Time for a Full Inquiry, for Dean's Sake

Dean Del Mastro, March 1: "We learned that Joe Volpe paid over $25,000 to Prime Contact, a calling company with offices in North Dakota. These calls were made on behalf of the Liberal party. I see that they used this company quite a bit. It seems that they were robodialing quite a number of people on behalf of the Liberal party."

Dean Del Mastro, March 5: "It's ... clear that the Liberal Party spent millions of dollars to contact hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of homes right across this country. It appears they had given them some incorrect information but the Liberal leader is sitting on all of this information while he makes unsubstantiated smears."

Dean Del Mastro, March 12: "We now know that the member for Guelph, Mr. Speaker, in fact paid for illegal robocalls that concealed the fact that the calls came from his Liberal campaign. They used a bogus number, Mr. Speaker, a fictitious character, they broke the CRTC regulations, they broke Elections Canada laws."


Listening to Del Mastro's daily tirades in the House of Commons, it's clear the Liberal Party orchestrated Robocon, as part of an elaborate plot to suppress their vote. And, given how few Liberals voted on May 2nd, this plan appears to have been wildly successful.

I therefore trust that Dean will join the growing demands for a full public inquiry and/or Royal Commission to get to the bottom of the robodial scandal. Only then can the good name of the Conservative Party be cleared, and these duplicitous Liberals brought to justice.

Dean Del Mastro: Knower of Everything

On previous episodes of Dean Del Mastro: Knower of Everything, Dean didn't trust the survey results in a Peterborough newspaper poll, so he commissioned his own robo-push poll, in an effort to "protect democracy". Then, last week Dean argued the Liberals used a US call centre and the Tories never did, despite Evan Solomon presenting him with irrefutable evidence showing the exact opposite of what Dean was saying.

So yes, we shouldn't expect logic to be in abundant supply when Dean Del Mastro opens his mouth. But still, today's spin from Dean is priceless:

Del Mastro, the prime minister's parliamentary secretary and the lead Tory on the file, demanded again that the Liberals release their phone records to prove they weren't behind the misleading phone calls.

"It's ... clear that the Liberal Party spent millions of dollars to contact hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of homes right across this country. It appears they had given them some incorrect information but the Liberal leader is sitting on all of this information while he makes unsubstantiated smears," Del Mastro said.

Speaking to reporters after question period, Del Mastro denied making any allegations.

"No, in fact I haven’t made any allegations," he said. "The Liberal Party has made … allegations about our party that we in fact contacted Liberal supporters. We did no such thing."

The Conservative Party doesn't need to provide its own records, he said "because obviously our party is not behind these calls, we know that."

So we have Del Mastro making allegations then saying he hasn't made allegations an hour later - but that's par for the course in politics. The gem in this article is Dean's claim that the Conservatives don't need to provide their phone records because he knows they are not behind these calls. All the while demanding the Liberals release their records.

Peter Goldring tried that line of logic when he refused to blow a breathalyzer last year, and it didn't work out so well for him - "officer, I don't need to blow because I know I'm under the legal limit...go pull over that driver and test him".

At first, I thought the PMO made a tactical error placing Del Mastro as the point man on Robocon, but it's clear no one else in the party would be able to regurgitate these talking points with a straight face. When it comes to spouting nonsense and believing it, Del Mastro is the maestro.

The Six "S" of Scandal Stickiness

This time last year, the Tories found themselves engulfed in scandal - Carson, Contempt, In & Out, Oda... The opposition parties were licking their chops at the prospect of bringing the government down.

We all know how that turned out. The scandals didn't stick, and the result was a Tory majority.

With the Nixonian references flying fast and furious around Ottawa, the question now becomes whether Robocon will prove to be Harper's Watergate, or just another soon-to-be-forgotten scandlette?

From my experience, there are 6 keys to a scandal "sticking", so let's see how Robocon stacks up.


1. Simplicity: The rule of thumb used to be that everything in politics had to be explainable in a "30 second elevator pitch", but that's probably down to 10 seconds (or 140 characters) these days. The Carson scandal may have had hookers, but good luck explaining lobbying improprieties to anyone.

Robocon passes the simplicity test in flying colours - "the Tories lied to voters about polling stations moving, to prevent them from voting". Done, with 56 characters to spare.


2. Shock: Is your 10 second explanation met with shock or a shrug? Harper missing a photo op or pocketing a communion wafer is a simple story, but it's not going to leave many people aghast.

Widespread voter suppression? It does. Canadians tend to be rather apathetic about democracy, but it's hard not to find what is being alleged reprehensible.


3. Story: Does the scandal fit in to a larger narrative or can it be dismissed as an isolated incident? Adscam worked because it struck to the larger issues of corruption and wasting taxpayer dollars, two things which matter to voters.

Harper has enough strikes against him on the "undermining democracy" front that it's easy to tie this in to a larger narrative. I'd suggest the Tory track record here, including the Cotler incident, also leaves voters a lot less likely to give them the benefit of the doubt.


4. Sexiness: Is the scandal attention grabbing? Despite its name, "in and out" was the definition of "unsexy", dealing with spending limits and accounting loopholes. Yawn.

