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“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.

On May 2, Green Leader Elizabeth May told the press about her new Private Member’s Bill called An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act (local endorsement of candidate).

‘On this day, two years ago, I was elected as Saanich-Gulf Islands’ Member of Parliament. In two years, I have seen the noxious effect of party discipline on our democracy,’ said May.

The Bill amends the Canada Elections Act to require that, where a political party has an electoral district association in a riding, a prospective candidate for the riding must have their nomination papers signed by the chief executive officer and by one board member of the electoral district association in order to stand as that party’s candidate.

View the full original article >>

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May is concerned that Mr. Harper’s actions have furthered “Peter Penashue’s private career interest in being re-elected in a way that violates the Conflict of Interest Act.”

“I have written to Ms. Dawson because there are too many questions surrounding the calling of the by-election. Why, for example, did Mr. Harper allow Mr. Penashue to make a $1.35 million spending announcement in his riding just four days before Mr. Penashue resigned his seat? Did Mr. Harper know Mr. Penashue would soon run again as a candidate?” asked Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

May also wants to know if, by calling the by-election before prosecutors had decided whether to charge Mr. Penashue or others involved in his 2011 election campaign for violations of the Canada Elections Act, Mr. Harper was “essentially furthering Mr. Penashue’s private interests by not allowing voters in the riding to know whether independent investigators at Elections Canada and prosecutors have concluded that there is enough clear evidence of violations to prosecute.”

The federal Conflict of Interest Act prohibits public office holders like the Prime Minister from exercising “an official power, duty or function that provides an opportunity to further his or her private interests or those of his or her relatives or friends or to improperly further another person’s private interests” (Sections 4 and 6).

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“On this day, two years ago, I was elected as Saanich-Gulf Islands’ Member of Parliament. In two years, I have seen the noxious effect of party discipline on our democracy,” said May.

The Bill amends the Canada Elections Act to require that, where a political party has an electoral district association in a riding, a prospective candidate for the riding must have their nomination papers signed by the chief executive officer and by one board member of the electoral district association in order to stand as that party’s candidate.

Currently, the Canada Elections Act requires the leader of a political party or their designated representative to sign the nomination papers for a prospective candidate.

“The law now gives party leaders the power to refuse to allow a sitting MP to be a candidate for that party in a future election. It has become an undemocratic tool for discipline and control over MPs,” said May.

“We recently witnessed the attempts of brave members of the Conservative caucus to assert their speaking rights. It is time to loosen party discipline and curb the ‘team mentality’ of which Gordon O’Connor was so proud,” said the Green Leader.

“With this in mind, I have put forward a legislative solution to end the current climate of fear in caucuses and ensure that MPs are not subject to the harsh sanction of being thrown out of caucus and denied the chance to stand for their constituency due to a leader’s ire,” concluded May.

The post Elizabeth May Tables Bill Targeting Excessive Party Discipline appeared first on Elizabeth May.

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to require that, where a political party has an electoral district association in a riding, a prospective candidate for the riding must have their nomination papers signed by the chief executive officer and by one board member of the electoral district association in order to stand as that party’s candidate.

Preamble

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (local endorsement of candidate)

Whereas, since 1970, the Canada Elections Act has established the formal roles and responsibilities of political parties and their leaders in federal elections, including the requirement that the leader of a political party or their designated representative sign the nomination papers for a prospective candidate;

Whereas this requirement was originally intended to ensure that the prospective candidate was properly authorized by that party, but has subsequently been used by party leaders to exert power over prospective candidates, as well as elected Members of Parliament, and to overrule the preferences of local electoral district associations;

And whereas this requirement, insofar as it gives party leaders the power to refuse to allow a sitting Member of Parliament to be a candidate for that party in a future election, is being used as an undemocratic tool for discipline and control over Members and, as such, thwarts the will and interests of both the Member and their constituents and threatens the integrity of Canadian democracy;

Now, therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:

Short Title

1. This Act may be cited as the Democratic Local Nomination Act.

2000, c. 9

CANADA ELECTIONS ACT

2. Paragraph 67(4)(c) of the Canada Elections Act is replaced by the following:

(c) an instrument in writing
(i) that is signed by the chief executive officer and by one board member of the political party’s electoral district association for the electoral district in which the prospective candidate is seeking nomination and that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by that electoral district association to stand as that party’s candidate in accordance with section 68, or
(ii) that, if a political party does not have an electoral district association in the relevant electoral district before the beginning of the election period, is signed by the leader of the political party or by a person referred to in subsection 383(2) and that states that the prospective candidate is endorsed by the party in accordance with section 68.

3. Subsection 383(2) of the Act is replaced by the following:

Endorsement of candidates

(2) A registered party and an eligible party, whose electoral district associations endorse candidates in their electoral districts at a general election in accordance with subparagraph 67(4)(c)(i) or whose leader has designated a representative to endorse candidates at a general election in the circumstances described in subparagraph 67(4)(c)(ii), shall include with the statement or report referred to in subsection (1) a statement certified by its leader that sets out the names of the designated representatives.

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She said: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure I rise today to put forward a bill to carry forward the momentum of democracy which is sweeping the House of Commons. We saw a blow for democracy from the Federal Court last week in the decision on the Parliamentary Budget Officer and your own ruling, Mr. Speaker, that we as members of this House have the right to free speech.

To ensure our rights to free speech do not operate under the shadow of the leader’s ire threatening to not sign our nomination papers, my private member’s bill would eliminate the fact that currently the Canada Elections Act requires a leader’s signature in order for a member to stand in his or her place as a candidate for the party. It would restore the grassroots democracy in that it would be the electoral district association of a person’s riding signing the nomination papers and not the leader.

I hope this bill will have full support from all members of this House.

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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.

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Seconded by Elizabeth May on October 23, 2012

Click here for the full document.

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August 30, 2012

Your Majesty,

I wish to write to you regarding a matter of grave importance to Canadians, and I request your assistance with this matter. The mechanisms Canada had in place to ensure free and fair democratic elections appear to be failing.

Many Canadians are concerned that our democracy is endangered, due to election infractions in our most recent elections, the lack of investigation of infractions, the de-funding of investigative bodies, and unprecedented prorogations of Canada’s Parliament, which threaten to undermine the fundamental basis of democracy in Canada. I write to request that Your Majesty Commission a Royal Inquiry to investigate what may potentially be criminal activities which influenced Canada’s last election, and that the aim of the Royal Inquiry be to restore Canada to a free and fair democracy.

Shortly following the last election, I wrote to the head of Elections Canada to express these concerns. I have also repeatedly requested in Parliament that Prime Minister Stephen Harper Commission a Royal Commission of Inquiry. I have never received any response. I remain concerned that with Canadian elections in question, that the current government in power may not be legitimate.

I will, by copy of this letter, share these concerns and request with the Governor General of Canada.  I request that Your Majesty please seek a resolution which will benefit all Canadians, by restoring Canadians’ confidence that we can have a free and fair democracy.

I have the honour to be, Madam, Your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant,

Elizabeth May,
Officer of the Order of Canada,
Leader of the Green Party of Canada
Member of Parliament, Saanich-Gulf Islands

Copy to: Governor General of Canada

UPDATE: Reply from the Queen.

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