Sandra Finley

2012-03-04 We must take the robocalls scandal seriously, By Gus Van Harten, The Province

 Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
Mar 102012
 

The robocall affair puts us at the brink of crisis in our electoral  democracy. Yet there appears to be an effort to stifle public outrage, and  resolve any doubts in favour of the government, at this still-early stage in the  affair. This effort traces to the Harper government, unfortunately, but also to  media commentators (Chantal Hebert, John Ibbitson and others).

The fire-brigade’s argument goes something like this. One, there is no  evidence that the Conservative party took part in the robocall affair. Two,  there are few ridings in which Conservative victory is in doubt. Three, in any  event, the overall federal election result is beyond question.

All of these points are inaccurate or misleading and point to a lack of  concern for the integrity of the democratic process.

First, it is much too early to judge how many riding were affected, and to  what extent, by the fraudulent telephone interventions in the voting process.  These interventions – both robocalls and live calls – are now associated with  Conservative party agents based on a range of reported information, including  from Conservative sources.

The information includes, among other things, the content and targeting of  the robocalls and live calls, the past connections of RackNine to the  Conservatives, the resignation of Conservative operative Michael Sona and  publicly reported statements of Sona.

Second, the Conservative majority is very thin. In Ontario alone, there are  at least six ridings in which a Conservative candidate won by less than 1,000  votes over a Liberal candidate. There are at least three others in Ontario where  the same outcome turned on a margin of 1,000 to 2,000 votes. There are no doubt  ridings with similar margins elsewhere in the country.

So, it is not possible to know how widely and deeply voting was tainted in  individual ridings. Indeed, it is a massive task to investigate that question  thoroughly. However, initial indications from the Elections Canada investigation  (which focuses on Guelph only) and from media reports are very troubling. Thus,  to suggest that what we know at present allows us to conclude that the overall  election outcome was not affected is dubious and irresponsible.

Third, public confidence in the electoral process is sacrosanct. The safest  course of action, and possibly the only option, to restore public confidence in  the election is to hold by-elections in any riding where there is reason to  think that the result could have been different, had the robocalls not taken  place. The process to decide this question, riding by riding, must be based on  evidence from eligible voters in the riding.

Ultimately, the decision whether to require by-elections is a matter for the  courts. But the investigation behind the courts’ decision-making needs to be  organized by a body that is independent of government and well-funded. If the  government is not prepared to commit to such an investigation immediately, then  the other parties should organize it themselves.

Fourth, the fact that the outcome in even one riding may have been determined  by fraudulent activity is an absolute scandal, deserving of an independent  investigation in itself. That the affair gets boiled down, by some commentators,  to whether the outcome in the election overall would have changed (which of  course we and they don’t know) suggests either moral bankruptcy or a lack of  understanding of the importance of a voting process that has  integrity.

Fifth, the next step is an independent and thorough inquiry into the whole  affair. The inquiry can be carried out by Elections Canada, by the RCMP or by a  public inquiry with full coercive powers.

If Elections Canada, one must ask whether the agency has sufficient  resources. If the RCMP, one must ask whether focusing on a few individuals who  may have committed crimes is enough in the face of a potentially systemic  problem.

If a public inquiry, one must ask whether the government will appoint a judge  who has an unquestionable reputation for independence from the government.

Importantly, none of these methods of inquiry is an excuse for delaying the  courts’ reviews of questionable results in individual ridings. Those court  reviews are the key. They must happen as soon as possible to ensure public  confidence in the electoral process.

Applications to the courts can be made by any individually affected voter.  However, the judicial process depends on a fair investigation of the extent of  fraudulent intervention in all of the ridings that went down to the wire. We  need the courts to protect our democracy.

Gus Van Harten is an Osgoode Hall Law School professor in Toronto.

© Copyright (c) The  Province

2012-03-08 You learned “robocalls”. Now learn “vote moving”. And you get “rigged election”.

 Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
Mar 082012
 

I think these kids, David Janakowski and Steven Bryant, may have figured it out.  Bless them!

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Who would have thought it’d happen here?

I know – – it hasn’t been proven yet.   “Robocalls”  +  “Vote Moving”  =  Election Fraud, a rigged election.

A bloody rigged election?    Take a look – – –  I set out to do an update.   That’s all.

NOTE:  For the postings on “Robocalls”:

  • Go to the right-hand sidebar at www.sandrafinley.ca
  • To the category  “Corporatocracy or democracy?”
  • Click on “Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud” to generate the list.

You may have noticed (recent news) that the Conservative strategy has taken an about-face.   They were antagonistic to Elections Canada and the need for capacity to investigate.  They have tried and failed at “deny, deny, deny”.   Kudos to Canadians  – –  citizen outrage won’t let them get away with it.

For facebook users:

–  The group CRUSH (Citizens Rallying to Unseat Steven Harper) has good information on robocalls and election fraud.

http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php?type=1#!/groups/292671928599/

–  And really great cartoons!

–  There’s a new F/B group started:    Robocalls – Public inquiry needed now for Canadian Democracy

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“VOTE  MOVING”

UNEASY:

I hesitated to send David and Steven’s video on “Vote Moving” to you because it is theoretical.  It does a good job of explaining an idea, but it’s only an idea.

Then I read today’s news, the CBC report of 2,700 applications for late registration.  It looks like “Vote Moving” enacted.   Hmmm… and what about Borys Wrzesnewskyj’s story?

“Vote Moving” didn’t (possibly) happen in only one place.   (Not to mention that it also happened in conjunction with fraudulent “robo-calls” in other ridings.)

  1. THE CONCEPT:  Go to  http://www.votemoving.com/,  click on the button at the top, “Vote Moving video”)
Evelyn Opalka wrote:  . . .   excellent video. Thanks, Cheena, though now I have one more grey hair. 🙂
    2.   THE CONCEPT MADE REAL,  two examples:
    a. Go to  http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=4528 2012-03-08  New allegations of voting irregularities come to light in Toronto: CBC
CBC reports there were at least 2,700 applications for late registration to vote in Eglinton-Lawrence that failed to provide addresses or gave false or non-residential addresses, all of which fail to meet Election Canada rules.
    b. Click on   Borys Wrzesnewskyj on CBC News, 2 March 2012
    About voters added to the list who should not have been.  Court case.
– – – – – – – –  – – — – – – – –  —  —

NOW FOR THOSE UPDATES!

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http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=4519 2012-03-06    Robocalls answer in Tory servers

(Note:  CIMS   =  Constituency Information Management System database)

This is an interesting opinion that also explains the computerized data bases used by political parties.

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http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=4515 2012-03-06  Tories didn’t declare payments made to robocalls company, can’t explain why

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http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=4508 2012-03-03  Robo-calls: Tory MPs used top U.S. Republican firm during May election

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LOVE THIS!  Quote from Rick Mercer’s twitter:   “Russians have received 4500 complaints of election fraud.  Amateurs!”

[Canada, 31,000 complaints of fraud for the 2011 Election]

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/06/pol-supreme-court-conservatives.html

Tories ditch ‘in-and-out’ case at Supreme Court

Here’s a wild speculation:  With the robo-call election fraud matter boiling, it is too dangerous to proceed with the scheduled appeal of the Tory ‘in-and-out’ guilty verdict.  Can’t risk more irregularities being uncovered.   Cut the losses.  Can the appeal.

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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/elections-canada-told-parties-not-to-call-voters-with-polling-station-locations-141498343.html

Elections Canada told parties not to call voters with polling station locations (March 5)

(This was after the Conservatives called and asked for a list of the polling stations.  They then did what Elections Canada asked them NOT to do.)

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http://www.globalnews.ca/spending%2Bpatterns/6442596526/story.html
Spending patterns raise more questions in ‘robocall’ affair

This March 7th report names another of the major players:   Responsive Marketing Group, a Toronto-based call centre with deep Conservative ties.

If campaigns have the money, and are within spending limits, they can hire a company to do their “voter identification”.  Political campaigns are moving out of the era when they were carried out by volunteers.

But this goes beyond voter identification:

“ . . . The call centre came into the spotlight recently, when former employees of the company who were working on behalf of the Conservative Party told media that, in the days leading up to the election, they were instructed to call voters in closely-fought ridings to tell them their designated polling stations had changed. Days after that story surfaced, the defeated Conservative candidate in the Quebec riding of Rimouski-Neigette-Temiscouata-Les Basques told the French-language daily Le Devoir he was approached by the national campaign and told to pay $15,000.01 to RMG. He was at a loss, however, to say what services his local campaign received in return. The candidate later retracted his story, saying RMG was hired to conduct voter identification in his riding. . . “

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HOW MANY SEATS  FOR CONSERVATIVES TO LOSE  STATUS?  – – –  TWELVE

308 seats in Parliament;  majority is  half plus one  =  155 seats.

