{senator} mike duffy, ctv, a spy, stéphane dion and awards

Interesting! --- "But what most people may not know, considering that the media buried the story, is that both Steve Murphy and Mike Duffy were charged with ethics violations, as a result of their complicity in influencing the results of an election. [The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) today released two decisions concerning the broadcast of three false starts of an interview by CTV anchor Steve Murphy with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion during the October 2008 federal election campaign. Each restart had been requested by Mr. Dion and granted by Mr. Murphy, CJCH-TV (CTV Atlantic)’s news anchor.]

March 15, 2007. Missasauga, Ontario. James Murray, Conservative Resource Group. Senior Researcher, House of Uncommons "employee". Tax dollars at work.

Idle Canadian Awards, 2008. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
- for playing politics with Canadians: for breaking his own election law to call an election that wasn’t necessary (at a cost of $300 million) to try to get his majority; for continuing to bully his opponents, especially Stéphane Dion who was targeted by an unfair advertising campaign; saying one thing at an international conference (we will stimulate the economy), then doing the opposite (we will cut); trying to cut off most of the funding to the Opposition political parties for partisan gain; failing to face Parliament and running to the Governor-General to prorogue. more award winners here

"According to Dr. Joan Russow of the Global Compliance Research Project:

There should never have been an election in Canada. The Governor General should have refused to accept the Right Honourable Steven Harper’s request for an election when there was an outstanding investigation into the fraudulent practices of the Conservative Party during the 2006 election. The investigation was underway by the Parliamentary Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. With the calling of the election, the Committee was disbanded. In addition, there was a similar investigation by Elections Canada...

"One thing that the 1999 re-election campaign of Mike Harris, and the 2008 re-election campaign of Stephen Harper had in common, was Guy Giorno."

KNOT A GREBE SHIFT.™

Robocall probe stretches to 200 ridings across Canada: chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand

Terrible. aghast, even if it's just one case. But will the prime minister's own cat photographer and photog/videog entourage (harper.gov) be laid off, in the 'back office' cutbacks.

w.t.f.

At least he got rid of the personal groomer, 2006-2010, yet without offering to disclose her full-time salary for these public services. So, Mayrand appears on Thursday 'budget day'.

on spec: canada a robocall test market

Enron is to California Energy Crisis Alberta as robocalls are to US election in November.

"Enron tested ploy in Alberta," February 5, 2005. See also: Klein and energy deregulation, circa 1999, and earlier. Electricity prices: The highest of any province in Canada. (Versacold)

Reliant Energy Services indicted for manufacturing
the California Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001. source

The "robocalls" are only a software/demographic run, system,  results oriented management... op criminal a technological advance in electoral manipulation processes.

happy, very happy tibetans

Ad in Vancouver Sun, Mar 10 2012

Dalai Lama is coming to Ottawa at the end of April.

Ad is credited to a list of Chinese organizations in Canada under the banner of the Folk Cultures Research Society of CCSA, or Canadian Community Service Association.

Searches for details of many of the organizations turned up nothing, or confusion. PM is neither meeting nor snubbing.

f-35 saga

good lord. well. yes. "Harper's gang didn't just support the F-35 program, it chastised, ridiculed and name-called those who questioned it."

here come the judge. auditor general's report due on april 3, 2012.

thomas mulcair is a .. big "poopypoopypants": CPC

gotta wonder how many conservatives voted for him. hey what about that RCAF corporal who was fined $500 for falling asleep on the job (guarding a plane). rob, rob, wake up, rob anders.

probably what the seapeesee meant was "good luck and all the best, buddy." something more gracious, or mature, like that. or, "have great fun being mercurial."

just, go get 'em tiger.

al qaeda, hamas, taliban & martians: senator

Senator Don Plett. Oh dear, we lost one. {cuckoo}

"Let me ask you this, honourable senators: If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from Al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban?," Senator Don Plett, the party's former president, asked in the Senate.

stats point to voter supression: prof

Anke Kessler, a professor at Simon Fraser University, Department of Economics (Vancouver BC), analyzed Elections Canada's poll-level database:

Read more.

front porch strategies - foreign radicals!

