Calls for a public inquiry are mounting as the list of federal candidates claiming they were targeted by deceitful robocalls and other voter suppression tactics continued to grow on Monday.
Another three federal candidates added their names to the ever-lengthening list of places bombarded by election day calls directing voters to non-existent polling stations.
The ridings include Kitchener Centre and Nipissing-Timiskaming in Ontario and Saanich-Gulf Islands, the B.C. riding eventually won by the Green Party’s Elizabeth May.
Anthony Rota, the defeated Liberal candidate in Nipissing-Timiskaming, said his campaign received a number of complaints from irate voters after they received calls sending them across town to the wrong polling station.
We’ve mapped all the ridings with robocalls allegations. We’ll be updating as more details come in.
While Rota said he didn’t think much of it during the busyness of election day, he said it is now clear something dubious was happening.
“I think there should be some kind of inquiry,” he said. “It’s important to identify what was done, who did it and to punish them to the full extent of the law as soon as possible.”
Green Party leader Elizabeth May is joining Rota’s calls for an inquiry, after her riding was targeted in both 2008 and 2011.
She said she wants to know exactly who planned the calls, who programmed them, who paid for them, whether they have been used before and whether they impacted the results of the election.
Citing former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s move to call a full inquiry in the wake of the sponsorship scandal, May called on Harper to take action.
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In Kitchener Centre, Steve Thoms, an Elections Canada deputy receiving officer, reports he received dozens of complaints from voters targeted by the calls.
“As it was happening I remember feeling something suspicious was up,” he said.
Defeated Liberal candidate Karen Redman said she heard from about 20 people complaining about robocalls. Even members of her own riding association received such calls.
The new accusations come after the NDP and the Liberals tallied the affected ridings at 29 and 27 respectively. Conservative MP Dean Del Maestro has also complained about receiving such calls.
The reports were fuelled by an ongoing Elections Canada investigation first detailed last week by Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen. The report revealed that Elections Canada had traced fraudulent automated phone calls made during the 2011 federal campaign to an Edmonton company with Conservative ties.
The RCMP and Elections Canada are investigating, but have yet to link the Conservatives to the robocalls.
“What has been uncovered so far, clearly indicated that we’re dealing with something that could be very big,” said Canada’s former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley. “We’re talking about the constitutional right to vote which is sacrosanct in our constitution.”
The penalties for such activities range from fines of $5,000 to five years in prison.
Growing number of election tricks: reports
As numbers of affected ridings broaden, so did reports of the types of voter suppression tactics used during the 2011 election.
Along with robocalls, candidates are complaining that they were bombarded by live calls harassing voters at all hours of the night or during religious holy days.
“It was a double whammer,” said Sydney – Victoria MP Mark Eyking.
Bryan May, the Liberal candidate for Cambridge, said he heard complaints about live calls impersonating his campaign – calls he thinks were from a call centre.
“The consistency in which they reported the content of the calls seems like they are very much scripted,” he said.
May said his office was also hit up by robo-faxes which tied up his fax lines for more than one hour.
“You don’t get much dirtier than that kind of stuff,” he said.
Liberal MP Frank Valeriote from Guelph and his defeated colleague Borys Wrzesnewskyj have both complained of interference at polling stations.
Carolyn Bennett said someone impersonating her campaign called Jewish voters during the Passover seder.
“Will the Conservatives stop the ‘I am not a crook’ rhetoric and comply fully with Elections Canada and the RCMP to get to the bottom of the largest electoral fraud known in Canadian history,” she said during Question Period on Monday.
Produce proof, Tories tell Opposition
The Conservatives continued to deflect any accusations of wrongdoing in Question Period, telling opposition MPs to go to Elections Canada if they had any proof.
“If the NDP has any information that inappropriate calls were placed we certainly have information in some cases, we’ve given that to Elections Canada. If they have any information I challenge them to produce that information and give it to Elections Canada,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
It was a refrain repeated over and over again by Tory cabinet ministers as they fielded a steady barrage of questions on the issue.
Rae and May requested on Monday that House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer authorize an emergency debate on the voter suppression scandal. Scheer turned them down citing rules that Parliament doesn’t debate matters being investigated by other organizations such as Elections Canada.
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