“This is a victory for those directly involved, but also for all Canadians concerned about the health of their democracy,” said May.  “To acknowledge that there was fraud in the May 2, 2011, election is the first step in preventing any underhanded activities in the future.”

Judge Richard Mosley wrote: “I find that electoral fraud occurred during the 41st General Election,” although he did not annul the election results in the ridings involved.  He did state clearly that the fraudulent calls “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates.”

Judge Mosley agreed that the calls were the work of a broad, centrally organized scheme and that “the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the CPC [Conservative Party of Canada], accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court.”

Judge Mosley also condemned the Conservatives’ legal tactics and their “trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits.”

”In light of this ruling which leaves no doubt that there was fraud during the 2011 election, the Green Party once again calls for a public inquiry into this threat to our democracy,” said May. “Any responsible prime minister would want to get to the bottom of such a threat and find out who was responsible.”

The post Judge Agrees 2011 Election Plagued by Fraud; Conservatives Implicated appeared first on Elizabeth May.

In addition to the evidence in her column of restricted media access to government scientists and the new requirements that scientists who collaborate with them accept terms that require permission from the Canadian government before sharing their findings, recent Fisheries and Oceans Canada rules moved to shut down scientific research before it starts.

On Feb. 7, in a DFO e-mail to scientists, it was stipulated that they obtain prior consent before applying for research grants. As well, before submitting research to a peer-reviewed journal for publication, scientists must obtain permission from a departmental superior (who, no doubt, needs permission from the Prime Minister’s Office).

Search as I might, I can’t find suppression of science and research and the strangling of the free flow of information in the Conservatives’ 2011 platform. No one voted for this.

Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada

(Originally printed in the Globe and Mail)

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May expressed her hope that the cases relating to allegations of vote suppression – the widespread use of automated messages (“robocalls”) or live calls to direct citizens to the wrong polling stations – will get to the bottom of illegalities in the last federal election.

“Since May 2, 2011, we have watched the Harper Conservative majority conduct an aggressive agenda unpopular with most Canadians,” said May. “All this has been done while a cloud of doubt hangs over too many election results.  For this reason, I want to thank the individual citizens who have had the courage to come forward with their concerns, and the COC for supporting them.”

Although the Conservative lawyers would like to have the entire proceedings thrown out of court, May agreed there was a definite need to expose any and all fraudulent electoral activity, even if this meant overturning some results. 

“Canadians must be able to have faith in the electoral process and know that the Members of Parliament sitting in the House of Commons are there through legitimate means,” she concluded.  “Otherwise, our system of democracy will be suspect and dangerously weakened.”

May repeated her call for a public inquiry which she, Craig Scott (Toronto-Danforth), and Stephane Dion (St. Laurent-Cartierville) made earlier this week.

For a robofraud backgrounder, please visit:
http://elizabethmaymp.ca/news/publications/backgrounder/2012/12/13/robofraud-backgrounder/

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May 14, 2011: Green Party of Canada wrote to Elections Canada to register complaints about electoral irregularities.

February, 2012: Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen reported that, during the 2011 federal election, misleading automated phone calls were made in the riding of Guelph Ontario using[a prepaid “burner phone” registered to “Pierre Poutine.” Subsequent articles identify 13 additional ridings where such calls were made.

March, 2012: Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand told a parliamentary committee that the agency was investigating 800 complaints about calls which provided false information about polling locations or were harassing in nature.

March, 2012: CBC TV reported that voters in 31 ridings had revealed to Conservative Party candidates that they would not be voting Conservative before they received misleading calls.

March, 2012: Applications were filed in seven ridings alleging that “… fraud, corrupt or illegal practices affected the outcome of the election.” Don Valley East, Elmwood-Transcona, Nipissing-Timiskaming, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Vancouver Island North, Winnipeg South Centre and Yukon. Each application was submitted by a voter who had received a misleading call. (The application from Don Valley East has since been withdrawn.)

April, 2012: A survey conducted for the applicants by Ekos Research Associates showed that Liberal supporters were four times more likely to receive a misleading call than pro-Conservatives. The Ekos poll concluded that the calls resulted in a one percent vote suppression (people deciding not to vote or being unable to figure out how to vote) in the target ridings – won by Conservatives with between 18 and 1,827 votes.

May, 2012: Court documents showed that Elections Canada traced a computer IP address used by Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager in the Conservative campaign in Guelph, Ontario, to the “Pierre Poutine” RackNine account that paid for local robocalls, falsely directing voters to the wrong polling stations.

August, 2012: The Conservatives’ main call-centre company – RMG – rejected any suggestion that their company was used to make misdirecting calls, contradicting the testimony of a Thunder Bay call-centre worker. However, the company admitted that its script stated that Elections Canada had changed polling stations, ignoring instructions from Elections Canada to all federal parties that they not make such calls an despite the fact that few polling station locations were changed. In the six ridings involved in the legal case, only one location in one riding was changed.

May, 2012: The author of the 2008 book How to Rig an Election, Allen Raymond, who spent three months in an American prison for making illegal political calls for the Republicans, commented on Canada’s version: “The thing that stands out most egregiously is the number of ridings involved … This seems to be fairly systematic.”

