03.09.2012 04:26 PM

March 9: your daily Robocon

Their strategy: abuse the trust of senior citizens. What a bunch of scumbags:

OTTAWA—Automated phone calls that directed people to the wrong polling stations in the last federal election overwhelmingly targeted older voters, the Toronto Star has learned.

Elections Canada investigators sifting through a flood of complaints that have emerged about dirty tricks in the spring 2011 campaign have started to notice this pattern as they call back Canadians to verify details of the suspicious phone calls they have reported receiving.

Most of those who received an automated phone call telling them their polling station had been changed say they were previously contacted by the Conservative Party and indicated that they would not be supporting their local Tory candidate.

Now federal elections officials say that the fraudulent phone calls targeted older voters.

“Every single person I’ve contacted has been (born) between 1947 and 1949,” said one unidentified Elections Canada employee who was following up on the complaints Friday morning.

54 Comments

  1. Jason King says:

    Okay before Gord says anything, Alan Eagleson and David Suzuki were born before 1947 and Steve Fonyo after 1947.

  2. Philippe says:

    Words fail me.

  3. Attack! says:

    Hmm, that’s the leading edge of the Baby Boom generation… the same ones PMS mighta wanted to force to work another 2 years before the hue & cry made them back it off 15 or so years. Same ones he likely blames for sustaining Trudeaumania. All coincidences, no doubt.

  4. Geoffrey Laxton says:

    Don’t forget that they are out to screw Generation X and beyond too by raising the OAS age for those under 50. I am 47 and was born in 1965, the worst year economically to be born in the 20th Century according to demographer David Foot. The Harpercons are an equal opportunity screwer of Canadians. Just look at what they are doing to veterans!

  5. Geoffrey Laxton says:

    Jeffrey R E Martin posted in Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper

    Jeffrey R E Martin 9 March 19:13
    Three former members of the Conservative riding association in Vaughan, Ont., are asking Elections Canada to investigate the campaign’s finances.

    In sworn affidavits, Richard Lorello, Tracey Kent and Carrie Liddy allege possible irregularities in Julian Fantino’s 2010 byelection and 2011 election campaigns.

    Fantino won both with massive support from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and that of several cabinet ministers who visited the riding to lend assistance. Fantino is now in the cabinet as the associate minister of national defence, managing military procurement files.

    “Quite honestly, having looked at all the documentation having to do with the Fantino campaign, I can’t follow the money,” Richard Lorello, who worked on Fantino’s campaign, told CBC News.

    The former Toronto police chief won by 964 votes in the 2010 byelection in 2010 and was re-elected in May 2011 with a margin of more than 18,000 votes.

    Lorello, Kent and Liddy have signed sworn affidavits asking Elections Canada to investigate Fantino’s campaign finances. They’re asking the agency to look at whether the campaign held two bank accounts during the election, one of which they say was used to fund Conservative candidates in nine other ridings.

    Lorello — who ran for the Conservatives in Vaughan in 2008 — says his own party needs to provide answers.

    “If we had witnessed the Liberals doing this, Conservatives would have been jumping up and down and complaining to Elections Canada, similar to what we’re doing,” he said.

    “All we want is an answer to these questions, so that we know where the money went, how much money was raised, so that we know that a proper election is conducted,” Liddy said.

    Raised almost $500,000

    http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2012/03/09/pol-fantino-election.html

  6. JohnB says:

    30 ridings across the country, all non Conservative party supporters, all older people. Either Pierre Poutine and his lab buddies from the University of Ottawa had the millions of dollars to pull this off or the culprits definitely had access to the Conservative Party database.

  7. Geoffrey Laxton says:

    Delete the proceeding as I accidently included name of previous poster please.

  8. bigcitylib says:

    Jesus. More fodder for tomorrow’s daily Robocon:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/09/pol-fantino-election.html

    And I’ve heard from an earlier comment on WK’s site that Fantino worked with RackNine in ’08 (or at least Matt Meier). Someone please elaborate.

