CANADA ELECTION DAY: When voter suppression comes calling
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:41 am New film "Election Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling" by Peter Smoczynski - Preview clips Jan
When voter suppression comes calling
[ http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/806 ]
By Briony Penn, December 2014
A new documentary and public forum in Victoria in January will shed light on election fraud in Canada.
According to Peter Smoczynski, a 40-year veteran journalist and filmmaker from Ottawa, “Electoral fraud is a well organized crime. Millions of dollars are dedicated to duping various demographics of eligible voters in democratically run countries on election day.” Smoczynski, like many Canadians, believes something terribly wrong took place during the 2011 federal election. [ . . . .]
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From: Janet Eaton
Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2014 10:02 AM
Subject: A Must Read: New film "Election Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling" by Peter Smoczynski - Preview clips Jan
Dear All
Please find below excerpts from a lengthy article by Briony Penn, writing in the Victoria BC magazine Focus on Line - Victoria's Magazine People, Culture and Ideas. In this article she reviews 'the work in progress' film by Peter Smoczynski about electoral fraud in Canada's last election. This piece by Penn is essential reading and later, when Peter Smoczynski's documentary is completed, it will be imperative viewing in every community in the nation for assuring that voter turn out is increased and that we elect a principle-centred fraud- free, transparent and democratic government the next time round, a government that has it roots in Canada's environmental and social democratic traditions and not in American style Republican 'demockracy'.
"According to Peter Smoczynski, a 40-year veteran journalist and filmmaker from Ottawa, “Electoral fraud is a well organized crime. Millions of dollars are dedicated to duping various demographics of eligible voters in democratically run countries on election day.” Smoczynski, like many Canadians, believes something terribly wrong took place during the 2011 federal election.
"The former CBC producer and documentary filmmaker is now half way through production of his new film Election Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling, due to be released before the 2015 election. Victorians will have a chance to preview clips and lend their voice and support to Smoczynski’s film at a forum sponsored by Focus Magazine and Open Cinema at the end of January.
Smoczynski recently shared some of these film clips with Bryonny Penn. Interviews with key observers of the electoral fraud saga of the last two federal elections help unpack the “voter suppression” that occurred in 2008 and 2011. In one clip, veteran journalist Frances Russell calls the use of fraudulent techniques in 2011 “one of the biggest political crimes in Canadian history.” Voter suppression, notes the Globe & Mail’s public affairs columnist Lawrence Martin, “is a euphemism for rigging the vote.”
"In the film, ex-Conservative MP Inky Marks, Green Party MP Elizabeth May and NDP leader Thomas Mulcair all express palpable disbelief that such fraud has come to Canada. Mulcair says: "we had better start protecting our electoral system.”
"The film explores different techniques used to suppress voting, the extent to which they’re used, and their effectiveness.
Others involved or interviewed in the film include:
* Professor Irwin Cotler, law professor and highly respected Liberal MP in downtown Montreal, experienced the chilling effect of such flyers distributed in his riding in 2008.
* journalists Steve Maher of Post Media and Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen who broke the “Pierre Poutine” story in February of 2012
* Lawrence Martin, [journalist and author of "Harperland: The Politics of Control"] , who encouraged Smoczynski to start at Canada’s “ground zero,” the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding, where robocalls and other voter suppression techniques were experimented with in 2008.
* Lawyer Steven Shrybman who took forward the Council of Canadians legal challenge contesting outcomes in six of the most tightly contested ridings in which voter suppression occurred.
Smoczynski says: “When I read the evidence that was filed by Steven Shrybman I was staring at the basis for a documentary...in black and white.” The interviews with Shrybman provide chilling and compelling evidence that, as Judge Richard Mosley concluded in 2013, “widespread election fraud occurred”
* Among the experts Smoczynski hopes to tap while he’s on the West Coast are political scientists Anke Kessler at SFU and Tom Cornwall at UBC who, earlier this year, jointly presented evidence on the effect of “voter demobilization” on turnout.
* Bryony Penn also quotes Jean Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s former chief electoral officer (the CEO oversees elections), who worries about the impact of the Fair Elections Act on the CEO: “We should not curtail the role of the chief election officer.
* Ex-Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber—who now sits as an Independent after resigning from the Conservatives in 2013—also found the whole amendment [of the Elections Act] process “very disturbing.” He notes that any new legislation should be given enough time to be properly vetted, “but that bar has to be raised much higher for constitutional amendments and the Elections Act—which has to be treated with utmost respect because the Elections Act sets up the rules for how we run a democracy..
On January 28, filmmaker Peter Smoczynski will be bringing highlights of his documentary to the Victoria Event Centre (1415 Broad St). Additional guests, either real or virtual, will include some of the key people interviewed in the film, including journalist Mike Harris, who has just released his bestseller "Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover" and Green Party leader and MP Elizabeth May. As Smoczynski states: “The objective is fighting the trend of public complacency, which is a huge goal of voter suppression. Nine and a half million people didn’t vote and that has to change.”