Conservatives hold 166 seats.

If TWELVE seats change hands, the Conservatives would no longer have a majority Government.

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HOW MANY POTENTIAL BY-ELECTIONS BECAUSE OF ELECTION FRAUD?     FOURTEEN is a conservative estimate

By February 24, Andrew Coyne in the Vancouver Sun reported fraudulent robocalls in “at least 18” ridings across the country.   http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Coyne+Crank+call+scandal+fits+Conservatives+pattern+pattern+political/6206836/story.html

Now there’s the ridings with alleged “vote moving” to add.

If there are court-ordered by-elections because of election fraud, the Conservatives could well lose their status as the ruling party.

2012-03-08 New allegations of voting irregularities come to light in Toronto: CBC

 Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
Mar 082012
 

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1142931–new-allegations-of-voting-irregularities-come-to-light-in-toronto-cbc

Alleged voting irregularities in the 2011 federal election have taken a new twist with accusations that hundreds of unregistered voters cast ballots in the Eglinton-Lawrence riding, according to CBC.

The Conservative Party has been dogged for weeks now with allegations that it was behind so-called robo-calls and other dirty tricks that critics says swung the results in its favour.

CBC reports there were at least 2,700 applications for late registration to vote in Eglinton-Lawrence that failed to provide addresses or gave false or non-residential addresses, all of which fail to meet Election Canada rules.

Former veteran Liberal MP Joe Volpe lost the riding to Conservative Joe Oliver by 4,062 votes. Oliver was rewarded with a cabinet post, minister of natural resources, for dethroning Volpe.

Volpe’s lawyer, Anthony Pascale, told CBC he wants Elections Canada to investigate.

“There were an inordinately high number of voters registering who were not on the voters list in order to cast ballots,” Pascale said.

Meanwhile, as first reported in the Toronto Star, federal elections investigators are probing robo-calls in another riding — Nipissing-Temiskaming in northern Ontario — that could have tipped one of the tightest races in the country in favour of the Conservative party.

Incumbent Liberal Anthony Rota lost by just 18 votes to Jay Aspin, the Conservative candidate.

In the week before Election Day, an automated voice message was received by a North Bay environmental activist that raised her suspicions.

“I got a call that said it was Elections Canada calling to say that due to higher than anticipated voter turnout that my polling place was changed,” Peggy Walsh Craig told the Star.

Craig said she had received two calls during the spring 2011 campaign, the first a few weeks before voting day on May 2. It asked if she intended to vote for the Conservative party. She did not. The second came in the week prior to the election.

Elections Canada has been flooded with complaints from across the country about suspicious calls telling voters their polling booth had been changed
Richard J. BrennanNational Affairs Writer

2012-03-06 Robocalls answer in Tory servers (CIMS – Constituency Information Management System database )

 Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
Mar 082012
 

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/Robocalls+answer+Tory+servers/6255473/story.html

  • John Ivison, National Post · Mar. 6, 2012 | Last Updated: Mar. 6, 2012 3:06 AM ET

    • Stephen Harper and Guy Giorno, his campaign manager, have come over like T.S. Eliot’s Macavity the Cat in relation to the robocalls saga – whatever time the deed took place, they weren’t there.

    Both have made public denials about any links between robocalls and the official campaign.

    How can they be so sure? Perhaps because they already have a pretty good idea who the culprit is. The digital trail likely ends inside the Conservative party’s own computer system – specifically the Constituency Information Management System (CIMS) database that contains voter information and telephone numbers.

    Anyone who wanted to make robocalls sending Liberal and NDP voters to the wrong polling station, similar to the ones received by Liberal supporters in Guelph, would likely need CIMS to identify and then contact them. But CIMS is tightly held by the party, with access passwordprotected.

    “You can’t do a transaction in CIMS without it being logged. The party will know who was doing what, how long they were on for and what information they were looking for,” said someone with knowledge of the database. “It’s a difficult system to do something illegal on. It’s jealously guarded information.”

    No one believes that a coordinated voter suppression campaign could be carried out without CIMS – the last thing anyone seeking to boost the Conservative turnout would want to do is call its own supporters and misdirect them.

    So a detailed inventory of who was using the CIMS database in the ridings allegedly hit by robocalls should narrow down the search for the culprit considerably.

    A spokesman for the Conservative party said the Elections Commissioner, who is investigating the issue, has not yet asked for this information.

    The strong suspicion among people familiar with the Conservative campaign is that the voter suppression effort may be the work of a rogue telemarketing company, employed by one or a number of riding associations to identify Conservatives and then get out the vote.

    The most frequently mentioned company in connection with this regard is Torontobased Responsive Marketing Group, which worked on the national campaign, particularly the 75 ridings on the Tories’ “target” list.

    Yet, the consensus among those on the inside is that RMG will be cleared of any wrongdoing. For one thing, the company does not make robocalls. For another, it is understood to keep recordings of every call it makes, which should make the Election Commissioner’s life easier as he probes allegations that RMG’s call centre in Thunder Bay misdirected voters to the wrong polling station.

    But there are other companies that had the motive – they would profit from a reduced opposition turnout – and opportunity – they would have access to CIMS across the ridings on which they worked.

    At this stage, there is no evidence of any such coordinated campaign. The 31,000 complaints received by Elections Canada will be whittled down in short order. Many of the “harassing” phone calls were likely simple mistakes.

    All parties acknowledge the voter lists they receive from Elections Canada are often incorrect. The parties then compound the errors as they attempt to add telephone numbers to the raw voter information.

    The key question is whether the tactics apparently used in Guelph were repeated in other ridings. There is only anecdotal evidence that this is the case. The widespread presumption of Conservative guilt by many Canadians is largely the consequence of previous dirty tricks.

    Bob Rae, the interim Liberal leader, raised one such instance during Question Period, when he referred to calls made to constituents in Irwin Cotler’s Montreal riding that made the misleading claim the Liberal MP was stepping down and a byelection was imminent.

    The Speaker of the House of Commons, Andrew Scheer, called the tactic employed by Campaign Research, a telemarketing firm hired by the Conservatives, “reprehensible” and Mr. Rae asked the government if they agreed.

    Dean Del Mastro, the Prime Minister’s parliamentary secretary, deflected the question, saying that the Liberal “unsubstantiated smears” were the issue.

    But the Conservatives have form in this area. They remain the Nasty Party for too many Canadians. Even if it’s eventually proven the national campaign did not instigate a widespread robocalls effort, the Tories will be found guilty by association if a company they employed has been subverting democracy.

    jivison  AT  nationalpost.com

     

    2012-03-06 Tories didn’t declare payments made to robocalls company, can’t explain why

     Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
    Mar 072012
     
    Mar 6, 2012 – 9:28 AM ET | Last Updated: Mar 6, 2012 2:46 PM ET
    Reuters files
    Reuters files
    A sign from a demonstration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday. Elections Canada wants to know why the costs of automated calls the Tory campaign has admitted sending out never appeared in the campaign’s expense report.
    By Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher
    OTTAWA — Elections Canada investigators probing the robocalls scandal are interviewing workers on the Conservative campaign in Guelph, Ont., and trying to determine why payments made to an Edmonton voice-broadcasting company were not declared in financial reports filed with the agency.
    In recent days, the agency has spoken to at least three workers from the campaign of Conservative candidate Marty Burke, including the official agent responsible for ensuring the campaign’s financial report was accurate.
    Elections Canada wants to know why the costs of automated calls the campaign has admitted sending out never appeared in the campaign’s expense report, as required by law.
    Andrew Prescott, the deputy campaign manager, said he is co-operating with the investigation and handing over bills he received from RackNine Inc. for a series of robocalls promoting Burke events during the election.
    The same company was used to transmit misleading Elections Canada calls on election day.
    Prescott maintains he had no role in the fake Elections Canada calls that directed voters to the wrong polling stations.
    Prescott said Monday that he had given his campaign manager invoices for the calls but could not explain why the expenses did not appear on the financial report sent to Elections Canada.
    He said he used a RackNine account he held through his own company, Prescoan, to place the automated calls announcing Burke campaign events. He said he then submitted invoices to the campaign for these costs.
    “I gave them to the campaign manager,” Prescott said. “There was definitely no effort to hide anything or obscure anything.”
    There is no record of these expenses anywhere in the Burke campaign return, however.
    Meanwhile, Elections Canada is also investigating records at PayPal, an online payment and money transfer service, the Globe and Mail has reported, and is using a court order to ask the company to hand over information as a part of the Guelph investigation.
    Burke’s unsuccessful campaign against Liberal incumbent Frank Valeriote was managed by Ken Morgan, a former candidate for city council in Guelph. Burke has not spoken publicly since the robocalls controversy and has not responded to emails requesting comment. Postmedia was unable to reach Morgan.
    It is unclear why the Burke campaign did not report the costs Prescott said he submitted. Failing to declare campaign expenses is a breach of the Elections Act.
    The detailed expense claims submitted to the Burke campaign included receipts for everything from local advertising costs, gasoline and pizza for campaign workers. But the Burke campaign’s accountant, Abdul-Qayum Ali, said he never received any invoices for RackNine.
    The campaign’s bills typically were given by staff to Morgan and then passed on to him, said Ali who, as official agent, was responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the expense report.
    Ali said he was contacted by Elections Canada last week and asked if there were any other invoices he hadn’t submitted to the agency. There were not, he said.
    Elections Canada’s investigators have traced the fraudulent robocalls misdirecting voters in Guelph from a disposable cellphone purchased under the pseudonym “Pierre Poutine” in Joliette, Que. The phone was used to call RackNine to record the outgoing call sent to voters in Guelph.
    RackNine says it was unaware its service was used to place the calls.
    Prescott said he set up an account with RackNine in 2010 that he had used for other provincial and municipal election campaigns.
    A sworn statement filed by Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews lists 31 calls made to RackNine from four phones associated with the Burke campaign to RackNine, including two on election day. Most of the calls were to a customer service log-in number.
    In Mathews’ sworn statement, he writes that it is “reasonable to conclude that the absence of an expense report . . . is inconsistent with the pattern” of the calls.
    Prescott would not say how much the various calls cost.
    Prescott said he has spoken with Mathews by phone and has another meeting scheduled in the near future.
    Before the robocalls story first broke last month, Prescott told the Ottawa Citizen he had paid for RackNine bills himself and was reimbursed by the campaign through the $1,100 he was paid.
    But an agreement signed by Morgan and Ali on March 26, at the beginning of the campaign, shows Prescott was always to be paid $1,100 as an honourium for providing “general labour” on the campaign.
    Other campaign workers who had similar agreements in place were reimbursed for the costs they incurred during the course of the campaign. But there is no sign of any expenses Prescott incurred.
    In a blog post in July, not long after the election, Prescott described himself as a “cellphone expert.”
    “Being an IT guy, and being the resident cellphone expert amongst my friends and political circles, people ask me for advice on who’s got the best deals for cellphones.”
    Handout
    Michael Sona (left), a Tory staffer who worked in Guelph during the Election campaign, resigned shortly after the robocalls scandal broke.
    The Guelph Mercury reported last week that Elections Canada, which started the investigation in May, interviewed campaign worker Michael Sona last Tuesday for the first time.
    Sona, who was director of communications for the Burke campaign, made headlines during the campaign when he tried to shut down a special ballot being held for university students by trying to grab the ballot box.
    He was first associated with this story when Sun TV reported that senior Conservatives believed he was a person of interest to the investigation. Sona soon resigned from his job working for Conservative MP Eve Adams.
    After Defence Minister Peter MacKay suggested Sona was responsible for the misdirection in Guelph, Sona issued a statement denying it.
    “I have remained silent to this point with the hope that the real guilty party would be apprehended,” he said in a statement to CTV News. “The rumours continue to swirl, and media are now involving my family, so I feel that it is imperative that I respond. I had no involvement in the fraudulent phone calls, which also targeted our supporters as can be attested to by our local campaign team and phone records.”
    The Conservatives have steadfastly denied any knowledge of voter suppression calls by higher-ups. On Sunday, Conservative campaign chairman Guy Giorno said he hopes investigators get to the bottom of it.
    “I wish Godspeed to Elections Canada and the RCMP investigators,” he told CTV. “We want them to get to the bottom of this and let’s hope the full weight of the law is applied to any and all.”
    In Mathews’ sworn statement, he describes an interview with Central Poll Supervisor Laurie Rotenburg, who was running the polls at the Old Quebec Street Mall in Guelph when 150 to 200 deceived voters showed up to vote.
    “He observed that many of the misdirected voters responded with anger that a dirty trick had been played,” Mathews wrote. “Many were upset. Some electors just stormed out of the polling location. Several ripped up their Voter Information Card.”
    With files from the National Post
    = = = = = = == = = = =
    You may be interested in this poll:
    http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/44424/most-canadians-think-robocalls-were-used-broadly-in-last-election/

    Most Canadians Think Robocalls Were Used Broadly in Last Election

    Four-in-five respondents call for an independent investigation to find out who was behind the misleading robocalls made in the 2011 federal ballot

    2012-03-07 Privatization of water. Bless and help those whose work will stop it. (Update on the World Water Forum)

     Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Water  No Responses »
    Mar 072012
     

    International Oil companies “own” the oil;  international water corporations want to “own” the water.

    The World Water Council = World Water Forum = privatization of water.

    We are truly blessed.  We have these people who are tireless in their dedication.  Maude Barlow, the Council of Canadians, working with others.  The privatization will be stopped eventually.  It will be stopped sooner if we all help by creating awareness.

    /Sandra

    P.S.  Awesome!  a Chapter of the Council of Cdns is being re-established in Saskatoon.  Watch for notice of the start-up meeting.

    – – – – – – – – – – –

    Dear friends,

    The statement below was drafted over the past few months by many friends from the global water justice movement. It is a message we intend to deliver to governments in Marseille calling on them to join us in denouncing the corporate forum and supporting a democratic, participatory forum on the human right to water.

    We would like to attach the names of as many organizations from as many countries as possible.  Please let me know if you’re able to sign on by Friday March 9 at 5 pm EST and please distribute within your networks.

    In solidarity,  Meera Karunananthan, Council of Canadians

    – – – – – –

    Global water justice movement call to action for governments on the implementation of the human right to water
    Marseille, March 2012

    As members of the water justice movement gathered in Marseille, France to mobilize against the 6th World Water Forum, we issue this statement which also carries the voices of many from around the world who have not come to Marseille. We are in Marseille to give voice to the positive  agenda of global water justice movements. We are here to oppose the corporate driven World Water Forum, which poses as a multi-stakeholder platform on water policy.

    The context of Marseille

    The choice of Marseille as a host city for the 6th World Water Forum is significant.  Marseille is home to the World Water Council, the corporate think tank and lobby group that convenes the World Water Forum. Among its founders are the multinational water corporations, Suez and Veolia, as well as the World Bank.  Marseille has long been a financial supporter of the Council itself and France is considered by many to be the birthplace of water privatization.

    As they convene in Marseille, Veolia, Suez and SAUR, three of the world’s biggest water corporations are under investigation by the European Union’s anti-trust regulator for working as a cartel to fix the price of water and wastewater services in France. Together the three multinationals control 69 per cent of the France’s water distribution systems and 55 per cent of the water treatment systems.

    It is as a result of such scandals that many French municipalities from Grenoble to Paris have joined communities around the world to remunicipalize their water and wastewater systems.

    1.    Who we are

    We are social justice organizations, indigenous peoples, trade unions, environmental groups, farmers, writers, academics, human rights advocates, community activists and networks which share a vision of water as a fundamental human right and a commons, not a commodity. We have led struggles throughout the world in defense of water and territory to protect the commons.

    Our principles

    We reaffirm and strengthen all the principles and commitments expressed in the 2006 Mexico City and 2009 Istanbul alternative forum declarations: we recognise water as being essential for all life on the planet. We uphold the fundamental and inalienable human right to water and sanitation; we insist on solidarity between present and future generations ; we reject all forms of privatization and declare that the management and control of water must be public or community-owned, social, cooperative, participatory, equitable, and not for profit; we call for the democratic and sustainable management of ecosystems and the preservation of the integrity of the water cycle and waterways’ rights to flow through the protection and proper management of human use of watersheds and environment. We oppose the dominant economic model that prescribes the privatization, commercialization and corporatization of public and community-owned water and sanitation services.

