Conservatives Must Come Clean on Voter Suppression

May 24, 2013

OTTAWA AND MONTRÉAL– Liberal Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics critic Scott Andrews made the following statement today on the Federal Court’s ruling that fraud occurred during the last federal election:

“The Federal Court has confirmed what we have long said: voter suppression calls were made across the country in the 2011 election – with the clear intent to deny Canadians their right to vote.

The Court has determined that these calls definitively amount to a systematic case of electoral fraud.

As the court points out, the ‘most likely’ source of information used to make these fraudulent calls was the Conservatives’ voter database, CIMS. The Conservative Party must come clean immediately and tell Canadians who ‘most likely’ used its database to commit electoral fraud and operate a national voter suppression scheme.”

Liberal Democratic Reform critic Stéphane Dion continued:

“The ruling shows that electioral fraud clearly occurred across the country during the last election and Canadians want the guilty individuals or party to be found. Unfortunately, as the judge points out, the Conservatives ‘engaged in trench warfare in an effort to prevent this case from coming to a hearing on the merits’ and ‘to block these proceedings by any means.’

The Conservatives must now pledge to cooperate fully with the separate Elections Canada investigation into the robocalls affair so that the guilty can be prosecuted. Why would they continue to obstruct the investigation if they had nothing to hide?”