UNO News Net: Canada's Robocalls scandal: Liberals release telephone information in hopes Conservative Party will do the same

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Canada's Robocalls scandal: Liberals release telephone information in hopes Conservative Party will do the same

OTTAWA—The Liberals have handed over details of robocalls the party produced during the last election in a bid to have the Conservatives come clean about their own activities.
Liberal leader Bob Rae said in a letter to the Commissioner of Canada Elections that the disclosure is the party’s attempt to “assist” the federal agency in its investigation into allegations of illegal vote suppression in the May 2, 2011 vote.
The information included a sample of audio recordings featuring former leader Michael Ignatieff inviting voters out to attend Liberal rallies in their riding as well as two candidates urging people to cast their ballots on election day. The package also included scripts for call employees with First Contact, a Liberal-linked call centre, that were tasked with identifying party supporters during the campaign.
The move is an attempt to have the Conservatives also make public their robocalls and voter identification scripts after allegations made by employees of the Responsive Marketing Group that they may have been instructed to send voters to the wrong polling stations.
The allegations, first published in the Star, have prompted Elections Canada’s assistant chief investigator Ron Lamothe to launch an investigative inquiry of the former employees at the Conservative-linked call centre in Thunder Bay.
Separately, federal investigator Al Matthews has been investigating the reports of automated telephone calls claiming to be from Elections Canada that directed voters to the wrong polling station. That probe has focused on telephone calls made in the riding of Guelph, though reports have come in from across the country of similar incidents.
Many people have indicated that they were first contacted by a representative of the Conservative party and asked if they planned to vote for the local Tory candidate. In most cases that have emerged, the voters replied that they would not vote Conservative.
“While no party’s records can be expected to be 100 percent infallible given the sheer number of Canadians contacted during an election, we feel our records should be accurate enough to demonstrate that many individuals who were contacted by people claiming to represent the Liberal Party of Canada or its candidates were never contacted by us at all,” Rae said in a party to William Corbett, the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
“We feel it would be irresponsible and tantamount to obstruction for any political party to be anything less than fully transparent and cooperative with your investigation.”
Rae added that he expects “other political parties” will follow the Liberal lead in making proactive disclosures.