    Some of our achievements include: reclaiming public utilities that had been privatized; fostering and implementing public – public partnerships and community partnerships; forcing the bottled water industry into a loss of revenue; and coming together in collective simultaneous activities during Blue Octoberi.

    While many challenges lie ahead in implementing this right, we celebrate the United Nations recognition of the human right to water and sanitation as well as the adoption of this right in several national constitutions and laws.

    Our demands

    A forum on the human right to water and sanitation in October 2014

    Five World Water Forums over the span of 15 years have not brought us closer to a solution. Led by the World Water Council, the Forum has promoted strategies for corporations seeking greater profits from the global water crisis.

    The recognition of water and sanitation as a human right within the United Nations General Assembly (resolution 64/292) and subsequent UN Human Rights Council resolutions are moving the stakes back to where they belong, with governments.  It is now time for the United Nations and its member states to take the lead in ensuring a progressive implementation of this right.

    We call on the UN General Assembly to organize a global forum on water in October 2014ii.

    As the legitimate global convener of multilateral forums, we call on the United Nations and its member states to formally commit to hosting a forum on water that is accountable to the global community and that is linked to state obligations under the human right to water and sanitation. This forum must enable meaningful and open discussions with impacted communities, workers, indigenous peoples and civil society.

    We demand member states comply with United Nations resolutions and reform domestic laws to recognize that all people have the right to water and sanitation.  Governments must commit to producing national action plans outlining how they will meet their obligations to respect, fulfil and protect this right.

    We call upon all organizations and governments at this 6th World Water Forum, to withdraw their support from the corporate-controlled water forum.

    6th World Water Forum Ministerial Statement

    The World Water Forum’s draft ministerial statement is not a legally binding document and the Forum is not a legitimate space for water policy discussions. As such, the statement is both inadequate in comparison to the commitments needed for countries to progressively realize the human right to water, and harmful in that it can inappropriately shape and bleed into binding commitments made in other forums.

    In terms of content, the statement has several key weaknesses. The draft declaration ignores the failure of privatization to guarantee access to water for all. The statement promotes the investment in water resources as natural capital, a model that has led to schemes that have stripped communities of their rights to water and land. Water is a commons and we reject any attempt to financialize our collective water resources, and thereby take water governance out of peoples’ hands and into corporate boardrooms

    International financial institutions, including the World Bank Group, are exacerbating public sector weaknesses through direct support for the private sector and promotion of increased government delegation of key responsibilities and capacities.

    We call on Ministers to draft and adopt a counter declaration challenging the authority and legitimacy of the World Water Forum as a space for developing good water governance/policymaking, and affirming the importance of democratic water
    governance.

    The ecological crisis and the Earth Summit

    We represent movements on water, land, food and climate working to counter the financialization and commodification of nature being promoted under the banner of the so-called “green economy” which is to form the basis of the Rio+20 Earth Summit discussion in June 2012.

    As water justice activists, we are concerned that water is being promoted in Marseille as the engine of the green economy. Within this context, the 6th World Water Forum and the corporate agenda of the Rio + 20 Summit are set to pave the way for greater privatization of water services in the name of green innovation and private sector efficiency; the promotion of large infrastructure projects and agribusiness in the name of green energy that will prevent communities from protecting their water resources and; market-based models of water allocation and governance including water markets and payments for ecological services, which will result in the loss of local control and enable multinational corporations greater resource rights. This will only exacerbate the historic North-South inequities by allowing Northern corporations greater access to natural resources in the Global South.

    The basic connection between water and climate change – the impacts of which are felt most profoundly by marginalized communities throughout the planet – is recognized by the scientific community and is underlined also by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Therefore, we must not accept false solutions to the environmental crisis being promoted under the rubric of the “green economy” such as dams, nuclear power plants, and agro-fuel plantations that jeopardize the quantity and quality of water.

    Dams have displaced an estimated 40-80 million people, impoverished millions more, and turned fresh water into the ecosystem most affected by biodiversity loss. Big, centralized hydropower projects have typically favoured the demands of extractive industries and urban centres over the basic needs of the poor.

    The dam industry, the World Bank, the G20 and other actors are currently promoting an expansion of big hydropower projects.  The dam industry tries to greenwash its projects through the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, a voluntary scorecard that is controlled by industry and does not include any social and environmental minimum requirements for hydropower projects.

    We call on governments and financiers to prioritize the water and energy needs of the poor over the demands of the global market. We ask that all needs and options are assessed in a balanced, participatory process before new water and energy projects are approved. We call on all actors to strictly follow the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams in case such a process identifies a dam as the most appropriate option.

    We call on governments and other actors not to endorse the voluntary approach of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment
    Protocol    .

    Further, the dominant model of mono-crop intensive industrial agriculture contaminates and destroys water resources, introduces non-native species to ecosystems, monopolizes biodiversity, and adversely affects the food sovereignty and food security of indigenous and local communities who continue to feed 70% of the world’s population. It impoverishes not only indigenous and rural communities but agricultural soils and ecosystems, contributes to global warming. It displaces indigenous and local communities and has an enormous impact on the lives and
    public health of billions of people.

    In order to ensure economic and environmental justice for all, we need new models of governanceiii that are based on protecting water as a commons along with systems of restoration and compensation to restore the integrity of water, land and ecosystems, which have been destroyed by decades of abuse.

    The corporate-driven, market-based green economy is not a solution to the global water crisis and we take this opportunity to say to all leaders negotiating at the Rio+20 Summit that our water is not for sale, our world is not for sale!

    We demand that governments join us in saying no to the green economy as currently defined.

    Indigenous rights

    We are indigenous and non-indigenous peoples standing in solidarity against the large-scale destruction and pollution of indigenous waters and territories through foreign and colonial laws and practices such as globalization and so-called free market mechanisms, that continue to usurp and displace Indigenous Peoples from ancestral and traditional lands, territories and natural resources.

    For Indigenous Peoples water is life and water is Sacred. Water nourishes not only our bodies but our spirits and is fundamental to our spiritual lives and cultural practices. Water provides for our traditional means of subsistence, food sovereignty and food security and cannot be privatized. We demand respect for indigenous rights and sovereignty. We demand recognition of indigenous knowledge, traditional, spiritual and cultural practices, and institutions of governance.

    Financing the human right to water and sanitation in times of economic crisis

    The economic crisis must be urgently addressed in a just and equitable manner. We are among the many who have taken to the streets around the world to declare that the public should not be forced to absorb the costs of the failure of an economic system driven by corporate interests, which has perpetuated inequalities and environmental collapse.

    The human right to water requires adequate public financing. In the context of economic austerity in the global North and structural adjustment in the global South, governments have slashed spending for vital water and sanitation services and allowed private corporations greater access to these sectors.

    In her 2011 report to the General Assembly on financing, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation emphasized that a narrow focus on economic growth has prevented States from fulfilling the human right to water and sanitation.

    We call on States to make the financing of public and community-owned water and sanitation systems through progressive taxation a priority. Furthermore, we call for public resources to be allocated to public-public partnerships ensuring that public sector best practices are shared among those requiring capacity building and training. We also support the call for domestic and international transaction taxes that would increase the revenues and capacity of governments to direct funding to
    public services.

    We call on International Financial Institutions to support democratic governance and control of water by directing support through legitimate governments and in a way that facilitates democratic decision-making.

    We demand that all employers, public or private recognise worker rights as defined by ILO conventions.

    We celebrate our achievements and we look forward for our continued collaboration across countries and continents!

    i Blue October is a month commemorated by the global water justice movement to promote water as a human right and a commons
    ii October is proposed in honour of Blue October.
    iii By participatory governance models, we refer to democratic models of governance that entrench the rights and duties of communities with regards to the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of participatory public policies which include all actors (social, governmental, academic and labour) in the basic decisions that define life within a territory.,

    2012-03-07 Information re computerized data bases used by political parties

     Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
    Mar 072012
     

    The article below from the Hill Times talks about the  computerized data bases used by political parties.

    It sounds as though there is something suspect  —
    –  A second Conservative MP has confirmed the Conservative Party  provided his campaign with detailed voter identification lists . .

    There may not be anything NECESSARILY suspect here.   It depends on a few factors.  If the age of the voter, for example, was provided – where did that information come from?  (Discussed in a later posting – voters were targeted by age.  And this statement,   “Mitch Wexler, a Conservative voter-data expert, said political parties can supplement voter registration lists with CENSUS information…” From later postings, it is also the case that the Conservatives have the money to hire a company to do their “voter identification”.