Very interesting.

Link.

Promotional video. "The team at Front Porch Strategies provides a great product, and work hard to make sure my campaign is targetting the right voters." - John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House

the blot thickens. audio {fundraising}.

This is shocking. How many calls did this Responsive Marketing Group Inc.'s staffer or ones like him make, before he was 'let go'? Audio is on CBC, As It Happens, FTR: CONSERVATIVE FUNDRAISERS @16:30 Mar 8 2012.

According to a recording obtained by La Presse newspaper, an RMG employee who identified himself as Don Duke used aggressive pitches to solicit donations for the Conservatives. The date of a series of recorded calls is not clear, but Duke says he is calling from “supporter services on behalf of the Harper government in Ottawa.”

When Duke reaches a man who questions who Duke is, and how he has come to identify the man as a party supporter, Duke challenges in return: “How would I have your membership number?” he demands. “Am I going to hack into the computers and get your membership number and your donation schedule for the last 6, 7, back to the year 2000. Where the hell would I get that? . . . I’m telling you where I got that, I got it from the Conservative Party records, right here.”

Duke guffaws and tells the man the party intends to “bury” Ignatieff at the ballot box [treehugging, sandalwearing, birkenstockclad]. When he reaches another man who says he is no longer a Conservative supporter, Duke responds: “We don’t want to talk to socialists or separatists. . . . We had you down as a good Conservative. And if you’re not Harry, no, we don’t want to speak to you then. Thank you, Harry.”

In another call to a woman, Duke says, “Your husband makes decisions on the money coming in? When do you think I could reach him?” There is a pause in the recording during which it’s unclear if it’s the same call or a later one the same night, Duke challenges her: “I heard him, your husband is there! He’s talking in the background. Oh. My. God.”

NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel demanded why RMG was making the calls in the name of the government, and whether it was “because RMG and the Conservative Party — it’s all the same?” The NDP’s Libby Davies noted RMG merged with Xentel, describing it as having “similar dubious tactics.” She said in 2010, Xentel was fined $500,000 by the CRTC “for violating Canada’s do-not-call list.” source

Very bad, very sad. RMG is the Conservative party's telemarketing supplier. It and Campaign Research are sending little legal notices all over, but Front Porch Strategies, the "top U.S. Republican firm," is kinda quiet.

ewe, gary mar ... we're not in asia anymore.

Would that it would have been the ad hoc party membership sales for his provincial leadership campaign.

PCAA leadership candidate Gary Mar said his campaign volunteers did nothing wrong by selling party memberships within 50 metres of an Edmonton polling station. Adding that his supporters were only trying to help people who can't speak English. "Within the polling station, the advance polling station, you could buy a membership from the party," Mar said. "Except that there's no one at the party table that speaks three different dialects of Chinese."

Selling memberships within 50 meters of a polling location is against PCAA rules. Or, the $478,000 MLA transition allowance and $400,000 no-receipt verbal advice. Or whether he received a pay-out when he left his Washington job. No, Gary Mar is on unpaid leave pending an ethics probe, something having to do with a fundraiser at the Calgary Petroleum Club. His leadership run cost $2.7 million and he's in debt.

He's ba-a-a-a-ck.

alberta election: MLAs

MADD as hell

The writ hasn't been dropped yet, but PC party advertising has began (campaign style events). Another point is the budget: is the Redford government in breach of the legislature with budget 2012 ads? Premier Alison Redford had a nice time and was so well-spoken in Washington DC and New York City (Eastern Energy Conference) that she was asked to be Mitt Romney's running mate.

The unelected leader of the Wildrose Alliance Party in Okotoks picked an issue, and of all the issues from which to pick, it's 0.05 blood alcohol. The campaign is on drink coasters.

