The Sixth Estate

The robocall scandal, which Sixth Estate helped document during the spring, resurfaced in several weird ways over the past week. Documents have been filed in the ongoing Council of Canadians litigation over alleged robocalls in several ridings. More interestingly, though, Guelph Conservative insider Michael Sona — once fingered as a possible culprit behind the “Pierre Poutine” escapade — went public to declare his innocence in the “massive scheme” and to deliver the following statement, which much of the media seems to have thought was not especially important:

Sona says Elections Canada investigators have finished their report into the robocalls in Guelph, but the report isn’t yet public.

How does Sona know this, precisely?

It’s possible he’s making it up, but it’s a weird statement to toss in if you don’t know it’s true. Maybe he just means they told him they were done asking him questions. But assuming it’s true, that leaves us to wonder why the existence of that report, let alone its contents, has not been disclosed to the public. This would be a very important document. It would either identify Pierre Poutine, opening the door to a wider investigation of the robocall conspiracy; or, it would demonstrate, once and for all, that Elections Canada is not capable of upholding the integrity of the Canadian electoral system.

To that end, I think it is vital to continue the public investgation into the robocalls, even if Elections Canada allegedly is not doing so. To that end, I’ll be returning to the question several more times over the coming weeks to try and put together, if not an allegation of who was specifically actually behind them, at least a record of what was publicly said and done about what may have been the most important attempt to undermine electoral integrity in many years.