MONTREAL - The growing robocall scandal is much more than just dirty tricks, it's much more than tearing down campaign posters, it's much more than negative campaign ads. This is about our democracy and if the allegations are proven, then this is a criminal matter.
Interfering with or denying our fundamental right of franchise is a crime. It is not vote suppression, it's an attack on our democracy. The former chief electoral officer says this is unprecedented in Canadian history. Indeed it is.
So many questions need to be answered: what was the involvement of the Conservative Party of Canada? Who paid for the calling companies to do this? Who wrote their scripts? How did the companies know which specific ridings to target? In other words, who gave the marching orders and how high did it go?
This is not the first time the Tories have been investigated by Elections Canada for malfeasance.
Last year, the Conservatives pleaded guilty to breaking campaign spending laws. The so-called "in-and-out" scheme conceived to move money from national coffers into and out of the accounts of 67 local candidates in the 2006 campaign, the election which brought Stephen Harper to power.
Richard Nixon once said it's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it.
I was stunned this week by the sentence handed down by a Quebec judge.
Normand Girard put his nail gun to the heads of his dogs and pulled the trigger. Here is his sentence: two years probation and 150 hours community work. He is forbidden from owning an animal for three years. That's it, three years? How about a lifetime ban? Yes he was depressed and overcome with stress when he did it. But still, the courts must send out a stronger message about animal abuse in Quebec. This week the court in Granby failed those who cannot speak for themselves
Do you know the real reason governments don't step in to stop the gouging by oil companies?
I think its because they are drunk on the fumes of high gas prices. The higher it goes, the more taxes they collect. The increase was 17 cents a litre in one shot this week. For those who remember, we are now paying $6.50 a gallon.
The Quebec government blamed tension in the Middle East, they must have missed the fact that the increase happened on a day when crude prices fell. The fact is, we are not running out of oil. Maybe we are running out of refineries because the oil companies keep shutting them down. It's in their interest to keep the prices high and it is in the government's interest not to do anything about it.
