‘Dirty Trick’ Calls Made In Niagara During Last Ontario Election

NAL robo calls Niagara,

 By Doug Draper

 The kind of ‘dirty trick’ robo-calling that seems to have slithered its way into last spring’s federal election in Canada also surfaced in a Niagara riding in last fall’s Ontario election.

Former Ontario St. Catharines (Ontario) Riding candidate says robo-calls 'slandered her integrity'.

Irene Lowell, who was the NDP candidate in the provincial riding of St. Catharines, first found out about the recorded calls when riding constituents contacted her campaign office in the final days of the October 6, 2011 provincial election to complain about them.

 Lowell said she and her campaign manager were told by constituents that calls were urging voters to support her rather than the Liberal incumbent Jim Bradley because he “has been in Toronto far too long.” And what troubled Lowell the most is that who ever made the recording said the calls were coming from her campaign.

“They weren’t coming from us at all,” Lowell told Niagara At Large during an interview this March 1, and “I felt so bad for Jim (Bradley) that I went straight to Jim’s office. … He wasn’t there,” she added, “so I just let his staff o that I had nothing to do with this. I am not that kind of person.”

 Lowell let Niagara At Large and other area media know about the robo-calls with a statement that they did not come from her before the Oct. 6 vote, hoping that voters in the riding would realize that they were bogus and would not be influenced by them. She also filed a complaint to Elections Ontario and to the Niagara Regional Police about them.

 When asked this March 1 if those complaints were followed up, Lowell told NAL that Elections Ontario merely acknowledged her complaint. A NRP officer visited her and said the calls could have been done through a computer, in a way that made them untraceable.

 Bradley, who won the election, said in a recent interview he was aware of the robo-calls and has no reason to believe they came from Lowell, who ended up polling third and behind the second place Progressive Conservative candidate Sandie Bellows.

In a separate interview this March 1, Bellows told Niagara At Large that she had nothing to do with the calls and can’t image anyone on her campaign team making them. “I like to look myself in a mirror and know that I did a good job,’ she said. “I have very strong ethical values and that is not me, and it is know that it is not Irene (Lowell) either because I have known her for years.”

Lowell said she is also sure they did not come from Bellows. But someone was responsible for those calls, she said, and “I think it is pathetic that people would stoop that low. … It is lower than a snake in a wheel rut,” she said, “and it did not only slander Jim Bradley, it slandered my integrity too.”

 Anyone with any information that could lead to finding out who was responsible for these calls to St. Catharines riding constitutents or may still have a copy of the robo-call message on their voice-mail machine can email drapers@vaxxine.com.

A story posted by the Canadian Press this March 1 noted that at least a few other Liberal and NDP candidates in last fall’s Ontario election complained of “alleged dirty tricks” played during the campaign through robo-calls or automated calling machines. The story goes on to read as follows:

“Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said his party had not heard any complaints about robocalls targeting Tory candidates, nor did they engage in any of the dirty tricks.

All parties used automated calling machines to get out their vote, and that’s all the Conservatives did, said Hudak.

“When I heard about this I checked with my campaign team to verify,” he said. “We looked through our scripts, and no, we did not engage in any of those types of activities.”

Most politicians were reluctant to say who they think is behind the dirty tricks, but Ontario Liberal Party vice-president Christine McMillan made it clear she thinks it’s the Conservatives.

“We are concerned by reports of an alleged voter deception scheme employed during last year’s federal election, and troubling questions about the potential involvement of companies closely connected to the PC Party,” McMillan said in an email.

“We’ll continue to take action to keep dirty tricks and dirty politics out of Ontario, and protect our fundamental democratic right to vote.”  ….

Documents show the Ontario Progressive Conservatives spent over $2 million in recent years to hire Responsive Marketing Group, one of the companies contracted by the federal Tories during the 2011 election.

PC party spokesman Alan Sakach said RMG was hired by the provincial Tories to help get out the vote.

“We hired them to help us fundraise, identify Conservative supporters in the last election and encourage those supporters to come out and vote on election day,” said Sakach.

“We didn’t engage in any of this nonsense.”

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