Calling you

A little required reading for your Monday and the resumption of Parliament:

• More and more reports coming out about fraudulent telephone campaigns by the Conservative Party of Canada to undermine democracy and steal the election
• This campaign voter suppression robocall kerfuffel isn't a scandal that is just popping up now, some people have been on it for quite a while 
• And it is definitely part of a pattern of underhanded sabotage and infiltration that has been going on for some time and is well documented
• When the CPC has lost Post Media, it is clear that they have stepped over a line
• And it isn't just robo calls either, it is the use of phone banks to systematically mislead voters and suppress democracy
• CPC hack Dean DelMastro does his best to keep the vital "both sides do it" narrative alive, but given this admission his complaint is a bit rich
• I understand campaign cheats do their best to provide leaders and candidates with plausible deniability, but apparently the CPC and Canada are now being led by Sgt. Shultz

As an editorial aside to my learned colleagues in the media: Can we please stop referring to these incidents as crank calls? If you pick up the phone and someone asks to speak to Amanda Hugginkiss or wants to know if your refrigerator is running or you have Prince Albert in a can, that's a crank call. If someone claims to be calling on behalf of Elections Canada or a political party and lies to you about how or where to vote, that's a crime.
And let's not just write it off as political pranksterism or dirty tricks either. Putting a bag of flaming dogshit on somebody's porch, ringing the bell and running away is a dirty trick, a whoopee cushion is a prank - an orchestrated effort to suppress the vote by lying to people about how and where to vote is a crime.




Keep that soothing music going as you read these links, you're going to need it.


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