    To the extent they can afford, all political parties use computerized data bases.  Individual campaigns may not have the resources to create their own comprehensive voters list; it’s reasonable that it might come from a National Office.

    You need the ability to MERGE the Elections Canada Voters List (street address + name)  with Canada411 (phone number) with the Party record (supporter, donor, lawn sign, not a supporter, etc.) This might be legitimate.

    What is NOT acceptable is robo-calling used fraudulently and data bases that breach privacy rights.

    (Disclosure: I am a Green. I might be envious that we don’t have the resources to create such data bases for our candidates.  (Except that I am uneasy when I see how these merges of data can be done.)  It doesn’t mean that THIS ONE ASPECT (Kramp, a Conservative MP, was supplied with a ‘phenomenal’ tool) should be used for condemnation. There are PLENTY of other important grounds for condemnation!  WHAT INFORMATION was provided, how much,  from where was the information sourced?)

    March 7

    PARLIAMENT HILL—A second Conservative MP has confirmed  the Conservative Party provided his campaign with detailed voter identification
    lists for his electoral district, including telephone numbers, and information  from Elections Canada voter lists, as voting day approached in the federal  election last year.     More at

    http://www.hilltimes.com/news/politics/2012/03/07/tories-cims-database-phenonmenal-asset-but-conservative-mp-kramp-says-his/29967?page_requested=1

    2012-03-03 Robo-calls: Tory MPs used top U.S. Republican firm during May election

     Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  No Responses »
    Mar 052012
     

    http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/canada/politics/article/1140344–conservative-mps-used-top-republican-firm-during-may-election?bn=1

    March 3, 2012 00:03:00
    Linda Diebel  National Affairs Writer

    Fourteen Conservative MPs signed on with a well-connected Republican company during last year’s election campaign, contrary to the party’s claims, the Star has learned.

    On its website, Front Porch Strategies, a “voter contact and constituency outreach” firm based in Columbus, Ohio, boasts: “In May’s federal elections, Front Porch Strategies won all 14 of their races.”

    Among their clients was Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro who, on Thursday, led the charge in the Commons over the voter dirty tricks scandal, accusing Liberals and notably Eglinton—Lawrence MP Joe Volpe of paying over $25,000 to a calling company with offices in North Dakota.

    Added Prime Minister Stephen Harper: “We’ve done some checking. We’ve only found that, in fact, it was the Liberal party that did source its phone calls from the United States.”

    In an interview with the Star, Del Mastro backed down on the North Dakota allegation — for which he apologized to reporters — and said: “Nobody is saying there’s anything wrong with the use of U.S. firms.”

    After a raucous week in Parliament, Elections Canada confirmed Friday morning that it has received 31,000 complaints from Canadians about misleading and harassing calls since Monday.

    Del Mastro praised Front Porch and said the company was very effective in running teleforums — Internet or phone-powered focus groups — in his riding.

    But one of his Front Porch events got messy. On March 23, 2011, the day after the budget, a teleforum involving over 5,000 households, turned nasty when several supposedly screened callers launched a “smear campaign” against then Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, according to Liberal candidate Betsy McGregor.

    “It was billed as a forum to discuss the budget but it seemed to me like an exercise in voter identification — and that’s not right,” she said from Peterborough. “He would have been 100 per cent certain Harper was going to call the election in three days so it was for electioneering purposes.”

    McGregor recalled one caller falsely claimed Ignatieff wasn’t even Canadian and accused former Liberal governments of sending Canadians into battle in Afghanistan without flak jackets.

    “I would just ask why not use a Canadian company? I think the people of Peterborough would be really astonished to know how our MP had to import U.S. services to win our election.” she said.

    It’s not clear whether Front Porch stuck to teleforum work or handled other types of voter outreach — such as robo-calling — for its 14 Conservative clients. According to Elections Canada expense returns, they also included: Northumberland MP Rick Norlock, Rick Dykstra from St. Catharines, Brant’s Phil McColeman, Dean Allison from Niagara West—Glanbrook and Parm Gill from Brampton-Springdale.

    The company’s website notes it has worked for the Conservative caucus as well as MPs.

    PJ Wenzel, a partner in the firm, didn’t return Star phone calls. There’s an excerpt on his voicemail from former U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s “tear down this wall speech,” from the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall in 1988. He urged then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “open this gate.”

    Veteran political operative Jim Ross, a former Dykstra staffer hired as a consultant for Canadian operations by Front Porch, said the company doesn’t release information on clients or the type of work done. Over the past year, Front Porch also hired Erin Wall, a former communications adviser to Treasury Board President Tony Clement, as an associate.

    Front Porch has worked for the top echelons of the Republican Party, including George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, Mitt Romney during his bid for the 2008 nomination and the Republican National Committee. The firm has been especially active in trying to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that ensures a woman’s right to abortion.

    In an interview, Duff Conacher, on the board of Democracy Watch, said American companies shouldn’t be involved in Canadian elections. “It’s legal to engage the services of anyone you want during an election campaign but it’s very disturbing to see the Conservative Party using companies with these kinds of partisan (Republican) ties.”

    Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, whose St. Paul riding saw tires slashed, brake lines cut and lawn signs taken down in the last two federal elections, told the Star she opposes the idea of using foreign companies because “if there were to be transgression, we don’t have the same resources to go after them as we do with Canadian firms.

    “It bugs me. It just doesn’t seem right. It’s our country, our voters and our election.”

    The Conservatives have outstripped other parties over the past decade in fundraising and honing its political machine. The party effectively uses the resources of the powerful Conservative global organization, the International Democratic Union (IDU), a coalition of member parties including the U.S. Republicans, the Canadian and U.K. Conservative parties and, in the Australia, the centre-right Liberals.

    The Harper team has been adept at learning from election technology seminars from other countries using IDU — called “off-shoring” — and keeping its people in prominent positions within the organization. In a legendary example, strategist Patrick Muttart adopted voter identification techniques from Howard in Australia that included breaking voters into tight little groups to target them on campaign drives.

    Currently, Senator Doug Finley, Harper’s former campaign director is a deputy chair at IDU. Charges under the Elections Canada Act against Finley and Senator Irving Gerstein were dropped last year, but the party was found guilty and fined $52,000 for overspending in the “in-and-out” scandal, in which riding funds were funnelled into national advertising.

    Fred DeLorey, the party’s director of communications who on Thursday accused Liberals of hiring U.S. firms, called the ruling: “a big victory for the Conservative Party of Canada.”

    A Liberal analyst who spoke on background said that nobody should think the Liberals are virtuous. Rather, he said: “There has been a global revolution that has transformed every aspect of politics in the last five years. The Conservatives know how to take technologies from other parties in other countries — ‘offshoring’ — and they do it better than anybody else. The problem is I don’t think Elections Canada can keep up.”

    Ron Shaiko, a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Centre at New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College, tracks get-out-vote techniques as well as “voter suppression” in the U.S.

    “In the U.S. the people who work to suppress voter turnout are the Republicans for a simple reason,’ he said. “Historically, the lower the turnout, the better it is for Republicans. High turnout means Democratic wins.”

    Home | Contact© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2012

    2012-03-05 Robocalls, history in Canada. Call it what it is. What to do?

     Robocalls & Vote moving, Election Fraud  1 Response »
    Mar 052012
     

    This is a sampling of what our fellow citizens are saying and DOING.

    Scroll through.  Many thanks to many of you, from all of us, for the input!

    Item #1, Elizabeth May,  a critical piece of context that I haven’t seen in the mainstream media.

    Item #6, CALL IT WHAT IT IS by Jim Harris.  The words used to frame an issue are critical in forming public understanding – – the line between propaganda and truth.

    I apologize for that which I have missed!   There is another important point I wanted to make, but I can’t remember what it is!

    /Sandra

    = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = =

    1. ROBOCALL ELECTION FRAUD DID NOT START WITH THE 2011 ELECTION;  it had its beginning in Canada at least by the 2008 Election.

    Click on  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8X_XESpKQA Elizabeth May,   Robocall Pilot Project: Elections Canada Drops the Ball
    in BC 2008

    Elizabeth clarifies the current situation, and provides information on the 2008 Election robocalls.