What's more intriguing are 21 MLAs who get paid $1000/mo. for being on a committee ("Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, Standing Orders and Printing") when there are no meetings. In fact, there has been no meeting since November 2008, so that's quite a few potatoes.

There also is the recent $500,000 MLA retirement transition allowance and or severance payouts, in addition to pension. That's half a million bucks for an MLA? So ---- 23 retiring MLAs ---- $10.5 million. Economist Herbert Grubel said every legislature in the country provides a transition allowance, but the dollars doled out here make Alberta stand out like a sore thumb. Thank you, Ken Kowalski. Of course, a lot of MLA's are retiring.

Next, the graph. Who knew!? 

Adding this up, it appears to be a big, expensive, self-serving, bullying, and bullying Alberta PC... oil & gas junta ... natural resource gestapo junta that went national. (Graph: Liberal 2012 Election Platform.) See also: Political funding spurs 52 probes.

In the previous election, March 3 2008, carbon capture and storage (CCS) was the cat's meow. Stelmach, Jul 2008: $2 billion in funding, the green image. Now it's not.

More: Wikileaks shines light on $16 billion electricity scandal.
Ah, memories: EUB spies on landowners.

bad news - (bears145)(wolves296)

In 2011, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development says Fish and Wildlife conservation officers killed 145 bears and 68 were in the Fort McMurray bitumen sands region - habituated to food and garbage.

sustainable... conservation... conservation... sustainable...

Alrighty. That's 3x more than 2010 and the "highest in recent history." Moreover, no individual or company was charged for "lax garbage management," even after the Conklin dump incident in '09. source

Wolves in Idaho, not good either. Read more: savewolves.org

spoofing & disposable cell phones

To spoof or not to spoof. "A spoofing attack is a situation in which one person or program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an illegitimate advantage." And the disposable 'burner' cell phone, purchased in the Guelph area, using RackNine, who's suing Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) and the NDP ($5m) for loss of business and defamation, which seems quite petty, no ... pathetic. Lemme get this straight. There is one investigator (Ronald Lamothe) and there are 31,000+ Elections Canada complaints.

Spoofing: what happened? in Saanich-Gulf Islands, nothing. harassment, spoofing, intimidation, or false identification do not count (Elections Canada)?? that is not reassuring. but good to know, because... it's time to start making calls! anonyvotomafioso fraud is okay! elections are ... just like Nigerian bank emails!

like the anonymous phone calls to an elderly breast cancer survivor who spoke out about her humiliating experience with airport security and scanners. ("airport security slammed after senior humiliated, tot subjected to pat-down," Friday, January 14, 2011 - "Since her story garnered national publicity, Strecker says she's received several anonymous voice mails accusing her of using the incident for personal gain.")

Lemme get this straight, again. There is one investigator (Ronald Lamothe) and 31,000+ Elections Canada complaints.

robo.gov - update

The Conservatives blamed robocalls on multiple parties, including:

Liberal Party (Dean Del Mastro, Mar5/12),
Elections Canada (Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott, Mar5/12),
a third party (Mike Duffy, Feb 27/12),
isolated incidents (Peter MacKay, Feb 27/12),
they do not know who was responsible (re Guelph, MP Dean Del Mastro, Mar 4/12).

MP Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon-Wanuskewin) explains that the Conservative Party’s central campaign office in Ottawa is in charge of all Elections Canada voter lists and candidate voter identification lists, including the addition of voter telephone numbers, for all of the 308 Conservative candidate campaigns in federal elections. (Mar 6/12)

Conservatives refuse to make their phone lists public, and demand the Liberals do (they will), which sounds like Stratfor's strategy for scandals: "Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations." (Fred's Rule #2) And PM Harper refuses to explain why Conservative MPs rejected an Elections Canada request to verify campaign financial returns. (Mar 7/12)

In 2008: "Robocalls the night before the election reached thousands of NDP supporters to urge them to get out and vote for the non-existent candidate." (more: shady 3rd party organizations advertising for Lunn, Saanich-Gulf Islands)

hack: i heart ted morton. 9x.
(federal announcement, social
housing units. July 22, 2011)

But, war veterans are so... boring: sleepytime MP, Rob Anders, was asked to resign from the Commons veterans affairs committee. His apology for "hacks" and "Putins" was not accepted. (Why not just resign altogether, or fire the bum.)

