OTTAWA – Outraged opposition MPs assure us that the robocalls controversy is the worst degradation of democracy in a century-and-a-half of Canadian history.
They may be a bit too focused on today.
Dirty tricks are nothing new in Canadian politics. In fact, they’re as old as the country itself.
The rough-and tumble-politics of post-Confederation Canada included a much looser definition of “ethical campaigning” and outright vote buying fell well within that.
The use of call centres and automatic dialling machines to steer opposition supporters to non-existent polling stations is a uniquely modern mix of technology and skullduggery, but the Fathers of Confederation were quite capable of their own unplugged chicanery.
Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, says politicians kept detailed lists of their constituents’ preferred bribes – ranging from a few dollars to a bottle of whiskey – well into the 20th century.
He says the practice was so common that one MP actually spoke out against the introduction of the secret ballot in 1874 on grounds that he wouldn’t know he was getting value for his bribes.
Wiseman said the MP reasoned: “If I’ve paid somebody good money to vote for me, if he goes behind a curtain I don’t know how he voted, he may have voted for somebody else.”
And where did the bribe money come from? Well in the 1872 election, it was clear that Sir John A. Macdonald and his Conservative party got some of their money from the Canadian Pacific Railway. That became the Pacific Scandal which drove Macdonald from office.
The smoking gun was a telegram Macdonald sent to the head of the railway just six days before the election. It read: “I must have another $10,000. Will be the last time of calling. Do not fail me. Answer today.”
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The practice of outright bribery died down in the 20th century but has reared its head since. In 1999 a Liberal party operative was suspended after accusations that he paid people to impersonate others at an advance poll in a Quebec riding.
Such examples notwithstanding, Canada’s sober political scene hasn’t been as scandal-prone as the American one. But occasionally, when political passions reach a boil, the allegations start to fly.
Quebec’s bitter divide between federalists and separatists came to a head in the 1995 referendum. The province said No to secession by a very narrow margin, but when the dust settled, both sides cried foul.
The Yes side railed against discounted fares to Montreal offered by Via Rail and Air Canada on the day of a federalist rally, calling them illegal subsidies. The federalists claimed corrupt election scrutineers appointed by the Parti Quebecois government threw out large numbers of No votes in strongly federalist areas of Montreal.
Nevertheless, Canada’s general elections have largely been judged as fair. The same can’t be said of votes within the political parties themselves.
“There’s a history in Canada of dubious practices more in the nomination of candidates and party leaders,” says Tom Flanagan, a political scientist at the University of Calgary. “There’s a long history of disputes over whether memberships are valid, stuff like that.”
Only party members can vote in a leadership race, but anyone can buy a membership. Accusations abound of one candidate or another flooding the party with new members to bolster their chances.
In the Canadian Alliance leadership race in 2000, Tom Long admitted his supporters collected 700 bogus memberships in Quebec. And politicos still tell the story of the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention when Brian Mulroney’s supporters bused in homeless people lured with promises of booze if they voted his way.
In real elections, the tactics are more subtle, and often borrowed from south of the border.
So-called push polling became notorious during the 2000 Republican presidential primary when South Carolina voters got calls asking them how they felt about candidate John McCain’s illegitimate black child. McCain didn’t have an illegitimate black child, but the point was to spread the rumour.
Elly Alboim, a professor at Carleton University, former CBC parliamentary bureau chief and former adviser to ex-prime minister Paul Martin, says when push-polling appears in Canada it’s a little less personal.
“Do you agree that registering your guns is an assault on personal freedoms?” is an example Alboim gives of a question Conservatives might use to frame their policies in a positive light and their opponents’ in a negative one. But he’s careful to point out that as dirty tricks go, it’s pretty tame.
“It may not be ethical but the person at the other end has to make up their mind whether they agree or disagree,” he says.
Push polling can also be used as part of a “whisper campaign,” spreading anonymous rumours about an opponent by e-mails, social media, or word of mouth. The Conservatives say this tactic was used by the Liberals against Stephen Harper in 2004 with questions that insinuated he was a Christian fundamentalist.
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler ran up against a version of this last fall, when a Conservative polling campaign in his Montreal riding suggested he was about to give up his seat.
Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer called the campaign “questionable” and “reprehensible,” but said it wasn’t a breach of parliamentary privilege.
Canadians often blame the Americans as the originators of these kinds of shady tactics. Alboim isn’t so sure.
“The States doesn’t have a lock on creative people,” he says.
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