Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots, Robocalls

"Consequently in most cases compliance or enforcement issues do not arise under the Act from political calls soliciting support for a candidate or party. This simply recognizes the role played by free speech and communication in the democratic process, including speech that is annoying, repetitive or of a partisan nature." Elections Canada

Those election time calls are horribly annoying. And becoming increasingly pestiferous. It's the new politics. The parties - all parties - with their dedicated volunteers going beyond, well beyond what was conventionally recognized as playing party politics. Are these unethical, manipulative practices slop-over from the United States in reflection of what is seen as acceptable there? After all, such calls similar to the 'robocalls' have been in practise there for a century.

Now, let's see here, how about this, set around 1885, before the go-ahead was finally given by the Government of Canada to proceed with the Canadian transcontinental railroad, when Donald Smith, the driving force along with William Cornelius Van Horne and Sir Sandford Fleming were planning the Canadian Pacific and needed more funding at a critical juncture, looking to government for assistance:

"Sir Hugh Allan, steamship tycoon, wanted a share of the current railway bonanza and manoeuvred to cash in on the gold expected to flow from a government charter to build a Canadian transcontinental railroad. He got carried away as the prize dangled within reach. Sir John A. Macdonald was waging an election campaign and Sir Hugh contributed substantially to his party. Sir John's Conservatives won but correspondence relating to the "donations" had been filched; when the gleeful Liberal opposition broadcast the news that Allan, with his charter for the railway pending, had "bribed" the government, the fat was in the fire.
In the ensuing scandal Sir John was fighting for political survival. It promised to be a near thing, but at the last minute Donald Smith, a now influential Conservative member of the House, was expected to save the day. Before a hushed assembly Smith rose and announced that he would be glad to vote confidence in the government - could he "do so conscientiously". He had thrown Sir John to the wolves! That worthy Scot was enraged: "I could lick that man Smith quicker than hell could frizzle a feather!" he shouted.*

Oh my, a ruckus in Parliament. Is there indeed nothing new under the sun?

An American writer, Joseph Cummins, author of Anything for a Vote: Dirty Tricks, Cheap Shots and October Surprises, has opined "Misdirecting voters to a different place is a pretty serious dirty trick because you're disenfranchsing them and taking away their right to have a voice in their government".

And he says voter-suppression telephone calls and push-polling is nothing new: "In the United States, there has been a big push by [the] Republican Party to keep poor people, usually Democrats from voting, and they do this by enacting all sorts of onerous technical things to prevent them from registering to vote."

Well, that's the United States, isn't it? We have our own grab bag of tricks up in Canada, don't we? Still, to make the leap of not-very-inspired imagination that surely it is the Conservative Party itself and this particular leader and his henchmen who only appear on the surface to be models of decorum and rectitude, who are responsible is really reaching for the bottom rung of the ladder.

In the United States, currently, Mr.Romney has claimed that Mr. Santorum's campaign was trying to sabotage the Michigan primary with robocalls to Democrats that urged them to cast ballots against him. And, returning the courtesy, Mr. Santorum responded that robocalls Mr. Romney's campaign has made featuring remarks Santorum made four years ago, were despicable.

Joseph Cummins allowed as how he is rather surprised and perhaps a little disappointed in Canada: "I grew up in Detroit, right across the river from Canada, and we thought you guys were safe compared to our dirty tricks. In a certain way, dirty tricks have been incorporated into American politics and Americans have become used to them. It doesn't sound like you guys have, so this is a fresh shock to the system for Canadians."

How fresh a shock?

* The Canadian Rockies, Early travels and explorations, Esther Fraser