    = = = = = = = = = = = =

    2. CONNECTIONS TO THE U.S.

    (Skimmed different articles.  I don’t think there is doubt that, at the very LEAST,  some Conservatives and some Liberals are using American capabilities.)

    (published in the Globe & Mail – I was quite surprised that they printed the excerpt below.)

    Exactly how dangerous is Stephen Harper?

    gerald caplan

    Globe and Mail Update  Published Friday, Mar. 02, 2012 4:39PM EST;  Last updated Monday, Mar. 05, 2012 5:11PM EST

    EXCERPT from:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/exactly-how-dangerous-is-stephen-harper/article2357089/

    In fact, I’m informed by a former Conservative operative familiar with both the party and technology that there’s far more to be revealed in this saga. This is said specifically to involve close ties between the Harperites and American Republicans who have been constructing a terrifying, full-blown voter suppression machine, as The Nation magazine, among others, has well documented and CBC Radio’s The Current has noted. I have no idea if this will be found to be true, but based on the record, it is surely not implausible.

    = = = = = = = = = =  = = =

    3. WHAT TO DO? . . .   I’D SAY   “ DO BOTH!”

    There is good information on two options in the article  Tories go on offensive over robocalls.

    Click on:  http://www.canada.com/news/Tories+offensive+over+robocalls/6234917/story.html#ixzz1oGozj67E

    –          Public Inquiry  (many Canadians calling for)

    –         Individual Canadians have the legal right to take action against electoral fraud (Council of Canadians organizing this action).  It seems to me to be a good tactic.  If you live in a riding where electoral fraud took place, join with others, use the Courts to obtain a by-election to right the wrong.   There will be more to report as things unfold.

    = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  =  = = = =

    4. PROTESTS?     – –  YES!   LOTS HAPPENING!

    –   Hundreds rallied in Vancouver Saturday to protest the growing robocalls scandal.
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03/03/bc-robocall-rally.html

    –    OTTAWA—The controversy over harassing and phoney election calls drew a small crowd on Parliament Hill today as demonstrators braved bitter cold to denounce the robo-calls affair.  The Ottawa rally followed a demonstration last weekend in Vancouver that attracted a few hundred people. More protests are planned (this) week in Toronto and Calgary.   http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1141176–robo-calls-protesters-take-to-parliament-hill-over-misleading-phone-call-controversy

    –         NATIONAL  DAY OF PROTEST:  Sunday, March 11.

    Look for one in your area.

    In Saskatoon, people are meeting in front of City Hall at 1:00 pm Sunday.   I don’t know who is organizing it.   Just show up!

    = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

    5.  PETITIONS? Talked about earlier,  see  2012-02-27  Robocall Election Fraud — Amazing response

    = = = = = = = = = = = =  == =  = == =

    6. CALL IT WHAT IT IS

    The robocall scandal isn’t about “dirty tricks”.  It isn’t about over-zealous people who “just want to win”.

    It’s about election fraud and violating Constitutional rights.

    It is not different from beating people up to prevent them from voting; it is only more technologically sophisticated.  This is banana republic stuff.

    There’s A VERY GOOD ARTICLE BY JIM HARRIS, a Huffington Post blog.  Jim writes:

    I published a blog titled: Let’s Call it What it is: ELection Fraud — which the HuffPo editors re-titled Harper Conquers Canada, One Robocall at a
    Time

    I would very much enjoy your feedback on it — it’s at http://huff.to/yW1YgR

    I think this is a critical issue that isn’t being given the proper treatment.

    The blog seems to have hit a chord as it was the top post for HuffPo with more than 1,500 likes, shares, tweets and comments — and it continues to trend — it’s already broken 2,000 by 6 am this morning.

    Anything you could do to draw attention to it — post it on Facebook, tweet it out, etc would be greatly appreciated.

    I look forward to your feedback.

    Jim Harris

    Former Leader, Green Party of Canada
    Tel: 416 467 6006;  jimh  AT  jimharris.com;  Twitter: @JimHarris;   http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jimharrisprofile
    Web: www.jimharris.com

    = = = = = = = = = = = =

    7.  MISLEADING B.C. ELECTION CALL TRACED TO CONSERVATIVE PARTY, CBC NEWS

    There is a whole lot of spin-doctoring going on. Hold a few examples in mind,  come back to them when you need bed-rock.   In the earlier
    email there is a link to the recording on an answering machine of the cleverly-done robocall, purportedly from Elections Canada, saying that the
    polling station is re-located.   There is no doubt about the Guelph robo-calls.   Now add this one from B.C.:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/03/01/bc-suspicious-election-calls-dimond.html

    Woman got repeated calls for donations then was told of polling place change

    CBC News
    Posted: Mar 1, 2012 5:59 PM PT    Last Updated: Mar 1, 2012 11:55 PM PT

    A Mission, B.C., woman says she was given misleading information by the Conservative Party a few days before the May 2011 federal election.

    Astrid Dimond said she had been called six times for Conservative donations during the last election. After a seventh call, she said she did an
    internet search on the caller’s phone number, which had shown up on her call display.

    “It came up as the Conservative Party in Victoria,” Dimond said.

    The next time she received a call from the same number, she told the caller she was supporting the NDP in the election in the hopes the calls would stop.

    Two days before the election, Dimond said she got another call from the same number.

    “[The caller] just said, ‘Did you know the polling station had changed,’ and basically, I said, ‘No it hasn’t,’ and that was the end of the conversation. I wouldn’t let her continue because I knew it was a falsehood.”

    Dimond said some of her neighbours were getting similar calls and they all knew the information was wrong.

    Complained to Elections Canada

    Dimond said she sent a complaint to Elections Canada about the aggressive and ultimately misleading calling.

    – – – -SNIP – – – –

    “Your complaint will also be considered in context with a broader inquiry ongoing with regard to irritating calls that have been occurred during this general election campaign,” Elections Canada said.

    The riding in which Dimond lives — Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission — has been held by Conservative Randy Kamp since 2004.

    CBC News has been told about suspicious calls in nine B.C. ridings:

    • Burnaby-Douglas.
    • Burnaby-New Westminster.
    • New Westminster-Coquitlam.
    • North Vancouver.
    • Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission.
    • Prince George-Peace River.
    • Saanich-Gulf Islands.
    • Vancouver Quadra.
    • Vancouver South.

    = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

    8. WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE – PART I http://forum.stopthehogs.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2373#2373

    BY Jim Harding  For publishing in R-Town News  Mar. 2, 2012

    This is the first in a Series of four articles looking at how the Harper government is undermining democracy, justice and sustainability and what Canadians can do to prevent his political agenda from balkanizing Canada.

    We need to protect the political freedoms we have in order to make Canada a more equal and sustainable society. Without robust political freedoms
    the Harper government will continue to drive wedges between us for the benefit of a few, without regard for what climate change will do to our children.

    We see historical examples of elected regimes centralizing power and aggressively attacking their opponents to gain dictatorial-like powers. Our
    soldiers fought against fascist regimes to prevent this. Canada is not immune to this threat. Our democracy is presently being challenged perhaps more than at any other time. Reductions in voter turn-out and widespread cynicism about crass power plays and the lack of authenticity in politics have already weakened our democracy. There are growing signs that the present federal government intends to use its power to weaken democracy further.

    1. CONTEMPT FOR PARLIAMENT

    Let’s look at the Harper record so far. While still a minority, Harper led the first Commonwealth government to ever be found in contempt of
    Parliament. Those cynical about politics may not consider this anything special, but it is. The withholding of information, or misinforming Parliament, fundamentally undermines its ability to keep government transparent and accountable to the people. It is the first big step away from democracy.

    Harper’s Ministers appeal to the “supremacy of parliament” as though having a majority of seats justifies dominating Parliament. This ploy was used when Harper dismantled the farmer-elected Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) without following the rule of law. But the supremacy of Parliament does not mean that majority governments can do an end-run on Parliament or existing legislation.  A government that acts like a one-party state is not working within the framework of parliamentary democracy.

    For Harper it’s all about centralizing control. He has broken his promise to democratize the Senate by appointing a rash of Conservative cronies and defeated candidates to rubber-stamp his legislation. There will be no sober second thoughts in a Harper-dominated Senate. He’s even appointed an unelected person to his Cabinet. Contempt for our democracy was shown with Harper twice shutting down (proroguing of) Parliament to side-step democratic accountability.