    • Sam Gunsch says:

      @bigcitylib

      re your Racknine 08 + Fantino ? maybe some tracks here…

      http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/03/08/michael-harris-was-a-political-super-weapon-part-of-robogate/

      In case you haven’t seen this… reports of a big guy, red-goatee in vicinity of Fantino 2010 democrats.

      Michael Harris asks interesting questions…

      re: Matt Mier; and…or some “non-partisan” guy; and as yet unidentified man with a “red goatee” in Fantino land.

      ===========================

      excerpt: So for now, there are only questions. Since the man with the red goatee is a self-avowed non-partisan, what on earth would he do with a political super-weapon? If it wasn’t for personal use, (I jest) for whom did he build it? What could it do? And when, if ever, was it put to use?

      excerpt: The second one was for PMO communications expert Stephen Lecce, volunteer co-ordinator Madi Murariu and “a large man with a reddish goatee” who worked on “a computer bank and to my knowledge managed the electoral data for the campaign.”

      excerpt: Here is what we are left with. No one knows who the guy with the red goatee is who worked the computers alongside Stephen Lecce in the Fantino by-election campaign office, despite how popular red goatees are becoming. No one knows if there really were two bank accounts for the Julian Fantino by-election run.

      ====================

      BTW… Am I just being partisan or is Harris is drawing our attention to a new category of oxymoron with this example… i.e. a political super weapon designed by a non-partisan?

    • Sam Gunsch says:

      More Fantino…CBC is maybe putting Fantino land story on National tonight.

      Source:

      Some reporter type guy says our National CEO pushed back on CBC’s Fantino story… (below he alludes to Spiro Agnew moment)

      his post: Word is the CBC was still on the fence about moving forward with publication. Then when they called the Prime Minister’s Office for comment, he personally tried to shut this story down. So they went ahead and published online and on the radio. More tonight on the National, I would assume.

      http://unfuckwithable.ca/post/19029395987

      Elections Canada talked to this same guy described here :

      http://www.metaviews.ca/robocall-blogger-unfuckwithable-anticipates-a-spiro-agnew-moment

      excerpt: Right now, the 29-year-old native of Montreal — a current contributor to Le Monde who previously worked for the CBC — also happens to be living in Miami. But he was asked to take a quick trip to Ottawa this week to give evidence to Elections Canada.

  9. Olmanhall says:

    We do that! And I hope Justin beats the shit out of that bozo from the Upper House.

  10. Holly Stick says:

    Warren, how would they know the specific years of birth, to be able to focus on 1947-49? Could they get those through marketing survey calls, or some other somewhat legitimate way? Or say from our tax form or something else less legitimate?

    • Warren says:

      Psychographics and geoanalytics. They know way more than that about you.

      • Holly Stick says:

        No doubt, since I had to look both words up; but that does not explain how they would find out the date of birth of each person, so they could call the ones born in those specific years. How would they gather that data? Spend much much money on market surveys, or acquire lists from somewhere else?

        • Holly Stick says:

          Ha, I misread your reply. Do all the political parties know in which year I was born? If so, how do they know?

    • bluegreenblogger says:

      Lots of specific places to go for that info too. Might be from any number of sources. Don’t forget far less privacy of information if data used for political purposes, so it can be readily shared. It is extremely improbable that the data was collected by a lone wolf, or rogue. This is in a different league from a list a basic list of phone numbers with party affiliations attached. If it is true that there were a large number of people targeted by age, party affiliation, sorted by polling stations, and phoine numebrs matched to them, then the data was comprehensive. very very very unlikely that a local campaign worker plucked this from his butt

      • Anonymous says:

        A week BEFORE the start of the federal election I received a telephone call from someone calling on behalf of the Conservative Party asking me if I supported the Conservatives. I told them I don’t give out personal information over the phone. My telephone number has been unlisted for the last 10 years and is in my spouse’s (different) last name. The only organizations that have my telephone number along with my name are my bank, my dentist, my doctor, one utility bill, and Revenue Canada. I’m not on facebook and never supply name or phone information to stores where I shop. When I asked the person how they had gotten my phone number he replied it came from the electoral rolls.