Robocon has recorded calls, burner cellphones, and Pierre Poutine. Yeah, it's not cocaine and busty strippers, but conspiracies sell movie tickets, and this one could turn out to be a conspiracy.


5. Sustainability: Can the scandal sustain itself for months or years, or will it burn out quickly? The Gomery Commission gave Adscam the legs to fight two elections over it.

While Harper will be reluctant to call an inquiry, the RCMP, Elections Canada, and journalistic investigations will drag on, and they're likely to be followed by a trial. This one isn't going away anytime soon.


6. Seriousness: Simply put, how high does it go? Watergate is the grandaddy of all scandals because it went to the very top. As entertaining as Maxime Bernier losing his briefs was, it said little about Harper.

This is really the one question mark that will make or break this scandal. If Robocon was the creation of a few rogue volunteers in Guelph, no one is going to be talking about it come 2015. If it looks like the national campaign was involved, then the Tories are in trouble. If Harper knew, it's game over.


Robocon has more potential to inflict damage on Harper and the Conservatives than anything they've faced during their 6 years in power. Whether or not it does will depend on who exactly was involved.

Self Inflicted Wounds

With the return of Parliament, today was the first chance for the opposition to put the Tories' feet to the fire on Robocon. Instead, it was the Liberals who would up burning themselves with the admission that a Liberal staffer was behind Vickileaks.

In scheme of things, the Vickileaks saga is fairly minor. It wasn't illegal, and Rae handled the situation appropriately, issuing a complete apology. But the damage is still done - it gives the NDP higher ground as Robocon develops and it makes today's story about dirty tricks in politics (say it with me - "they're all the same") rather than about what could very well turn into the largest scandal to hit Stephen Harper's government.

Bear in mind, I used the word "could" there, because Robocon is still a work in progress, and it will take time to cut through the reports and accusations to make sense of what actually happened. Take for instance, this morning's Toronto Star story about live calls that may have directed voters to the wrong polling stations. Although it fits into the scandal's overall narrative, I don't think this one passes the sniff test. For starters, it sounds like the scripts may have instructed interviewers to identify themselves as calling from the Conservative Party - and even if they didn't, using live interviewers from their regular phone bank to commit electoral fraud just sounds too sloppy to me. And of all the adjectives I'd use to describe the Conservative Party, "sloppy" isn't one of them.

Of course, we keep hearing more about the actual robocalls, but it's still imposible to fully grasp who was involved and to what extent. That's why the NDP's call for by elections in affected ridings is incredibly premature. It's clear an investigation is needed, but until all the facts come out, there's no way to judge how many ridings were affected and how high this went.

But safe to say, this story isn't going away anytime soon, no matter how much the NDP overeaches or how many self inflicted wounds the Liberals hand themselves.

Demand Better

Whenever the opposition tried to raise "the democracy thing" during last spring's campaign, the electorate responded with a shrug. Contempt of parliament, the in-and-out scandal, Bev Oda's "not" problem...meh. People got temporarily worked up over prorogation, but that was more because the government was seen to be taking a 3-month vacation, not because they'd disrespected the institution of Parliament.

Maybe people assumed this was just par for the course and that all the parties were the same. Maybe they were right. Either way, there was little interest in "rising up".

So my suspicion is these revelations will be forgotten long before the 2015 election but, to me, this is far worse than any of the previously mentioned scandlettes:

Firm with Tory links traced to election day ‘robocalls’ that tried to discourage voters

Elections Canada has traced fraudulent phone calls made during the federal election to an Edmonton voice-broadcast company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country.

While the agency investigates, aided by the RCMP, the Conservatives are conducting an internal probe. A party lawyer is interviewing campaign workers to find who was behind the deceptive “robocalls.”

Elections Canada launched its investigation after it was inundated with complaints about election day calls in Guelph, Ont., one of 18 ridings across the country where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting.

In Guelph, a riding the Conservatives hoped to take from the Liberals, voters received recorded calls pretending to be from Elections Canada, telling them their polling stations had been moved. The calls led to a chaotic scene at one polling station, and likely led some voters to give up on voting.

Maher and McGregor go on to detail the investigation, in a fantastic piece of journalism I encourage everyone to read.

What strikes me most about the robocon scandal is that we're not talking about a grey area here. I get that the in-and-out scandal looked like nothing more than a bookkeeping error or the Tories exploiting a loophole. It was complicated. It was boring. It was impossible to explain to someone who wasn't tied up and forced to listen to you against their will.

But this...this is cut and dry. Voters were called on election day and lied to about where to vote, in an effort to prevent them from voting. There's still some investigating to do, but calls were made to ID'd voters in 18 ridings so it certainly sounds like this was more than one overzealous volunteer.

I'm skeptical this will be "Canada's Watergate", but to me this is absolutely reprehensible. The individuals involved should be punished to the full extent of the law, and if this is traced back to the top of the Conservative Party, hopefully there will be some kind of electoral fallout. As Stephen Harper himself would say, the electorate needs to demand better.