    2. MANIPULATING ELECTIONS

    Elections enable the voice of the people, popular sovereignty, to be expressed. Some politicians see elections as simply a means to obtain power, a means to manipulate voter behavior to squeeze out enough first-past-the-post votes to become government. Harper cleverly uses wedge issues to divide Canadians. His propaganda attack ads on opposition leaders not only manipulate half or non-truths, but his excessive spending in the 2006 campaign contravened the Elections Act. Using the “end justifies the means” mentality, the Conservatives concocted an “in and out” funding scheme that violated spending limits. Laws were broken by senior Conservative officials including partisan-appointed Senators. In accepting a plea bargain whereby the Conservative Party pleaded guilty and individual charges were dropped, the judge said that the breaches were “significant to the democratic process.”

    The Harper government first came to power through electoral fraud, then used the inner control of state resources to work towards majority
    government. Now we find that during the 2011 election last May, which had Harper squeezing out a majority with less than 3 out of 10 eligible voters, more electoral violations occurred. Misinformation about changes in the location of polling stations was systematically sent to thousands of Liberal supporters in 37 constituencies, many with tight races. These “robocalls” have been traced to an Edmonton firm, Racknine, linked directly to the Harper Conservatives. This scam directly benefitted the Conservatives and we will have to wait and see if Elections Canada finds a smoking gun. A rash of by-elections may be on the way.

    3. CURTAILING FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

    To allow informed consent among voters, a democracy requires the free-flow of reliable information. Harper is fundamentally undermining this
    process.  He rigidly controls contact between his Minister’s and the media and scripts the political lines used for public consumption. When the head of the regulatory body, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), called for a shut-down of the Chalk River nuclear reactor due to inadequate safety back-up, she was fired. When the Chief Statistician went head-to-head with the government over the need to maintain the long-form census to provide quality information for better needs assessment of Canadians, he was squeezed out.   (INSERT:  I disagree with Jim on this one.)  The Canadian Association of Science Journalists is now raising the alarm that government-employed scientists, paid from taxpayer’s funds, are being “muzzled” by Harper.  Harper has even abolished an Access to Information data base (CAIRS). His plan to abolish the per-vote subsidy for political parties would leave him and his powerful corporate funders even more able to monopolize political discourse with expensive attack-ad propaganda.

    4. BREACHING INTERNATIONAL LAW

    Harper’s contempt for the domestic rule of law is also shown internationally. He has systematically undermined international attempts to negotiate a treaty to avert atmospheric temperatures rising to an irreversible level. He turned his back on Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Accord, which Parliament endorsed. In total disregard for the ruling of the Supreme Court, Harper is the only government which did not repatriate its citizens from the U.S.’s Guantanamo base. His government was among a handful that opposed the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which affirms the “duty to consult” prior to any resource extraction or toxic dumping on indigenous land.

    Harper refused to sign the UN Declaration designating safe water as a human right and refused funding for First Nations communities facing a desperate lack of safe water. His government has just been singled out for condemnation by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Harper is starting to give Canada a reputation as a “rogue state”.

    5. POLITICAL SURVEILLANCE

    His government is prepared to be even more draconian. Harper tried and failed several to pass legislation allowing his government to monitor
    internet activities. Now with a majority, his Minister Toews has introduced Bill C-30 compelling internet providers to give police new surveillance powers without requiring a warrant. This act was brought forward with the deceptive moralistic title – the “Protecting Children from Internet Predator’s Act”, yet it would enable a massive internet sweep of political opponents. The attempt to send a chill among Canadians, with Toews claiming “either stand with us or the child pornographers”, has somewhat backfired; even some libertarian Conservatives have rallied for privacy protections and free speech on the internet.

    This legislation needs to be placed aside Harper’s new counter-terrorist strategy which speaks of “violence by domestic issue-based groups…revolving around the promotion of various causes”. It then groups together dangerous neo-fascist white supremacy groups with “animal rights, environmental and anti-capitalist groups”.

    Legitimate reform and opposition organizations are already coming under attack. Look at Harper’s Minister Oliver’s preemptive attack on Aboriginal and environmental groups opposing the Northern Gateway Pipeline, calling them “anti-Canadian radicals”; or the detention of 1,100 protesters at the G20 meeting in Toronto in 2010 without cause or arrest.

    Harper seems intent on criminalizing those who are standing up for democracy, justice and sustainability. His attempt to militarize Canadian
    culture is a most cynical ploy. We celebrate our military for fighting against fascism in order to protect the very rights and freedoms that Harper so
    disregards. His law and order agenda to build-up police powers and prisons and to have government-prescribed sentences, further reduces the separation of power that is fundamental to a democracy.

    This should all be a wake-up call for Canadians.

    Next week I’ll look at the injustices that will result from Harper’s changes to social policy.

    MORE at: http://jimharding.brinskter.net and  www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com

    = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = ==

    9    2009:  The Prime Minister is now in such command that he can get away with pretty much anything

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/democracy-canadian-style-how-do-you-like-it-so-far/article1403148/

    by Lawrence Martin   Published on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 6:15PM EST Last updated on Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009 2:23AM EST

    When you think about it, the way to make governing easy is to dispense as much as is possible with the demands of democracy. The d-word is a drag. It gets in the way of the exercise of power. Ways need be found to circumvent it.

    There are a variety of such ways. One is to limit the voice of the bureaucracy, the public service, making it more submissive and partisan. Ditto the foreign service. As well, you want to dispense with agency or commission heads who don’t follow your thinking. If some agencies get particularly
    meddlesome, such as Elections Canada, take them to court.

    There’s an old-fashioned idea, once a Reform Party thing, that regular people – those grassroots folks – should have a sniff of the action. As nice as it sounds, don’t go there. You need to amass unparalleled executive power so everything is top down and put through the filter of politics. For your own caucus, you enforce such tight discipline that no one dare cast an independent vote. You issue your members a secret handbook on how to disrupt parliamentary committees. For Question Period, you instruct your members to answer most queries with a putdown of the previous government’s record. . . . .. .

    MORE:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/democracy-canadian-style-how-do-you-like-it-so-far/article1403148/

    = = = = = =

    10. VIEW FROM THE REICHSTAG

    http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/01/26/View-from-the-Reichstag/

    In Berlin, I was told German history offers a lesson for Canadian democracy.

    By Michael Byers, 26 January 2012, TheTyee.ca

    EXCERPT: “The real surprise,” I explained, “is that Harper does not appear satisfied with the extensive powers that are normally available to a majority government.”

    I tell my German colleague about the government’s practice of invoking closure, with a frequency never before seen in Canada, to prevent elected MPs from debating major legislation such as the omnibus crime bill and a bill that will add dozens of new seats to the Commons.

    About how, increasingly, the government moves the business of parliamentary committees behind closed doors, so that it can conceal embarrassing documents and reject witnesses proposed by opposition parties without fear of public censure.

    Warning, with a smile

    Finally, I explain how the Federal Court ruled in Dec. 2011 that a bill to abolish the Canadian Wheat Board was illegal because it violated a statutory requirement to poll wheat farmers first. No matter: the government adopted the bill anyway.

    This led Peter Russell, the doyen of Canadian constitutional law, to warn: “Canadians should understand that at stake here is not just a technical point of law, but the integrity of parliamentary government.”

    At this point, a wry smile crosses the German professor’s face.

    “Professor Russell is right,” he says. “It’s all about understanding. Here in Germany, we sometimes learn our lessons too late.”

    Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia and serves on the board of the Salt Spring Forum.

    5. Ballantyne

     X Ballantyne  No Responses »
    Feb 272012
     

    2012-02-27  Laliberte:  Statement of Facts submitted to Law Society of Saskatchewan (re Defamation Vellacott)

     

    George LALIBERTE

    211 Avenue R South

    Saskatoon, SK

    S7M 2Y9

    Ph: (306) 249  0397

    ———————————————————————————————————————

    February 27, 2012

    STATEMENT OF FACTS

    REGARDING THE GUILTY VERDICT AND $5000 AWARD

    FOR DEFAMATION OF MAURICE VELLACOTT

     

    On February 15, 2012 I received a phone call from Saskatoon Star-Phoenix requesting comment/reaction regarding the guilty verdict against me for defamation to Maurice Vellacott, Conservative MP of Saskatoon Wanuskewin riding. Apparently, there was a trial that found me guilty, to which I had no knowledge of until I received the phone call from the Star-Phoenix.

