coverMain street in Tisdale Saskatchewan at 3:47 PM, Monday, March 5, 2012

Act to keep the scandal from spreading
Niagara Falls, Ontario - Thursday, March 8, 2012
By: JOe Hueglin

Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff now back in the private sector, told CTV’s Question Period that “suppression of vote is a despicable, reprehensible practice and everybody ought to condemn it." (1) "He insisted that internal measures were in place in the Conservative campaign to ensure that his officials did not engage in dirty tricks." (2)

Unfortunately as more information comes to light from those engaged in calling (3) and flow of monies through local campaigns to call centres an orchestrated suppression of votes, rather than the action of an overly partisan individual, is emerging.

It is to be hoped Stephen Harper will act against this threat to the integrity of our system of selecting our rulers as Prime Minister of Canada not as leader of a political party whose actions are being questioned.

It is imperative whatever resources needed are made available, to determine with precision, what occurred that led to thousands of voters being misdirected on Election Day 2011 and who were involved to enable the courts to "throw the book at whoever is behind calls to deliberately mislead voters in the 2011 election."

It is imperative to make these actions a one time scandal that do not spread into our future.

References:

1. MacCharles, Tonda, Robo-calls: Tory election official Guy Giono wants ‘full weight of law’ applied against those responsible, March 5, 2012, Toronto Star

2. LeBlanc, Daniel, Top Tory organizer denies dirty tricks in last year’s election, March 4, 2012, Toronto Globe and Mail

3. Cleroux, Richard, A second electoral scam comes to light, March 6, 2012, L’Express