The Council of Canadians finds the Elections Canada report released today very disappointing, not because of the conclusions but because there is no reason to have any confidence in them. According to the report, Elections Canada only reviewed ridings with 15 or more complaints, accounting for 39% of all complainants – it ignored the ridings with 61% of complainants.
“No one has been charged for orchestrating the 2011 election fraud campaign and this only confirms they have been very good at covering their tracks,” says Council of Canadians Executive Director Garry Neil.
The Federal Court ruling from the robocalls case concluded that there was widespread fraudulent calling, not just in the riding of Guelph but in many others, that it was targeted at non-Conservative voters and that “the most likely source of the data” used to make the fraudulent calls was the Conservatives’ CIMS database.
“It appears that the Commissioner of Elections never tried to find out who was responsible for this misuse of CIMS data,” concludes Neil.
Elections Canada cites numerous investigative challenges it faced in preparing the report, including the inability to compel evidence.
-30-
