As of May 2, 2012, Canada Elections Act is a Dead Letter
UBC’s Andrew Irvine has published a useful column in Postmedia explaining why “quick fixes” like electronic voting or proportional representation aren’t likely to improve the sorry state of Canadian democracy. Instead, this man who is paid to teach and write says what we need is more teaching and writing about citizenship and the rule of law. In this case, I agree. But he’s missed what I think is a more important point, and a more important “quick fix”:
Enforce the damned law.
At this point, the Canada Elections Act is virtually a dead letter. The last several years have shown that you can run roughshod over it with impunity. The Prime Minister of Canada lost a court case over election law violations. The Conservative Party of Canada has been convicted of election law violations (and paid a pathetically nominal fine). The Liberal Party has confessed to an election law violation in 2011, apparently without consequence, while someone else pulled off the largest electoral fraud in modern Canadian history last year and it looks like they will never be successfully identified and brought to justice by Elections Canada.
A lot of people have complained that we need new laws to tighten restrictions on robocalls, etc., and this falls into Irvine’s column of “quick fixes” that actually miss the point. There’s no point making new bans if you’re not prepared to enforce the ones that exist.
And the problem isn’t that the law doesn’t provide the appropriate restrictions. 5053 calls successfully placed by Pierre Poutine in Guelph, multiplied by $5000 for every attempt to falsely lead a voter to the wrong polling station, equals over $25 million. Assuming a 1.5% report rate (which is the confirmed rate in Guelph — about 70 complaints for over 5000 phone calls), 800 complaints under investigation by Elections Canada equals about 55,000 fraudulent calls. That times $5000 equals $275 million. I doubt whoever pulled off the Poutine conspiracy has a spare $275 million kicking around.
The first problem at this point is enforcement. There is no point encouraging greater participation in a system where what few laws exist go routinely unenforced.
He’s missed another obvious “quick fix,” though, to which there is no real counterargument: voting should be mandatory. Everyone should be required to vote, no exceptions. This would have the convenient side effect of forcing Elections Canada to seriously follow up on successful vote suppression operations, even if they don’t really want to.
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Sam Gunsch
“Enforce the damned law.”
In this, @Sixth has summarized an agenda that has much more traction with the citizenry at present than any reporting of a ‘lie’. Albeit, one that still requires a sustained publicity effort.
As we all know, investigations and prosecutions are a news staple.
Interfering with voters is markedly more significant, in the view of even the ordinary conservative than the ‘in and out’ violation of election laws, or election campaign lies, even when they are as specific as the F-35 contract lie.
Canadian voters who consider themselves conservatives (who aren’t at core, Harper-cult members) are much less likely to justify a push back on reporting about investigations versus reporting about ‘lies’. I believe the news reports that robocalls were being discussed with dismay and disapproval in coffee shops full of Tim Horton’s conservatives.
At bottom, law & order is more important to the ordinary conservative-leaning citizen, than it is to their political leadership ends-means gang.
http://www.desmogblog.com/uneasy-relationship-between-explaining-science-conservatives-and-explaining-conservatives-scientifically
Chris Mooney: “Conservatives, however, have other “moral foundations”: They care about respect for authority (e.g., hierarchy). “
Nathan
We have an institution that is largely impotent by choice, and it’s not the first one to come to light. The CRTC, while it is still largely ineffectual has been badgered by public awareness campaigns into starting to do it’s actually mandated job again. We could certainly use and make great use of applying the same pressure, hopefully ten-fold, on EC and our government.
I think proportional representation would make a considerable difference. It wouldn’t just allow us to vote for the party we want, or limit seats to % of popular vote (no majority government for Harper even with the widespread election fraud in his favor), it would make the endeavor of defrauding our electorate all that much more difficult. It changes the nature of the game, and makes the notion of swing riding’s basically obsolete.
!o!
“Enforce the damned law”
Now that’s a potentially crystallizing phrase that can serve as a movement manifesto if I’ve ever heard one.
So much more succinct than ‘arms length impartial royal commission’, though it implies that one is necessary in order to enforce the law.
So much more down-to-brass-tacks than ‘preserve our democracy’, though of course that’s what enforcing this law is all about.
Sixth Estate
Nathan — It may be impotent by intention, but it is not impotent by design. It has investigatory powers and it has a law which, as I state, prescribes a punishment that should be enough to bankrupt whoever is responsible ten times over (even if it is the Conservative Party).
There are probably conversations going on behind the scenes between EC and the Conservative leadership of the government, which would be very important to know about but which we are not privy to.
kootcoot
The idea of actually enforcing the law is so RIGHT. But I guess the Harperites are more concerned about enforcing the laws about benign herbs in small quantities and punishing those violators.
As to:
“I doubt whoever pulled off the Poutine conspiracy has a spare $275 million kicking around.
I’m sure the perpetrators of this scam could find this amount kicking around by just cutting back on their hate advertising budget for the rest of 2012, and we know if they did run short their owner/sponsor corporate backers would happily pony up the fines, even after spending even more in a losing legal defense. so the PsuedoCons could pay up, say they still really did nothing wrong – it was just an innocent mis-interpretation of administrative rules – and carry on with their ongoing project to sell off everything of $ value in Canada and trash the rest.
Fines are meaningless to this crowd, more appropriate is the invalidation of illegally obtained election results – otherwise, why not just have real coups? We need impartial UN Election Observers next time. Maybe some from Burma, which appears to have already eclipsed Canada for running fair elections, in their first attempt in years.
Sixth Estate
I think you’re vastly overestimating the ability of the Conservative Party to come up with that large a sum of cash short of turning to government subsidies (which in this case they would not have access to). And none of their private backers will bail them out either. There are donation limits, you see.
