To Catch the RoboCallers.
Galagher – ‘tell us what you really think about this Robocaller nonsense’.
I do think in many respects that it is just nonsense – I call it a prank albeit a serious one that sadly needs to be dealt with.
I say nonsense due to the fact that we in this country have many truly serious issues to deal with – as do all other countries but it never seems to fail, we continually get distracted by the minutiae.
In that respect, I would give Robocalling a 1 in the scheme of things in contrast to the 10s I would allocate to our debt situation, the aging of the Boomers, the green energy fiasco, the desperate need for cheap energy on so on.
I blame the opposition parties for once again making an issue out of nothing. I guess it is easier for them to deal with trivial matters. The problem with that though is we all suffer in that it takes away from the truly important issues. We have seen it time and again – regardless of which party is in power. As voters and as citizens we should all be appalled.
That said, I still believe the Robo Issue needs to be addressed now that it has become a matter of public concern. In democracies we need to be fully assured that our system is free from manipulation, even of the prankster variety.
I’d make it Elections Canada problem to deal with – that is what they are there for. If their investigation determines that their is sufficient truth to the opposition complaints – then call in the Mounties to do a full scale criminal investigation.
To waste everyone’s time with the expense of time and money on a Commission of Inquiry is stupidity in the extreme.
Further, Elections Canada is now on notice that this type of thing may be happening so they should get into the modern age and come equipped to deal with these types of complaints at future elections.
Two can play at Robocalling – the Robocaller and the Robocop.
Harper and company have taken the approach I have recommended above and for that they should be given the benefit of the doubt. If Elections Canada does investigate and finds that his party or any other party for that matter, is officially involved – they will have some serous explaining to do and hopefully some serious fines to pay.
All this though reminds me of times past when local parties of all stripes engaged in some very questionable activities come election time.
Booze was the biggest culprit and not in the sense of having consumed too much but that was indeed a problem. It was handed out like water to prospective voters in the hopes of securing votes for their candidate. When I was a young conservative the going rate was a mickey per vote.
The locals were also quite adept at ‘reverse canvasses’ - this would take place when the other parties went around delivering pamphlets to the various door steps and putting up their signs – these guys and gals were followed at a safe distance by a competing team who deftly went about their business gathering up these self same pamphlets and taking down those self same signs.
Everyone grumbled about it but no one lodged a complaint because these nefarious activities were universal.
And the stories – one in particular comes to mind:
This chap and his wife each voted for another party. Come election day, the husband asked his wife to go down into the root cellar to fetch something. As soon as she got off the latter – the husband shut and locked the door and left her there all day until the polls closed. I forget whether or not their marriage survived but it likely did given that there was less divorce back then. They certainly became legend.
I must confess that I did something along those similar lines.
On one Election Night I received a call from a voter who said he would go and cast his vote for the Tory –only if I drove him to the poll. A vote is a vote so off I went.
When I got there he introduced me to his new common law wife. My mind quickly went into overdrive. ‘Would you like to come and vote too” I enquired. She responded by saying her hair “was a mess” but I persisted and she finally agreed to go with us.
It was at this point, while putting on her coat, that she admitted she would be voting for another party and would therefore “be cancelling out her husband’s vote”. I was sick – here I came all this way to realize a vote for the good guys and now I would be taking along a voter who would only neutralize it.
My mind swung again into overdrive. “Perhaps your hair is a bit of a mess” I proffered, “you would not want to go out not looking your best”.
She readily agreed – the day was saved, or should I say vote.
Looking back to those days, I have to wonder if we’d have used Robocalling too, had it been available to us?
It would have been wrong to do then – it is wrong to do today, but in the scheme of things there are far more important things our Elected Officials need put their minds to. Leave Elections to Elections Canada.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