For entire article in Focus on Line, Victoria's Magazine of People Ideas and Culture see:
[ http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/806 ]
Janet Eaton
Wolfville, NS
[ https://beyondcollapse.wordpress.com/ ]
When voter suppression comes calling
[ http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/806 ]
By Briony Penn, December 2014
A new documentary and public forum in Victoria in January will shed light on election fraud in Canada.
According to Peter Smoczynski, a 40-year veteran journalist and filmmaker from Ottawa, “Electoral fraud is a well organized crime. Millions of dollars are dedicated to duping various demographics of eligible voters in democratically run countries on election day.” Smoczynski, like many Canadians, believes something terribly wrong took place during the 2011 federal election. [ . . . .]
= = = =
From: Janet Eaton
Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2014 10:02 AM
Subject: A Must Read: New film "Election Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling" by Peter Smoczynski - Preview clips Jan
Dear All
Please find below excerpts from a lengthy article by Briony Penn, writing in the Victoria BC magazine Focus on Line - Victoria's Magazine People, Culture and Ideas. In this article she reviews 'the work in progress' film by Peter Smoczynski about electoral fraud in Canada's last election. This piece by Penn is essential reading and later, when Peter Smoczynski's documentary is completed, it will be imperative viewing in every community in the nation for assuring that voter turn out is increased and that we elect a principle-centred fraud- free, transparent and democratic government the next time round, a government that has it roots in Canada's environmental and social democratic traditions and not in American style Republican 'demockracy'.
"According to Peter Smoczynski, a 40-year veteran journalist and filmmaker from Ottawa, “Electoral fraud is a well organized crime. Millions of dollars are dedicated to duping various demographics of eligible voters in democratically run countries on election day.” Smoczynski, like many Canadians, believes something terribly wrong took place during the 2011 federal election.
"The former CBC producer and documentary filmmaker is now half way through production of his new film Election Day in Canada: When Voter Suppression Comes Calling, due to be released before the 2015 election. Victorians will have a chance to preview clips and lend their voice and support to Smoczynski’s film at a forum sponsored by Focus Magazine and Open Cinema at the end of January.
Smoczynski recently shared some of these film clips with Bryonny Penn. Interviews with key observers of the electoral fraud saga of the last two federal elections help unpack the “voter suppression” that occurred in 2008 and 2011. In one clip, veteran journalist Frances Russell calls the use of fraudulent techniques in 2011 “one of the biggest political crimes in Canadian history.” Voter suppression, notes the Globe & Mail’s public affairs columnist Lawrence Martin, “is a euphemism for rigging the vote.”
"In the film, ex-Conservative MP Inky Marks, Green Party MP Elizabeth May and NDP leader Thomas Mulcair all express palpable disbelief that such fraud has come to Canada. Mulcair says: "we had better start protecting our electoral system.”
"The film explores different techniques used to suppress voting, the extent to which they’re used, and their effectiveness.
Others involved or interviewed in the film include:
* Professor Irwin Cotler, law professor and highly respected Liberal MP in downtown Montreal, experienced the chilling effect of such flyers distributed in his riding in 2008.
* journalists Steve Maher of Post Media and Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen who broke the “Pierre Poutine” story in February of 2012
* Lawrence Martin, [journalist and author of "Harperland: The Politics of Control"] , who encouraged Smoczynski to start at Canada’s “ground zero,” the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding, where robocalls and other voter suppression techniques were experimented with in 2008.
* Lawyer Steven Shrybman who took forward the Council of Canadians legal challenge contesting outcomes in six of the most tightly contested ridings in which voter suppression occurred.
Smoczynski says: “When I read the evidence that was filed by Steven Shrybman I was staring at the basis for a documentary...in black and white.” The interviews with Shrybman provide chilling and compelling evidence that, as Judge Richard Mosley concluded in 2013, “widespread election fraud occurred”
* Among the experts Smoczynski hopes to tap while he’s on the West Coast are political scientists Anke Kessler at SFU and Tom Cornwall at UBC who, earlier this year, jointly presented evidence on the effect of “voter demobilization” on turnout.
* Bryony Penn also quotes Jean Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s former chief electoral officer (the CEO oversees elections), who worries about the impact of the Fair Elections Act on the CEO: “We should not curtail the role of the chief election officer.
* Ex-Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber—who now sits as an Independent after resigning from the Conservatives in 2013—also found the whole amendment [of the Elections Act] process “very disturbing.” He notes that any new legislation should be given enough time to be properly vetted, “but that bar has to be raised much higher for constitutional amendments and the Elections Act—which has to be treated with utmost respect because the Elections Act sets up the rules for how we run a democracy..
On January 28, filmmaker Peter Smoczynski will be bringing highlights of his documentary to the Victoria Event Centre (1415 Broad St). Additional guests, either real or virtual, will include some of the key people interviewed in the film, including journalist Mike Harris, who has just released his bestseller "Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover" and Green Party leader and MP Elizabeth May. As Smoczynski states: “The objective is fighting the trend of public complacency, which is a huge goal of voter suppression. Nine and a half million people didn’t vote and that has to change.”
For entire article in Focus on Line, Victoria's Magazine of People Ideas and Culture see:
[ http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/806 ]
Janet Eaton
Wolfville, NS
[ https://beyondcollapse.wordpress.com/ ]