By Mark Taliano
On Sunday, March 11 rallies were held in about 30 cities across Canada to protest the infection of electoral fraud that tainted the 2011 Canadian federal election.
Ontario residents gather in Toronto to protest robo-call scandal. Photo by Tori Crispo.
The Toronto rally of about 2,000 people was hosted independently by Occupy Canada moderator Jonathan Allan, and featured numerous speakers, including Sherif Azer, Assistant Secretary General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
The rally started at Yonge and Dundas Square, the heart of consumerism, and ended at the old City Hall and the Cenotaph, the hearts of freedom. Electoral fraud is a direct, frontal attack on democracy and freedom, so the setting at the Cenotaph was particularly poignant.
Despite the spin that voter suppression may have been an isolated incident, so far one in five Canadian ridings has reported fraudulent “robo calls”. A “robo-call” is a phone call, often made to previously identified voters through polling information, which may (if the technology is abused) impersonate an opposition party and/or send voters to the wrong voting stations. The purpose is to suppress the vote by discouraging or disenfranchising voters.
Imagine not being able to afford transportation, and being informed that the voting station had been moved across town. Or imagine that the targeted voter is disabled, and becomes confused by the call. At the very least, these calls (which occurred across Canada), are unethical and dirty, if not fraudulent.
So far, anywhere from 57 to 77 ridings have been affected by voter suppression techniques and of these ridings, the robo-calls may well have had a significant impact on the results. Consider, for example, that the Conservatives beat the Liberals by 18 votes in Nipissing -Timiskaming, and they beat the Liberals by 26 votes in Etobicoke Centre. These races, and numerous others, could have gone either way.
What happened in the Eglington-Lawrence riding of Toronto was arguably worse. There was a late influx of about 2,700 voters who were able to get on the voter’s list, but many of them did not give any address, despite the fact that the law requires unregistered voters to provide both a present and former address when filling out a late registration form. Some of the unregistered voters provided bogus addresses: a UPS store in one case, and a Scotia bank branch in another.
What is to be done? NDP MP Olivia Chow (Trinity Spadina), who attended the rally, indicated that a Public Inquiry is necessary so that documents/evidence can be seized. This, at the very least, is necessary. Our democracy demands it.
Sherif Azer’s poignant speech at the end of the rally served as a reminder of the gravity of the situation. Egyptians paid with their blood to unseat Mubaruk, and they will die again under the yoke of the Military Counsel.
People are literally dying for the right to vote in legal, ethical elections. As Canadians, we would do well to remember this, and to carefully guard our freedoms in this, our home and native land.
To view a video of the March 11 rally in Toronto click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7H4u2ytIN4&feature=you%E2%80%8Btu.be .
Mark Taliano attended the March 11 rally in Toronto. He is a Niagara resident and frequent contributor of news and commentary to Niagara At Large.
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People in Canada and Russia are protesting election fraud and the same tactics are used by governing parties, is there a convergance of usurping power taking place world wide ? Florida was a blatant example of a stolen election I feel the people are getting screwed to the wall by these currupt and unethical tactics, a peoples revolt will happen sooner or later that will make the French Revolution look like a tap dance.Heads will roll ,bankers, heads of Corporations and politicos will feel the wrath of the people.,as the people have the tools and outnumber the rulers.
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Well Said !
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Not-with-standing the situation in Egypt, Libya and for that matter in Italy where a duly elected president and his cabinet were replaced by an unelected bureaucrats, recent elections in Russia and Iran show us how fragile representative democracy in fact is on a global scale.
On a local level and in keeping with the premise that our hard won, yet seemingly fragile freedoms are at risk of being subverted by some dopey political hacks making robocalls, we should also guard against US operatives and potentially criminal organizations like Tides, Avaaz, and other foreign groups. Besides ginning up manufactured outrage amongst the impressionable, these foreign sponsored outfits use flash-mob and other blitzkrieg techniques to carry-out something called “bench-marking”.
The point is to flood the media with an agenda, right or wrong, to create a negative perception regarding topic-de-jour (campaign calls, prorogation, etc…) that lingers into the next election. It makes absolutely no difference whether the issue was legitimate or disproved as phony, as long as it agrees with the narrative. And in today’s electronic world the lie gets an insurmountable head start before the truth even gets its shoes on.