     

    The charge of defamation is related to my volunteer work for the Campaign to elect Liberal candidate Chris Axworthy in the 2006 Federal Election, Wanuskewin riding.   Marie-Therese Verma was and still is the President of the Wanuskewin Riding Association.  She was the campaign manager to elect Liberal Chris Axworthy at that time. The alleged incident of willful defamation on my part occurred during a televised live (Shaw cable) debate of federal candidates on January 17, 2006.

     

    For the record, I have been a supporter of the Liberal Party all my life.  My parents and extended family members have always been Liberal supporters. Further, I have known Chris Axworthy for many years as he has assisted me on many occasions in Aboriginal community development projects and functions. Chris Axworthy personally made commitments to attend many of our community Aboriginal functions. Therefore, in his bid for a Federal Liberal seat for Wanuskewin riding, Mr. Axworthy personally asked me if I was interested in volunteering in his election campaign in 2006 Federal elections. I enthusiastically accepted his invitation as I felt indebted to him for past contributions made to the Aboriginal community development projects. During the campaign, I volunteered wherever I felt I was needed. As one of his foot soldiers I handed out pamphlets, requested potential supporters to display Liberal posters on their property, and made phone calls to relatives within the Aboriginal community.

     

    I am 63 years old, I am a recognized traditional ceremonial elder within my Aboriginal community. I have conducted ceremonies, provided workshops and presentations on Aboriginal value systems of healing, and provided individual counseling and group therapy (traditional healing circles). At the same time, I have been involved in many Aboriginal organizations in terms of assisting and directing their developmental process, as a consultant in Aboriginal value systems of healing. I have sat in many boards and committee’s as an advisor on our common vision of Aboriginal healing. Because of my experience and knowledge gained through many years working in the field of Aboriginal healing, I have been sought by Government organizations to do presentations and prayer, such as the Ministry of Health of Saskatchewan Government.

     

    My personal circumstances that resulted in the current defamation that found me guilty as a result of 2006 Federal Election.

     

    On Monday, January 17, 2006 as part of our volunteer activities and avid supporters of that campaign, I took some friends with me, including Ernie Poundmaker, (403-269-7729) to the Liberal Campaign headquarters, to assist and listen to the televised Federal candidate debate. Marie-Therese Verma, campaign manager of Chris Axworthy, approached me and asked if I could do a favor for her by making a phone call to the televised debate.  She explained that she had to observe the debate in another room and she was unable to make the phone call at the same time;  as a volunteer, I agreed to make the call. She gave me a paper with the phone number and three questions to ask Mr. Vellacott.  She told me to wait and would signal me when to make the phone call. The three questions to ask Mr. Vellacott that were written on the paper as best as I can recall them were:

     

    1.       “Did you ever run for the Liberal Party?”

    2.       “Were you ever a pastor at North Park Church?”

    3.       “Were you ever charged with sexual assault of your secretary?”

     

    Upon receiving the go ahead to make the phone call from Marie-Therese Verma, I dialed the number and asked the questions as I was directed. After asking the last question the TV station hung up on me, At that time I thought nothing of it, I got up to get a coffee and a donut.  When I returned Kim Olfert (306-341-1782), who had been using the phone before me asked where the phone disappeared to, I told her I had left it on the table and I didn’t know where it went, apparently someone unplugged the phone and moved it. After that I left with my friends, Ernest Poundmaker and Kim. While driving home we had a discussion on the events of the debate, it was at this time my friend Ernest Pound maker told me that Marie-Therese Verma had approached him first to make the phone call.  He declined because he was too shy and doesn’t like talking in public.

     

    It wasn’t until the next morning I began to realize the seriousness of the situation, as I started getting phone calls from the media from all over Canada (Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, etc.)  In one hour there were about an average of ten calls coming at me. I tried answering the media questions to the best of my ability but for the most part I didn’t know what to say, it was very frustrating trying to answer the inquiries as I didn’t really understand the issue.  I started hanging up and didn’t bother answering my phone altogether. It was at this time I called Chris Axworthy at home and asked him what was going on and if I did something wrong. I expressed to him that I felt that I was unjustly targeted by the media as I felt I didn’t do anything wrong. He told me not to worry about anything and that the party will take care of everything, at the same time Mr. Axworthy confirmed that I did nothing wrong, he informed me that one of their lawyers (Liberal) would contact me and that they would take care of the situation. Since then it has been my position to just leave the conflict to the Liberal Party and their Lawyers, to which I regret to this day.

     

    Not long after my phone conversation with Chris Axworthy, a lawyer contacted me.  At no time during this controversy did I ask or seek a lawyer but rather was assigned to me by the Liberal Party, the first lawyer that contacted me was from Saskatoon McKercher Law Firm, to which I cannot recall the lawyers name.  He is not the same lawyer as who apparently represented me recently in Court decision that found me guilty, the recent lawyer name is Tim Froese, also from the McKercher Law Firm.

     

    A couple of months after the incident, (can’t recall the exact date) I was invited by the Mckercher lawyer who had set up a meeting with Maurice Vellacott, to which apparently was a Court Mediation, at that time I didin’t know that’s what it was. By this time my health was starting to deteriorate as a result of the incredible stress that I was going through. I attended this meeting as requested by the Mckercher lawyer. I felt at that meeting Mr. Vellacott was okay.  Initially, he wanted from me compensation in the amount of $200,000.00 I apologized to him for the anguish that I have caused him, I acknowledged to him that it was me that made that call and tried to explain how I got involved the whole fiasco.  I told him didn’t know anything about him before or during the elections and that I had no issues against him. I informed him that I was unemployed and I didn’t have any money. Then he lowered his compensation down to $50,000 and eventually came down to $500.00 towards the end when Mr. Vellacott knew that I was not willing to accept his offer, he threatened that he was going to take me to court and get my entire pension. Right after the mediation, I called Chris Axworthy a few more times, eventually he stopped answering my phone calls altogether.

     

    Since the incident I became very depressed and had to leave Saskatoon for a few months at a time to escape the controversy. As a result of the incredible stress that I was experiencing I began taking sleeping pills to the point that they eventually did not even work for me. In April of that year, I had a minor heart attack and the following October 16, 2006 of that year I suffered a major heart attack that required a heart surgery the following October 26, 2006, to which has caused me to become mostly unemployable since then.

     

    The mediation in 2006 was the last time I was personally involved with this case, after the mediation I hadn’t heard anything about the case. It was my assumption that Mr. Vellacott had decided to drop the case against the Liberals and myself.  It wasn’t until I received the phone call from Saskatoon Star Phoenix that I learned that I was found guilty of defamation and that I had to pay $5,000.00. During this trial against me, I never received a summons to appear in Court, I never received a phone call or letter in my mailbox stating that there was a trial against me. I was surprised and caught off guard when I received the phone call from the Star Phoenix after the fact, I told them I had no idea what they were talking about. About half hour later after the call from Star Phoenix, I received a phone call from Tim Froese of the Mckercher Law Firm, who apparently was representing me throughout this trial against me. Up to that point, I never met Mr. Froese nor did I not know who he was. He explained to me of the Court decision and what had occurred, he suggested that the $5,000.00 SHOULD be taken care of by the Liberal Party, however he suggested that I might have to launch a lawsuit to recover those costs. At this point I was very upset, I told Mr. Froese that If I take the Liberal Party to Court then I would be asking more than $5,000.00 for all the turmoil they have caused me as result of my loyalty to the party and Chris Axworthy. His response was, “in that case I would have to back out of this.” I questioned Mr. Froese on why he did not try to contact me during this trial against me, when in fact I have not change my address since 2006. He informed me that he tried to contact me several times, however I informed him that I am mostly at home and I have never received correspondence or a visit to my residence during my trial that I did not know about.  Mr. Froese apologised over and over for not being able to contact me.

     

    I feel a grave injustice has been brought upon me, I feel that I have been abandoned by the Party that I have been loyal to all of my life.  I was told not to worry about anything and that the lawyers that were assigned to me in 2006 would take care of everything. Since then up to 2011, I have been in a very negative state financially and health wise. In the last year I have recuperated significantly and felt my spirit coming back to normal. This latest court decision has brought me back to a place that I hoped was all behind me. Be as it may, I have decided to gather my resources and do what I have to do, to regain my dignity and salvage my reputation. This experience has caused me great anguish, not to mention denied me future opportunities in my career choice. I was willing to let go and move on, however this recent case has given me no choice but to seek a remedy for the injustice that I have gone through.

     

    Yours truly,

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ________________________

    George Laliberte

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