Norman Spector has known him for years, so too have many others who have a high regard for him. The suggestion that anyone would call a Member of the Order of Canada a “liar,” as the Campaign Research cabal have done, strikes me as inviting a lawsuit.

Here, from a regular commenter, is some further info about how John came to be invited to the Manning Centre vote-suprression discussion:

Actually, the Manning Centre promoted the campaign training school thing to their mailing list. One of our Green Party colleagues on the GPC Federal Council was a former Conservative-Reformer from Alberta, he received the promotional email, and forwarded it to a number of people (myself included) who were trying to professionalise the Green Party national campaign.

I blogged abouit it, and publicised it to the Green Party in general. John Fryer was Federal Council member for BC, and had just been made campaign Manager of Elizabeth May’s SGI Campaign in the pre-writ period. He was obviously preparing for the task, and enrolled himself in the Campaign School. You see, some of us wanted to transform the GPC voters list and conact database into a winning machine like CIMS, and start building a useful voter intention and issues based DB.

…the Manning Centre did not invite anybody in particular. I guess they figured if John had found out about it, he must be ‘true blue’…If you know John, then that is really funny. His entire life has been about Labour and Politics. While I do not know John Fryer very well, he has struck me as meticuloulsy honest and canny. If he said something happened, then it is true. If he merely suspected then he would have kept his mouth shut.

That is my opinion anyway, but at least it is formed with some pêrsonal knowledge about the person involved.

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I wonder what Her Majesty will think about this, given the interesting Northern Foundation connection?

We shall find out, soon enough.

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• The noose tightens: “The mysterious “Pierre Poutine” at the centre of the robocalls scandal used a real street address in Quebec when he set up an account to send out misleading election day messages and left a digital trail that could help investigators discover his true identity.”
• What happened at the Manning Centre?:  Again, Preston Manning calls the spreading electoral fraud allegations “bad.” But a still-unrebutted shocker by a B.C. professor states that the Manning Centre taught courses in how to suppress the vote, seen here.  So which is it?
• Follow the money: …and the follow the lists.  As BCL and others have noted, whomever has the central list – in the Reformatories’ case, CIMS – is ultimately in a position to execute a multi-jurisdictional vote suppression campaign.  This fool from Saskatchewan has now perhaps confirmed that the election fraud could not have happened without the knowledge, or involvement, of at least one person in the central CPC campaign.  A presentation I did about how they created that fabled database is here:

 

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I predict that is a name that will be very, very well-known in the next few months.

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Manning calls vote suppression “bad.”

Manning teaches conservatives how to do vote suppression.

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Most Canadians Think Robocalls Were Used Broadly in Last Election
Four-in-five respondents call for an independent investigation to find out who was behind the misleading robocalls made in the 2011 federal ballot.

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A few Liberal friends are very interested in Nathan Cullen. He’s the only NDP leadership aspirant with the brains, and the guts, to openly discuss merger/coalition/cooperation.

I forgot, until now, that The Current interviewed me for their segment about Nathan. I’m about ten minutes in, and Nathan’s very interesting reaction to it follows.

I stand by my view: this isn’t going to happen, principally due to the hubris and stupidity of many Liberals and New Democrats. As such, get ready for TEN MORE YEARS of Harper, Robocon Con or not.

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My apologies about how today’s column reads, in the paper and online. It’s like one big paragraph. Not sure what happened there, but it’s visually very Doestoevsky-like. Without the existential misery and despair.

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It’s never the break-in. It’s always the cover-up.

In politics, that Watergate-era aphorism has come to describe a well-established principle: Voters will often forgive the first sin. But they’ll rarely forgive repeated lies about the sin.

The burgeoning Robocon scandal is a classic example of that. Had the Harper regime reacted to the first allegations of vote suppression with calm and clarity, they’d be in better shape right about now. They’d be happier if they had simply said, “We are very concerned about what the media is reporting, and we pledge to co-operate with Elections Canada on their independent investigation.”

Instead, they have adopted Paul Martin’s approach — the infamous “mad as hell” strategy. When Jean Chretien left 24 Sussex, you may recall, the sponsorship mess had been the subject of an RCMP probe for nearly two years — and the Liberal Party of Canada had been polling above 50%. It wasn’t a big deal yet.

But when Martin assumed the post of prime minister, he started shrieking, coast-to-coast, about how he was “mad as hell” about sponsorship. Voters therefore got mad, too — at him. In one extraordinary week, the Liberal party lost 15% support. It never recovered.

Martin blamed “rogue bureaucrats.” His craven, cowardly staff accused Chretien of concealing criminal wrongdoing — off the record, of course. They blamed fellow Liberals. They blamed everyone for the mess. Except themselves, naturally.

History tells us what happened next. A big majority, to a minority, to successive losses — and, now, a rump in the House of Commons. That, among other things, is what happens when you pass the buck.

Stephen Harper and his minions are now attempting to pass the buck, too. In the days since these allegations of election fraud became known, Harper’s gang has closely resembled Martin’s in their attempts to cover up.

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