MP Pierre Lemieux issues statement on “Robocalls”

MP Pierre Lemieux issued a stinging and to the point statement in response to the allegations made by NDP and Liberal MPs in the House of Commons regarding "robocalls:". The scandal, not surprisingly, has obviously become a hot topic across the country.

PHOTO CREDIT - MP Pierre Lemieux

Ottawa - March 8, 2012 - Mr. Lemieux issued the following statement this week in response to the allegations made by NDP and Liberal MPs in the House of Commons regarding "robocalls:"

“Voter suppression is reprehensible and illegal and those who have engaged in this practice should be subjected to the full force of the law. I and the Conservative Party fully support an investigation into this matter by Elections Canada.” Mr. Lemieux also stated:

- that the Conservative Party fully supports that an investigation be conducted by Elections Canada, that the investigation should be conducted soonest and that the NDP and Liberals should hand over any evidence they have to Elections Canada.

- that Bob Rae has been unable to substantiate his allegations with evidence and instead offers only hearsay. As it turns out, the Liberals paid millions of dollars to make hundreds of thousands of phone calls during the election in the affected ridings using firms that have U.S. operations. The onus is on the Liberals to prove that the calls in question were not actually made by their own phone calling firms.

- NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel was asked for examples and was unable to provide any hard evidence. (Power & Politics, CBC News Network, February 29, 2012)

- that despite the allegations of „voter suppression,? the number of Canadians that voted in the last election increased by 900,000 from the 2008 election.

- that Elections Canada states openly that they had changed 120 polling locations late in the election, which affected thousands of polls and hundreds of thousands of Canadians and that all parties made efforts to advise their supporters of these changes.

Mr. Lemieux concluded that, “The Liberals in particular need to explain their expenditure of millions of dollars to phone calling firms that have U.S. operations. Both the Liberals and the NDP are making allegations that they are unable to support and in doing so, they are undermining the confidence of Canadians in our democratic electoral system.”