        Now that I have read that Elections Canada did not supply telephone numbers, this begs the question: how did the Conservative Party get my name and my number?

      • Holly Stick says:

        The man in Milton who got the fake EC card told As It Happens that he does not have a land line. So presumably they could not get his cell phone number, or they would not use it, at least. I wonder if any other people got fake EC cards with the wrong address?

  11. Sam Gunsch says:

    re: Prescott lawyers up…

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/guelph-tory-worker-cancels-meeting-with-elections-canada-investigator/article2365337/

    Chase reports: On the advice of his lawyer, a key player in the 2011 Conservative campaign for Guelph is refusing to answer more questions from Elections Canada investigators probing fraudulent robo-calls in the riding.

    Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager for Conservative candidate Marty Burke, has already conducted one telephone interview with Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews.

    1. re lawyer up…ok gotta say it first…Probably file this as W.K. neener, neener, told ya so

    2. Is this the Harper-Manning, clean and ethical, non-partisan political super weapon claiming its first winner?

  12. Geoffrey Laxton says:

    The Harpercon wrecking crew in action.
    Another disaster brought to you by the Harper Government.

    Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews accused her federal counterpart, Leona Aglukkaq, of not giving the province enough warning about the problems at Sandoz.
    “We did not get the advance notice that we should have received,” Matthews told reporters Thursday. “It is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that we’re aware of slowdowns in production in time to actually prepare a response to that.”
    Provinces have no way of knowing when a medication will be unavailable because the federal government does not require drug makers to publicly report supply gaps, said Matthews.
    The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents 36,000 health-care workers, criticized Aglukkaq for not taking charge. “Why is the health minister waiting for an invitation from the provinces to act? These drug shortages are hitting the entire country and the health minister has gone AWOL,” said Rick Janson, OPSEU’s spokesman.
    The Citizen contacted Aglukkaq’s office, but was referred instead to Health Canada.

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/National+painkillers+shortage+could+last+year/6273634/story.html

  13. catherine says:

    The Globe and Mail is reporting that Andrew Prescott has cancelled his meeting with Elections Canada investigator on the advice of his lawyer. Not looking good.

  14. Anne Peterson says:

    How deeply it concerns me that our (strong, stable, crooked) government doesn’t seem to know the difference between right and wrong and neither do its supporters. Is this really true, I ask myself. I also ask myself where the decent old Progressive Conservatives are. Some of them are on that bench. Why are they not standing up and being counted on the side of truth. Come on fellows. Let’s hear from you. Or did the magic elixir of power really corrupt you completely? Or are you just scared of himself? Don’t you know that people only have the power you give them.

    • Windsurfer says:

      You know, you’ve raised a word here which so far has been absent from any discussion I’ve heard.

      How long till the un-involved voters in Canada start to see the CON’s as – wait for it – CROOKED.

      And start to get mad as hell about it?

      Who will be the first CON to use the phrase “I am not a crook.” ?!

      • MCBellecourt says:

        The first CON to use the phrase “I am not a crook” will be the first one that discovers he actually *doesn’t* have to screw his socks on.

  15. dave says:

    What do you make of the story above by Anonymous? Think the party in power is abusing its access to government info on us?

  16. Philippe says:

    The world’s against you Gord. They’re all against you… Liberal sympathizers everywhere. You know how ridiculous you sound?

  17. Attack! says:

    You’re pretty quick to assume & accuse the source as being from EC, there, Gordo:

    more likely, it’s from the actual lawyer who’s counseled him not to appear —

    and probably not coincidentally, the only other one besides the witness & chief investigator named there is Aaron Wudrick, the lawyer for Campaign Research who’s been SLAPPing people silly on Twitter & elsewhere to stop talking ill of his client.

  18. smelter rat says:

    You’ve made that accusation twice now Gord. I assume you have some proof that your statement is true?

    • Pomojen says:

      He doesn’t provide proof. Just cites Faux news type sources and demands proof from the rest of us. And also reacts badly to being called Pumpkin.

  19. Tim Sullivan says:

    Proof, please.

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