June, 2012: Conservative lawyer Arthur Hamilton tried to have the COC cases thrown out before any evidence could be presented – arguing that they were frivolous and vexatious. The Court rejected that argument and awarded costs against the CPC.

August, 2012: The new Commissioner of Canada Elections Yves Cote announced that Elections Canada had updated the number of complaints it had received concerning misleading election phone calls – but refused to share details in Federal Court about its robofraud investigations. There have now been more than 1,400 complaints in 247 different ridings.

September 18, 2012: The Harper Conservatives again tried to derail legal proceedings on the applications to overturn election results. They submitted a motion on “security for costs” seeking to force the nine Canadian voters who launched legal applications in March to post a deposit of $260,409 to cover the affected Conservative MPs’ costs – as a condition of the hearings proceeding in December. This ran contrary to the Canada Elections Act, which sets the security for costs for any applicant at $1,000. The Court again rejected the CPC request and awarded costs against the Party.

October 31, 2012: CBC journalist Evan Solomon interviewed Michael Sona, the former Conservative campaign worker from Guelph who was once identified as “Pierre Poutine.” Sona denied being the originator of misleading robocalls. “I’m not going to take the fall for something I didn’t do.” He noted that it wasn’t credible to think he could have coordinated such a “massive scheme” when he didn’t have the needed access.

November 20, 2012: Postmedia News revealed that in the days before the May, 2011 election, voters expressed their frustration with misleading calls from the Conservative Party. Emails obtained under the Access to Information Act showed that Elections Canada officials found the complaints from 13 ridings so serious that they contacted Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton. A day later, Hamilton responded, claiming the calls were being made to ensure Conservative voters got to the right polling stations. Elections Canada found this didn’t quite explain things, wrote Hamilton again, but got the same answer.

December 10, 2012: Federal Court begins hearing applications from eight Canadians in six federal ridings regarding robocalls and voter suppression.

The post Robofraud Backgrounder appeared first on Elizabeth May.

[ZMELeZ1AHjY]

Once again I say taking it up with Elections Canada is an inadequate response to a serious problem. In 2011 we know there were dozens of ridings in which election fraud took place. I find it absolutely shocking that representatives of any party in the House would be so little concerned, so little troubled that they would leave it to Elections Canada, particularly when budget 2012 cuts Elections Canada’s budget by $7.5 million, further compromising any ability of that agency to get to the bottom of criminal activity.

Kellie Leitch: Mr. Speaker, this government has expressed its significant concern with these types of issues. As we have said, we encourage and we want Elections Canada to go ahead with investigations on the most recent issues.

Regarding something quite significant that happened in the past, as I mentioned to the member already this evening in the House, I would encourage her to speak with Elections Canada.

(Part One: http://elizabethmaymp.ca/parliament/questions/2012/05/31/adjournment-proceedings-41st-general-election)

The post Adjournment Proceedings – 41st General Election appeared first on Elizabeth May.

[ZMELeZ1AHjY]

This is not a partisan issue, and I want to set that out as a foundation. I include in my statement of non-partisan interest in this issue that I do not believe for a moment that in ridings where there were alleged dirty tricks there is a chance that Conservative candidates, many of whom I have great affection for, would have known about the voter suppression techniques that were used in the election that took place on May 2, 2011.

With the context out of the way, I want to pursue the question I asked on March 1, which was this: in the context of the voter suppression phone calls, which some people call robocalls, we need to understand them as multiple acts of illegal activity. Each single phone call purporting to be Elections Canada when it was not Elections Canada represents a crime. It is a crime on two levels. It is a crime against our fair and democratic free elections under the Canada Elections Act. Purporting to be someone you are not for purposes of fraud is also a crime under the Criminal Code.

It is criminal activity that occurred multiple times in multiple ridings. That is the context. You can call them robocalls, but it is election fraud we are discussing.

My question for the Prime Minister on March 1 dealt with the fact that I am personally aware of extensive evidence of electoral fraud that occurred in Saanich—Gulf Islands, the riding I represent, in the election in which I was not a candidate, the one in 2008, about which the New Democratic Party filed complaints. The Liberal Party filed complaints. Public interest groups like Democracy Watch filed complaints. Third party groups that were concerned about election fraud also filed complaints. Yet, despite a lot of evidence, the RCMP and Elections Canada were unable to get to the bottom of it, which is why I do not think we are yet on the right track to get to the bottom of what happened on May 2, 2011.

This is not to suggest malfeasance on anyone’s part, it is just the reality that I examined. Let me tell you what happened. The failure to get to the bottom of that leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the Prime Minister must call a public inquiry that is properly funded and has subpoena powers and a proper staff to find out how election fraud took place in 2008 in Saanich—Gulf Islands and across Canada on May 2, 2011.

The reality is this. Calls were made in Saanich—Gulf Islands at the last minute on the night before the election only to those voters who supported the New Democratic Party. What would be strange about how this unknown, mysterious calling program got the phone numbers of people only supporting the NDP, as far as I know, to call purportedly from the NDP and urge people to go out and vote NDP?

