Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, March 19, 2012

Robocalls get bad rap, but done lawfully, legitimate campaign tool, say MPs

Elections Canada is conducting an unprecedented investigation into robocalls after it received 31,000 “contacts” and 700 complaints about conduct in the last federal election, but MPs say, done lawfully, robocalling is a legitimate and increasingly necessary campaign tool to win modern campaign elections.

“I think it’s just impossible today to run an effective campaign of any consequence. If you’re serious about winning, you need that as another tool, just like you used to need to put up political signs,” said NDP House Leader Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.), who used robocalls, or automated telephone calls, in his own campaign during the last election. Mr. Comartin, who won the riding with 49.9 per cent of the vote, said he used them to alert supporters that former leader Jack Layton would be in the area, or to remind people to go out to vote.

“Part of the problem is just being able to contact people because in terms of getting people at home and being able to talk to them so the automatic call is one where you at least know you’re making some contact and so, it’s just about mandatory if you’re going to win a campaign these days. It’s hard to imagine you’re going to be able to do it without having some part of your campaign using automatic calls.”

Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, Ont.), who’s had to field almost all the opposition parties’ questions for the last few weeks on alleged voter suppression during the last campaign after robocalls directed people in the Guelph, Ont., riding to a different polling station, also said robocalls are necessary in a campaign.


“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with utilizing technology that allows you to communicate with voters. The reality is that ridings are quite large, that there’s a lot of voters and campaigns can lawfully use all forms of technology to assist them in reaching voters,” he told The Hill Times last week. “My feeling on that is that campaigns should be allowed to determine what means of connecting with voters that they feel are appropriate.”

Liberal House Leader Marc Garneau (Westmount-Ville Marie, Que.) agreed, saying it’s “a legitimate mechanism to reach a large number of people,” but it’s how candidates use it that needs to be addressed. “We do need those aids, but we’ve got to use them properly,” he said.

The robocalls story broke last month when The Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News reported that Elections Canada received complaints about automated calls on May 2, election day, last year. Voters in as many as 18 ridings received phone messages, or “robocalls” from a service pretending to be calling on behalf of Elections Canada, telling them that their polling station had been moved, and misdirecting people to a new location. The calls seem to have been targeted at Liberal and NDP voters in hotly-contested ridings that the Conservatives were hoping to take from Grit incumbents. Voters have also complained about being inundated with annoying or harassing pro-Liberal or NDP calls at all hours of the day. Elections Canada is currently investigating the issue.

Elections Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand issued a statement last week promising to get to the bottom of allegations of “fraudulent or improper calls,” and said, “Over 700 Canadians from across the country have informed us of specific circumstances where they believe similar wrongdoing took place. I appreciate the interest that Canadians have shown in this matter and thank them for their continued collaboration.”

Mr. Mayrand also said the public shouldn’t be “drawing conclusions based on possibly inaccurate and incomplete information.” Mr. Mayrand offered to come before a Parliamentary committee to explain Elections Canada’s investigation.

Meanwhile, last week, the House voted unanimously in favour of an NDP opposition day motion calling on the government to table legislation within six months to give the Chief Electoral Office the power to access political parties’ documents to ensure Elections Act compliance, to force voter contact companies to register with Elections Canada during an election, and to have “all clients of telecommunication companies during a general election have their identity registered and verified.”

Although the motion is non-binding on the government, Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski (Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, Sask.) said that the government will comply with it.

“The Prime Minister has been very clear,” he said. “I can answer quite simply, yes, that there will be some action taken from our government.”

Mr. Lukiwski did not say when the government would move on this front, but Mr. Del Mastro told The Hill Times: “We supported the motion.  We respect the spirit of the motion and the government will act accordingly.”

Mr. Garneau said he will keep a close watch on what the Conservative government will do in relation to the motion. He said because the issue in the court of public opinion, the Conservatives must do something.

“I think there’s an appetite on the part of Canadians. I think they’re aware of the issue. They’re aware of all sorts of unusual things that happened in this election and I think it is something that they’re seized by and they want to see something happen and if the government gives the impression that it’s oh, stalling, or that it’s only taking half measures to do it then they’ll be criticized for it,” he said. “We don’t have the insight to say they’re working hard at it, all we can do is wait till they come forward with it, but if a lot of time goes by and we haven’t seen anything, we’re going to be squawking about it for sure.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Comartin said he doesn’t believe the current controversy will change how candidates run their campaigns, except to make them more careful of who is getting access to data such as voter preferences.

“I think they’ll also pay more attention in terms of what the law is, in terms of identifying yourself, and making sure you stay within the guidelines and hopefully those guidelines will become even more rigid and stricter and higher quality standard in that regard as we work this process through,” he said.

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH

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