Then at the next election such a canard can be trotted out “as yet one more item proving duplicity”. The benchmark will be there and will be impossible to roll back.
I agree with the author that we must be vigilant and protect our rights regardless of who is trying to mess with them.
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A Quick follow-up
A man wise beyond his age said recently that the genesis of our new-found discontent and the debilitating polarization of society (urban/rural, rich/poor, left/right, indolent/self-reliant, etc…) resides with the devolution of democracy to an unaccountable hegemon. The “Demos” is being eroded away leaving only “kratos” behind in the hands of an unelected “bureau”. And that is truly worrisome.
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Quite right Mr. Wojnarowski. This isn’t about finding the perpetrators and holding them accountable. This is really about acting as accuser, judge and jury in the media under the guise of protecting our democracy. These are nothing more than lynch mob tactics to undermine our regulating infrastructure with multitudes of false accusations to push the system into overload, ergo – anarchy. Alinsky for the 21 st century
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Perfectly said. idealogy trumps everything with our current government. The Office of the Freedoom of Religion is a virtually empty office, but looks good in print, eh? What does it do? Put a spin on everything, and do nothing seems to be the Harper government agenda. Bullying in schools is a hot topic. How about bullying in government, anyone?
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Updates:
* The scandal is more appropriately described as ” Election Fraud Scandal”
* A pattern has emerged: misleading/misdirection calls were made to those people who had previously been targeted by the conservative CIMS data base as people not supportig the conservative party.
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Interesting Mark … IF the Tories are the (only) party behind this, they sure didn’t need to do it.
Example: our Welland Canal riding was definitely a target riding in the past election. Is there anyone who did Not receive a ‘demon dialler’ call, from nearly Every party = ‘robo-calls’ ? Perhaps even a few humans called?
But no misleading calls reported, eh? The Tories had their highest vote ever in Welland riding, and nearly won … withOUT corruption. Why cheat when it’s not needed?
But the riding went NDP, despite the many phone calls we all received. Besides, Canadian voters aren’t stupid – we think for ouselves, weigh emotion with logic, vote accordingly and live with the election results, because we have installed the fair rules run by Elections Canada to keep it honest. In fact, the more worrisome part of this robo-call querphuffle, may turn out to be why http://www.Elections.ca did Not properly research the initial complaints before the issue became ‘political’,
OR
maybe the calls came from outside the country?
OR
maybe the calls didn’t come from political parties?
OR
maybe they did, and it’s an invented issue?
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More corruption updates: Public colleges/universities in Alberta made illegal donations exclusively to the Tories in Alberta, in one case, with the party’s direct knowledge. (CBC news investigation)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2012/03/20/edmonton-college-donations-conservatives.html?cmp=rss
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Democracy deserves a Public Inquiry. Will we get it?
* Federal Tories are the only political party in Canadian history to have been found in contempt of parliament.
* They plead guilty to two counts of violating the Elections Act. (In/out scandal)
* Canada ranks last of G-7 nations in fighting bribery and corruption, among the worst of 40 countries (OECD) as per Julian Sher article, May 24, 2011
The fact that we may not get a public inquiry into Election Fraud doesn’t bode welll for freedom and democracy either.
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Election Fraud Updates:
* Council Of Canadians is asking Federal Court of Canada to overturn elections in 7 ridings.
* In a separate action Lib. candidate B Wrzesnewsky is funding his own legal challenge in Etobicoke-Central riding
* not included is Guelph riding
* A full Public inquiry is still being requested/demanded
* Council Of Canadians is hoping it can use lawsuit to discover volume of deceptive or fraudulent calls in other ridings
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Election Fraud Updates:
* 800 complaints alleging specific occurences of improper or fraudulent calls “from people in about 200 ridings across country, in 10 provinces and one territory”
* Federal Conservatives invited Head of Elections Canada to testify the same day as the Federal Budget.
* Elections Canada funding will be cut by $7.5 million/year effective 2012/2013
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Independent Public Inquiry ( with supboena power) is necessary: Under the Stelmach government in Alberta, Chief Electoral Officer Lorne Gibson was fired, by a legislative committee stacked with Conservatives, after Gibson made extensive recommendations for electoral reform.
The Chief Electoral Office is an appointed position. Maynard was appointed by the Harper government.
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