Robocalling



Rick says he's disappointed with the new low that has come to Canada.

As I've been reading and listening to the whole scandal that is robocalling, I want to let everybody know I'm angry. I don't know who's responsible but that is the ultimate in reprehensible action.

Listen, voting is the fundamental right and duty of a citizen in a democracy. For most of the time our opinions are ignored by government, business, the civil service and just about everything that wields more authority then us on the day to day business. But on one day every four or so years, we have the right and duty to go behind a little cardboard stand sitting on a school desk in an auditorium or gymnasium at the local school or community centre and make a choice for who we want to represent us in Ottawa and indirectly who will be the leader of the government for the next few years.

When we look at the ballot and hold that little pencil in our hand, we suddenly have a great deal of power. The pollsters may dissect us every which way and twice on Sunday but when we step behind the cardboard we are the ones making up our own mind. All the promises, all the electioneering disappears and its up to us to make that decision. This is why so many candidates are usually so nervous on election day because they have no idea what the citizenry might just do behind that booth. They would love to control us, but when we have that little piece of paper, they can't do anything else. The polling station is to be free of all election influence, it is to be pristine. An oasis of calm in the craziness that is an election campaign.

This is what angers me, that someone or someones decided to play a dirty trick on people and give them false information about where they are to vote. The message was that the caller was from Elections Canada and they had some new information about where the people were to vote. First of all, someone was imitating a federal official and they also lied.

This Pierre Poutine character, very clever is the force behind the robocalling and the burnt cellphones. At this point of time I don't know which party was behind it, to me that is inconsequential I just want the person or persons found and brought to justice. I expect serious jail time. As Rick Mercer pointed out, it's not just a few drunks trashing some election sign, it is out an out voter fraud. Sure not as blatant as stuffing ballot boxes like some other countries do but close. It's not as nefarious as putting so many rules and regulations in place that a huge group of society are disenfranchised, this takes place in the shadows, a telephone call here and a telephone call there. Somebody did it, and somebody above that individual strategized the plan.

I'm angry because there is a wave of indifference sweeping the land over it, we almost expect politicians and parties to do bad things because that's what we expect. Ever since the Poutine was Prime Minister, new lows have been achieved. It's as if we shrug our shoulders and put in the back of our mind another reason to despise politics and all aspects of public discourse.

To me this is worse, far worse, then the prorogue situation a few years ago, because all governments do it, so what. However, when a group decides to interfere with the rights of people to vote by giving out false information, then that's the reason to protest and to scream bloody murder at the government. We should pressure all our MP's to get some sort of official examination going. Elections Canada and the RCMP better get involved and they better drag a few people in for questioning. I want people water boarded to extract confessions.

The Puritan minister John Winthrop once described America as:

a shining city upon a hill

He might have been right once, but now its Canada that is that shining city. We are the nation that people look to, we have the traditions, the heritage, the respect- and we have the institutions that are looked up to by many.

We expect better because we are better.

As I said, we need to find those individuals and/or groups responsible and drag their sorry butts into court and throw the book at them.

We Canadians should not simply shrug our shoulders and say 'business as usual', we should rail about this and demand our government and all parties do something. I do not want parties scoring cheap shots or points, grandstanding before the media, I want average Canadians to stand up and denounce this activity.

I want Canadians everywhere to tell Pierre Poutine to keep his freakin' hands off our ballots.

Our ballots belong to us and us alone, no one has the right to mess with it.