In 2007: "the courts overturned Anders’s acclamation and ordered a new nomination meeting after the judge determined the Conservatives had violated their own rules." Who is Vitor Marciano anyway?

pierre poutine - misdirecting voters

Well. that's just great. First a Conservative staffer is fired, or resigns, the same stormtrooper at Guelph (Michael Sona) and helper to Rob or was it James Moore of fake iPod tax advertisements and also to Marty Burke, in the capacity of communications specialist.

Hm. On January 19, 2010, James Moore ( Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam) of Chuck Cadman fame, nono, Rob Moore (Fundy Royal) was appointed to cabinet as the Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism), who replaced Diane Ablonczy [that trouble with gay pride festival funding in hogtown], who moved to Minister of State (Seniors), and he (Rob) was released from cabinet after the May 2nd general election in 2011.

ipodtax.ca
Registrant name: James Moore MP

Michael Sona
Member's Assistant
House of Commons
Moore, Rob

Harper denies Tory link to Pierre Poutin, and blames uh, Vladimir Putin. And RackNine is suing the NDP.

Matt Meier, president and CEO of Racknine Inc. in Edmonton.

North Dakota -
Elections Canada won't probe 'annoying' political calls, ex-MP told (former MP Joe Volpe's lawyer)
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Elections+Canada+probe+annoying+political+calls+told/6229034/story.html

RCMP on the robocalls case feb28
http://impolitical.blogspot.com/2012/02/rcmp-on-robocalls-case.html

A growing file on the robocalls feb29
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/02/29/papers-pundits-a-growing-file-on-the-robocalls/

American dirty tricks expert calls robocalls 'shock to system' of Canadian democracy
By Michelle Zilio, Postmedia News February 29, 2012 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/American+dirty+tricks+expert+calls+robocalls+shock+system+Canadian/6230827/story.html

Elections Canada flooded by over 31,000 reports about election robocalls
The Canadian Press 03/2/2012 9:55 AM | Comments: 248 (including replies) | Last Modified: 03/2/2012 2:59 PM
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/elections-canada-reviewing-more-than-31000-complaints-about-robocalls-141180953.html

Irwin Cotler, citizen directed to vote in a local Kitchener park and the honest mistake, Tue Dec 20 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1104778--federal-tories-say-alleged-election-crank-call-was-just-an-honest-mistake

Firm that made Cotler calls also worked for Speaker Andrew Scheer, other Tory candidates - Campaign Research Inc., December 14, 2011. 10:52 am
http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/12/14/firm-cited-in-cotler-calls-decision-did-major-work-for-tory-candidates/

Robo-calls: Tory MPs used top U.S. Republican firm during May election, Mar 03 2012
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.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1140344--conservative-mps-used-top-republican-firm-during-may-election

Michael Sona: I Had 'No Involvement' In Fraudulent Calls, Updated: 02/28/2012 10:55 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/28/michael-sona-tory-election-calls_n_1308404.html

Ex-Conservative has warning- Mon Feb 27 2012
A few months ago I was a card carrying Conservative, serving as a director on both the Guelph and Kitchener-Center Conservative electoral district association boards. (Victor Pocaterra, Kitchener)
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1137705--ex-conservative-has-warning

rob anders: I was not sleeping. (again.)