Alison
“Everyone should be required to vote, no exceptions. This would have the convenient side effect of forcing Elections Canada to seriously follow up on successful vote suppression operations”
Sorry … how does this follow?
Because EC could match actual turnout to voter lists?
Sixth Estate
No, because it would mean that if large numbers of people were unable to vote because they were sent on a wild goose chase by someone pretending to be from Elections Canada, it would flood the court system and necessitate some sort of inquiry.
thwap
Is it possible that EC is waiting until their investigations are concluded before deciding guilt or innocence and imposing penalties?
(Not that I’m not worried about what you’re talking about.)
Derek
Any update on the CRTC’s investigation into robocalls?
kootcoot
SE, perhaps I do overestimate the funds available to the Stevie gang, but in general funding is the LEAST of their worries and if the dreaded socialists get near or worse get their hands on power the purse strings and propaganda gates open wide from Wall Street to Howe Street as they did when Davy Barrett had the gall to turn BeeCee Commie.
Besides, I thought I made clear that I don’t think fines are the way to go anyhoo, invalidating the results is the ONLY appropriate response to an illegitimate government!
Sam Gunsch
re Enforce the damned law
A possible campaign method…
and this is just a suggestion…open to any and all feedback…
Curate the best arguments from any and all sources about Elections Canada investigations, RCMP investigations, arguments pro and con for inquiries, Royal Commissions, and so on.
Readers here @Sixth do the aggregation and then the curation somewhere online.
And those of us who have the know-how offer to help with the technical work necessary to add a stream for that curated content here on @Sixth’s site.
My notion is that if we could stick with this it could potentially become a go to resource that increases the intensity of attention to the voter fraud/robocon story.
And help set up donation system on the @Sixth stream of this content to pay for the extra costs of hosting…under the positive assumption that traffic grows significantly.
I’d happily help with sourcing content. I have no technical know-how whatsoever.
Sixth Estate
thwap — Well, yes, I imagine they are. But we’re closing in on a year now, and at least judging by the court findings, it doesn’t seem as if they’ve managed to identify Pierre Poutine, let alone his accomplices in other ridings. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their commitment to this investigation.
Derek — The CRTC investigation… I’m not sure what to make of that. The allegation was that robocalls were being made by people impersonating another political party. That’s clearly Elections Canada’s jurisdiction, clearly illegal, and Elections Canada passed on investigating them altogether. The CRTC is under more political control than Elections Canada. So if Elections Canada wouldn’t touch it, it’s a safe bet we won’t get much out of the CRTC either.
kootcoot — They can’t. If the Conservative Party is the one paying the fine, there are donation limits to worry about. If another party is guilty, it’s the same thing, of course. Don’t sell this idea short. If a political party was hit with a fine that large, they would have to go bankrupt.
kootcoot
SE, I repeat, invalidation of the results is the ONLY appropriate sanction for electoral fraud.
The fines are fine, especially if they bankrupted an ethically bankrupt already party. I guess I mean that the owner/backers of the Harperites have so many ways to politically (financially) support their frontmen without it being “political campaign funding.” Like do all the negative ads run by the Cons when it isn’t even an election even count as “campaign expenses” and are they subject to any limits at all?
Business supports parties like Harper’s via things like the Fraser Institute, Ethical Oil, Taxpayer Club and sometimes one wonders – via bond rating agencies. Wall Street to Howe Street attacked Davy Barrett as soon as the NDP was elected and poisoned the economic atmosphere and helped trigger an early and successful (from their p.o.v.) election, leading to the coronation of insider trader mini-Wac and over another decade of Socrud rule minus the vision of Bennett pere.
Sixth Estate
No, they’re not campaign expenses. To my knowledge there is no limit on those (but they also don’t qualify for subsidies).
You’re quite right that an election result obtained by fraud sholud be overturned and an affected riding put to a new vote. That’s not my point. My point is that actual enforcement of the Elections Act would be enough to deter this sort of crime… because conviction ought to mean bankruptcy of the party.
P. D. Carswell
I agree with Sam Gunsch. (A meme! A meme!)
“Enforce the damned law” is great – catchy, succinct, non-partisan, simple. There is also the “1% PM” thing – since he speaks for the 1%, let’s give him 1% of the vote next election.
Or something along those lines. I am technologically outdated, but I’m a good and willing editor.
How do we get a meme started and off the ground in this era of constant, ubiquitous communication?
Saskboy
Is the year in the title what you intended?
Sixth Estate
Absolutely. If they can identify the culprits within one year of the crime, I think that’s a pretty respectable record.
Not going to happen, though.
Saskboy
“Is it possible that EC is waiting until their investigations are concluded before deciding guilt or innocence and imposing penalties?”
I think that’s what they are doing. They’re scared they are going to overlook something, so instead of acting on what they have so far, they want a stronger case, with more of the tentacles wrapped up. The problem is, this is too big a case for one little EC org to wrap up in a timely manner. Justice Delayed is Justice Denied, most keenly when the guilty have the stolen power to rewrite what justice means.
“Enforce the damned law.”
Sixth Estate
Well they’re certainly moving in some direction, yes. Otherwise the complaint would have been either closed or concluded with a charge. But I am not sure EC has the capacity and the resources to see this through, and assuming that the Conservatives are guilty of at least some part of the scheme, which has been pretty much acknowledged in leaks to John Ivison, etc., we can be fairly certain that EC now has the full weight of a majority government pressing it not to bring this investigation to a full conclusion.
Witness this week’s Auditor-General report for an example of the influence of a majority government. “The bureaucrats went wild” is simply another variant of the “staffers did it” motif which we’ve been peddled in exchange for ministerial responsibility for years now.
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