There was no NDP candidate on the ballot. The name remained but the candidate had withdrawn. These were spoof calls, as we now know the term, in that the phone number that appeared on the call display was actually a home fax number for an executive within the NDP, who filed complaints. With the information they had, they pursued it. He was initially told to go to the Saanich police and complain there. Then he went to the RCMP.

Nothing was discovered because it was not properly investigated. With issues this important, must we not have a full public inquiry? I asked for a full public inquiry from Elections Canada in May of last year and have still not had a response.

I ask the Conservative Party representatives here tonight to explain how we are going to get to the bottom of this if we do not have an inquiry.

Kellie Leith: Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member that we are here in Parliament. This is not about parties. This is about speaking to each other as parliamentarians. We are the government here.

As the government stated numerous times in this House regarding issues like this and the most recent issues, we want Elections Canada’s investigations to go ahead regarding the most recent events. However, regarding concerns the member may have for previous elections which she has raised tonight, I would encourage her to follow up with Elections Canada.

(Part Two: http://elizabethmaymp.ca/parliament/questions/2012/05/31/adjournment-proceedings-41st-general-election-2/)

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One year after Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May inspired voters to make history by electing the first Green party member in Canada, the party leader is indeed in the House. But the question remains: Is she being heard?

“I feel like I’m making history every single day,” May said. “There’s a lot of ways in which I feel like my contribution is definitely making a difference.

“I am validated every single day in this place because I raise points no one else raises,” she said. “I was born to do this.”

View the full original article >>

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“The Harper Conservatives were given their ‘strong mandate’ with the actual votes of 24.3 percent of Canadians,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “Thanks to our first past the post voting system, 39 percent of those who voted elected a majority Conservative parliament.  At the same time, there is doubt hanging over the results of some of the closer Conservative riding victories because of fraudulent voter suppression efforts and robocalls.”

Since the election, the Harper Conservatives have been found guilty in the In-and-Out campaign money-laundering scandal of 2006; they’ve admitted making fraudulent calls to undermine former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler;  they’ve tried to justify funnelling funds to Minister Tony Clement’s riding, claiming funds were to reduce congestion at the border, misleading parliament; Minister Christian Paradis has been found in conflict of interest; the disgraced Integrity Commissioner has been replaced by her compromised deputy, and many more “fishy” goings-on.

The Harper Conservatives have chosen to be tough on other people instead.  They have reversed their policy on the use of evidence obtained through torture; they have passed an omnibus crime bill that will tie up our courts and crowd our prisons; they are supporting a citizens’ arrest bill that the Canadian Bar Association fears will risk a shift to private security firms making arrests, and vigilante justice; they are destroying the long-gun registry and won’t hand over the data to Quebec, and they want to hold political refugee claimants over the age of 16 for up to one year without review. 

This year also saw one of the harshest reports from an Auditor General in living memory, finding that two departments, Public Works and National Defence, had failed in their duty of “due diligence” in the rush to purchase and oversell the benefits of the F-35 fighter jets.

“While the year has been scandal-plagued, the worst of Mr. Harper’s agenda has been the assault on the environment,” said May.  “No one voted Conservative in order to destroy the environment.  The Harper Conservatives did not warn Canadians a year ago that they planned to withdraw from Kyoto, which a majority support, and then kill the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act.”

Canadians didn’t vote to shut down our Arctic research station and climate adaptation research, cease funding the Canadian Foundation on Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, and endanger our ability to measure ozone.

The Conservatives’ attacks on the Fisheries Act – taking away protection of fish habitat without consultation with scientists or First Nations – are unprecedented. At the same time, the Conservative propaganda campaign for pipelines and tankers has lacked the requisite balance and impartiality of a government awaiting a decision from a National Energy Board review panel. 

“In pursuit of their goal of putting risky oil supertankers on the BC coastline and building pipelines come hell or high water, the Harper Conservatives are destroying decades’ worth of environmental law in a distinctly fishy move,” said May.  “Sweeping changes to dozens of laws are being smuggled through the legislative process in Bill C-38.  Environmental Assessment law at the federal level is for all intents and purposes destroyed.

“Of all the offences during Mr. Harper’s first year of majority government, the cynically crafted omnibus Budget Implementation Bill C-38 is the worst,” said May.  “It is an abuse of parliamentary process and an abuse of democracy.  It is also an abuse of Canadians’ trust.”

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This week marks the first anniversary for several MPs elected in the last federal election campaign, including Green Leader Elizabeth May.

After three tries, Ms. May was successful in becoming a Member of Parliament last May when she defeated Conservative Cabinet minister Gary Lunn in Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.

“It’s fantastic. It’s been a great year. It’s flown by, and I look forward to many anniversaries,” Ms. May told HOH last week.

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Elizabeth May made history a year ago when she became the first Green party MP elected to Canada’s Parliament.

The Green leader even ousted a sitting cabinet minister to do it.

May’s win wasn’t even really a squeaker. She bested Conservative Gary Lunn by more than 7,000 votes.

But she is now worried the government will try to keep her from winning again by gerrymandering the riding during redistribution.

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