Were the 2006 federal election results tainted?
Winnipeg Free Press April 30, 2008
Mid-campaign, the RCMP commissioner implicated a senior Liberal cabinet minister in a criminal investigation. One year later, the Mounties exonerated him. Now, Elections Canada is accusing the Conservatives of making “materially false and misleading statements” on their election financial returns and exceeding legal spending limits by $1.1 million in national advertising and $700,000 in taxpayer-funded candidate rebates.
RCMP Public Complaints Commissioner Paul Kennedy says even the hint of police election tampering “subverts democracy” and breaks “the trust between citizens and police that is essential to maintaining the rule of law in a civilized society.”
In a damning 35-page report, Kennedy says former RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli’s decision to name then-Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale in a press release and a letter to an opposition MP halfway through the race likely turned the tide for the Conservatives. He highlights pages of polling data showing “a dramatic shift” from the ruling Liberals to the Conservatives following the explosive announcement.
Kennedy found no evidence Zaccardelli intentionally meddled but said he hadn’t “the slightest idea what was going through the commissioner’s mind” when he personally approved sending a fax to Winnipeg North MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis and ordered his staff to include Goodale’s name.
Wasylycia-Leis posted it on her website, triumphantly waved it around for the television cameras and called for Goodale’s resignation. She had asked the Mounties to investigate a potential leak of the government’s income trust decision about the same time as the Liberal government fell in a confidence vote in late November 2005, triggering the Jan. 23, 2006 election.
Kennedy’s report is profoundly disturbing. It raises the horrifying spectre for one of the world’s oldest and most stable democracies of its national police force deliberately influencing the democratic choice of Canadians. The black hole of silence and inaction into which it has fallen raises the alarm it could happen again.
Even more alarming, the Mounties decided not to act against a Conservative candidate during the 1988 federal election. Quebec NDP candidate Phil Edmonston brought allegations to the RCMP concerning his Conservative opponent, Richard Grisé. The Mounties investigated, but delayed executing two search warrants, ostensibly to avoid influencing the election. Less than two weeks before the vote, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney’s principal secretary sent a letter to the RCMP discussing the allegations against Grisé. Grisé won. The day after the election, the Mounties executed the warrants. The Tory candidate pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one day in jail, three years’ probation and a $20,000 fine. Edmonston won the subsequent byelection.
The RCMP complaints commissioner says the absence of clear guidelines and the two contradictory decisions “continue to invite speculation as to an improper motivation on the part of the police.”
Just before he was sworn in as prime minister on Feb. 6, 2006, Stephen Harper held a 45-minute meeting with Zaccardelli at RCMP headquarters. The two then stood together for the TV cameras. Neither the former commissioner nor other senior RCMP officers co-operated with Kennedy’s probe.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is demanding a full public inquiry into the RCMP’s conduct. “Canadians need to know before the next federal election campaign that our elections are free of interference by the state police. Anything less is an assault and an affront to democracy.” Canada, she added, is not “a banana republic.”
The Conservatives have stonewalled every effort by a parliamentary committee to get to the bottom of their “in-and-out” election advertising scheme. Two weeks ago, the RCMP raided Conservative headquarters to execute a search warrant requested by Elections Canada. Harper, as head of the ultra-right National Citizens’ Coalition, once called Election Canada “jackasses” and went to court to get third-party advertising limits on election spending abolished. Now, he’s insisting his party only does what all others do and says the election watchdog is politically motivated and biased towards the Liberals.
Unsuccessful Newfoundland Conservative candidate Joseph Goudie begs to differ. In an affidavit for Elections Canada, Goudie’s campaign manager, Debbie Singleton, says Conservative headquarters notified her she would receive money but would have to send it back the next day. Not only did Goudie have to keep paying for his own advertising, but the national TV ads his boomerang money bought didn’t even carry his name. He even had to pay the $21 bank fee for the 24-hour in-and-out transaction.
What does $1.1 million in adverting buy? According to The Globe and Mail, about four weeks of TV time in prime markets of more than 100,000 viewers; between five and 10 full-page colour ads in major daily newspapers; and eight to 12 weeks of radio exposure.
“I can tell you from being involved in elections for a long time that a million dollars of advertising has an impact,” says NDP Leader Jack Layton.
Perhaps the impact is serious enough to question the election of a government most Canadians remain unwilling to support.