legislation that was “making it harder, not easier, for people to vote.”

Just like the Cons are doing in Canada.

With Pierre Poilievre, the most Republican looking MP in Parliament, leading the charge...



One of Poilievre’s bigger whoppers in selling his snake oil, C-23, is that the new restrictions are needed to deal with voter fraud. Apart from the minister’s fear-mongering, he had no facts to back up his stated reason for restricting access to the vote. There is no massive voter fraud in Canada. Perhaps that’s why two of his colleagues faked it about personally witnessing cheating, only to later recant.

And the good news? When the Republicans tried that in the last U.S. election it backfired badly. The same thing could happen here.

And to make matters even better, Poilievre doesn't know what he's doing.

For he is proposing to eliminate vouching, even though his government used it in a recent BC court challenge to claim that vouching would guarantee voter's rights.

A constitutional challenge to voter-identification rules brought in by the Harper government in 2007 may be on its way to the Supreme Court of Canada — where the latest Conservative electoral reforms would create an awkward legal backdrop. That's because the government of Canada has successfully argued in B.C. courts that its previous round of ID requirements were protected, in part, by the "failsafe" of voter vouching.

And by eliminating vouching, and disenfranchising voters, the government is undermining both its court challenge AND its foul bill.

Elections experts say the measure will disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters in 2015. And constitutional experts say the legislation doesn't pass muster. Pierre Lortie, chairman of a 1992 royal commission on electoral reform, testified to a House of Commons committee last week that eliminating vouching "undoubtedly contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

And making it almost certain that the Supreme Court will eventually quash the Unfair Elections Act.

Which of course hands us even MORE ammunition to use against the Cons in the next election.

For not only can we now label their foul bill an attack on the Charter of Rights and use their own words against them.

Or use it to motivate Canadians to vote.

We can also use the whole controversy to portray Stephen Harper as more American than Canadian...



The beast who would kill Canada and its democracy.

Yup, as I've said before, the universe is unfolding as it should.

We have all the angles covered.

Canadians are rebelling.

And the RepubliCons are going down...

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10 comments:

bcwaterboy said...

This would be a great idea for the NDP and Libs to pool their resources to brand the great statesman with the "would make a great Arizona Governor" label and that really, he's just visiting Canada. Heck with the amount of travelling he's doing these days, he really is just visiting. As for Poilievre, he just needs to go away, like Rob Anders, back to his parent's basement or some such place, where he can whither into obscurity and we never have to waste valuable time hearing of him again.

Anonymous said...

To me Harper is Americanizing Canada. We have American Police operating in Canada, exempt from our Laws. Obama hammered out Obama care, which will be similar to Canada's, once Harper get's our health care slashed. Some time back, Flaherty said, he would bring Canada's cost of living in line, with the cost of living in the US. Harper will use every vile tactic in the book, to stay in office.

Flanagan's book on Harper? He said, Harper has white hot rage's over nothing. That Harper has week long depressions where, he is incapable of making decisions.

Poilievre and his so called *Fair* Election Plan, is a very bad decision. How Harper and his Cons manages to stay in office, boggles me.

kootcoot said...

Actually I think the Harper could easily sit in for, tho she may have bigger balls, Jan Brewer in Arizoner........he would be an even better fit for Mississippi or Alabama or the most backward of the Carolinas.

Anders? He and Pierre Pollievre should just get a room and watch Harper starring in 24/7 all day and night

e.a.f. said...

loved the suggestion

e.a.f. said...

Harper, he's just visiting, he's just in it for the travel, perks, and money.

Simon said...

hi bcwaterboy....All I can say to that is Amen. Let's pray for that outcome shall we? Stephen Harper would look good sweating in the desert. And Poilievre does belong in some basement somewhere with bars on the windows. It's come to the point where I can't decide who I despise more him or Harper? But of course, the day one is evicted from power the other will follow...

Simon said...

hi anon...Harper has been Americanizing Canada from the moment he came to office.His attacks ads which changed politics in Canada came straight from the Book of Rove, his voter suppression scheme is taken directly from what the Republicans are doing in places like Texas and North Carolina. And if given half a chance he will destroy our medicare system, and make us pay American companies to take care of us.
There never was a worse or least Canadian Prime Minister...

Simon said...

hi kootcoot...yes I would love to see Jan Brewer and Harper mud wrestling together. They would make a good couple, and of course she would DESTROY him. As for Anders and Poilievre they too deserve each other but instead of a room I would rather book them a cage at the zoo. So we could visit them now and then and shower them with peanuts...

Simon said...

hi e.a.f...well his visit has lasted eight long years, and he is trying to beat some Prime Minister for longest time in office. But hopefully he will decide that ten years is enough and leave before he's humiliated...

kootcoot said...

Could you imagine if Marc Garneau had won the Liberal leadershiP? We would already be being innundated with attack ads pointing out that Marc didn't return to earth for us....