Never in the History of Politics has So Much Been Written about So Little.
(My apologies to the late Sir Winston Churchill)
A Trial is currently underway in Guelph, Ontario in connection with the Great Robocall Scandal of the 2011 Federal General Election.
A lone individual, Michael Sona is facing one charge under the Elections Act for making misleading telephone calls (Robocalls) to Liberals in that Federal Riding.
In the lead up to his trial, ink has been splattered all over the place and in some cases awards have been given out to a newspaper – Ottawa’s own left leaning ‘Citizen’ and to two of its writers. If they had any integrity those awards should be returned for handout to those more properly deserving.
Even Elections Canada got into the act claiming at one point that the Guelph experience was but the tip of the iceberg. That Robocalls had taken place right across Canada. It had to have orchestrated.
Suggestions were strongly made in Parliament and around the country that the Conservative Party itself was behind this nefarious scheme.
At the time, I believed that there was no way the Conservative Party nor any official Political Party would be involved in such shenanigans and I placed this incident, if it in fact had occurred, in the laps of some over-zealous riding volunteers.
Long ago, Elections Canada has had to admit there were no grounds for thinking a massive fraud on the voters had taken place.
Moreover, from the evidence presented so far at young Sona’s trial, it appears that it was he and he alone who carried out this ill advised stunt.
And stunt is the word to sum-up what occurred.
I have worked on elections since I was 11 / 12 years old, I have been a Riding President as well as a regional organizer for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and am well aware of what occurs at the local levels of politics.
When an election is called hundreds of volunteers from every background and stripe come forward to get involved in each of the main riding campaigns.
And dear reader do you know why that is?
If you guessed they are looking for IOUs form the winning Party – you’d be wrong.
Most are in it for the fun and I can tell you as an aside, more and more the fun is being taken out of it in this age of political correctness … but I digress.
So in Sona’s case here is a little guy who comes on board the Guelph Tory Campaign and he feels he is doing something worthwhile and the fact of the matter, he is. He is having fun and gets over enthused and does something stupid and the media, Elections Canada, the Opposition Parties, the Pundits go wild.
It is to laugh out loud, since many of this righteous lot should and do know better.
And in that regard, I have a confession to make.
When I started out working on local campaigns as a kid, my main function was to go around the town and put up election signs on wooden telephone polls. Yes, you younger ones, they were made of wood way back then.
And sometimes, not often, but sometimes I would tear down an opposition’s election sign ‘if it got in my way’.
So there, once upon a time, I too got overly zealous.
But what a sad commentary it is when one lone volunteer can cause such a national uproar.
Gotcha Politics has descended into new depths and we are all the poorer for it.
As I see it …
‘K.D. Galagher’