Presentation: veterans’ homelessness by the group Veterans Emergency Transition Services in Halifax

'Then came Mr. Anders’s surprising rebuke: not only did he deny having taken a snooze, he accused the group of being NDP “hacks” and admirers of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Lowether noted he is actually a member of the Conservative Party.' source

i shit you not

'Sandy Crux at "Crux of the Matter" tells us this is all to drown out the accomplishments of the Conservatives. I shit you not! The Conservatives will balance the budget by 2014/2015, she says. So what's a little bit of election fraud along the way?'

more: http://leftistjab.blogspot.com/

one cent rmg = # of close ridings - $15,000.01

Reprinted from Orléans Star: Richard Cléroux.

Conservative candidates in Quebec paid for scam election calls elsewhere in Canada. Out of money they got from Toronto. Finally, Quebeckers can say they played some part in the scheme that misled Liberal voters by the thousands to non-existent polling stations on May 2. For a while we wondered if the scammers had forgotten about us. Everything was happening in the rest of Canada. Nothing in Quebec. And then suddenly there was Pierre Poutine. He was one of us. It wasn’t much, just a cellphone number and an address on “Separatist Street” in Joliettte. But at least it was Quebec. Ah, Poutine you saved the day and gave us our pride back. What’s a Conservative scam without at least some Quebeckers? 

It was the brilliant Le Devoir journalist Hélène Buzzetti who broke the story. Using the telephone – what else for this kind of story? – she established that money that helped pay for the Conservatives’ automated robocalls went through Quebec. She called up Quebec conservative candidates one after another. She had them singing like canaries in a mine after a while.

Bertin Denis, defeated Conservative candidate in Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques, (that’s a trip in itself) admitted his campaign organization had paid $ 15 000.01 to the Toronto-based Responsive Marketing Group (RMG.) Bertin Denis laid it out plainly. He was no more than a "mail box" for paying phone call bills to other parts of Canada. The party had sent him $55,000 but he had to write out a cheque to RMG for $15,000.01. Money in, money out. (Sounds familiar?) He couldn’t remember what the cheque to RMG was for.

A day later, after the right sort of guidance from Stephen Harper speaking in the House of Commons, Denis remembered. The cheque was for RMG services in his riding during the campaign. It had all came back to him. Call it senior’s moment. His official agent Ghislain Pelletier, had been most helpful. He told the reporter :  "The company sent us the invoice and I paid it, on the recommendation of the party."

Same sort of business went on in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. The riding organization paid $15,000.01 to RMG.  (We don’t know about that extra last penny. It probably means something. Maybe Stephen Harper knows.) The Conservative candidate there was former journalist Carol Nero, who told the reporter he didn’t really know what the cheque to RMG was about.

Did he get his money’s worth? "I can’t really say if I got my money’s worth or not." (The life of a journalist is often like that.) 

There were others involved in the in and out money. They included: Sen. Larry Smith, the former Alouettes president, in Lac St. Louis-Dollard; Michel-Eric Castonguay, in Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord; Pierre Paul-Hus in Louis-Hébert, except in his case it was a little different. His official agent, Martin Lemire explained that the Conservative Party had sent documentation because "it was more profitable than hiring volunteers."

In total, according to Elections Canada, 97 Conservative candidates across Canada, including 18 in Quebec, sent cheques to RMG or to other firms making telephone calls for the party. There is one other thing to note. RMG's billings do not appear in the national organization’s election records. It’s probably better that way.

The Conservative Party pleaded guilty last November to charges of electoral fraud precisely because it gave campaign funds to its candidates in 2006, and took back some of the money in exchange for a receipt the ridings could claim as legitimate expenses from Elections Canada. The Conservative Party paid $52,000 in fines, but at least nobody went to jail.

The important thing for us Quebeckers to remember is that we were not forgotten by the federal Conservative party in the telephone scheme. Now if we could just find that Pierre Poutine fellow, or even his “Separatist Street.” Anybody out there from Joliette?

http://www.orleansstar.ca/Blog-Article/b/21598/Quebeckers-share-in-election-scam