The Fair Elections Act and the Robocall Conspiracy

As I've mentioned before, one of the reasons Stephen Harper's Cons are rushing their Unfair Elections Act through Parliament, is that they want it to become law before Michael Sona's robocall trial begins in June.

And with good reason. Because the bill would make it harder to go after those who would try to steal an election.

And that robocall scandal just got a whole lot more interesting.

Former Guelph Conservative campaign worker Andrew Prescott has given evidence related to the alleged involvement of two other campaign staff in the “Pierre Poutine” robocalls case, sources say. 

With an immunity agreement in place, Prescott gave evidence to prosecutors regarding the only person accused in the case, Michael Sona, as expected, but also provided information about Ken Morgan, who was the manager of the Guelph Conservative campaign.

Because now it's starting to sound less like the work of a rogue operative, like the PMO would have us believe. 

And more, as the shadowy Andrew Prescott would apparently have us believe, like a larger conspiracy.



Sources say Prescott gave evidence that Morgan, the campaign manager, asked him to log into a robocall account on his computer. Prescott also told investigators he later destroyed that computer. 

Prescott also told them that after the call went out to opposition supporters, Sona ran into the campaign office, laughing, and shouted, “It’s working, it’s working!”

With more Cons involved than we had previously known. And a trail that seems to lead all the way to the dark heart of the Harper regime.

Computer records show campaign volunteer John White downloaded the lists of opposition supporters that may have been used to make the call. White told investigators in 2012 he could not recall why he downloaded them. 

White, whose software company does work for the national party, told investigators that he directed Sona to talk to party headquarters when Sona talked about setting up a call that could not be traced back to the campaign.

But of course the main problem is that Elections Canada can't demand that people like Ken Morgan, the manager of the Guelph campaign, tell them what they know. 



Morgan moved to Kuwait in 2012 and is still believed to be living there. To date, he has never spoken to Elections Canada investigators about his role in the campaign at the centre of the robocalls scandal.

Because Elections Canada doesn't have the power to compel him or anyone else to testify. 

And when they asked for those powers to be included in the Fair Election Act, the Cons refused to do that. And instead made the Election Commissioner responsible to them instead of Parliament. 

Which can only make it easier to get away with stealing the next election...



While thanks to the so-called Fair Elections Act, we won't even know what really happened in the last one. 

A national investigation into allegations of dirty political calls has been under way for more than a year. Elections Canada had planned to wrap up that investigation by March 31. On Thursday, spokeswoman Diane Benson declined to say whether it is ongoing. 

That report has been postponed until after the 2015 election because of the introduction of the Conservatives’ election bill.

Can you believe that?

So the next election could be fatally tainted.

Canadians are hurtling toward an ugly collision with democracy in 2015. Condemnation of the government’s election bill is now so widespread, the perception that this is an exercise in voter suppression and loaded with Conservative advantage so pervasive, that anything short of a sweeping Tory majority in the next federal election will face charges of taint.

And leave our democracy even more damaged than it is now, and our country in state of chaos.

Which is of course yet another reason that foul bill must be changed or KILLED.

So please join Canadians all over the country who are speaking out and saying enough is ENOUGH....



Write to the politicians, talk to your neighbours and friends, sign petitions like this one or this one from our sister blogger Fern Hill.  Or send letters to all the politicians.

Or create your own petitions and campaigns, or videos, or street signs, or whatever. The important thing is to do SOMETHING.

Because we haven't had a better opportunity in years to turn resistance to the Harper regime into a movement. 

The robocall monster has just come back to life...



And we must seize the moment, and use it to help finish them off.

Demand that the guilty be prosecuted and punished.

Tell the Cons to keep their grubby paws off our Canadian democracy.

And tell the sinister tyrant to take a hike...



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