Country split on who ran phone campaign
Canadians are deeply split over allegations the federal Conservative party ran a “co-ordinated” robocalls campaign in the last federal election to deceive voters — but most seem to agree that byelections should be held in ridings where the practice occurred, a new poll has found.
The national survey, conducted for Postmedia News and Global TV, comes after a twoweek storm of controversy that erupted when Postmedia News revealed that fraudulent phone calls were placed in the Guelph, Ont., riding directing voters to the wrong polling stations.
Since then, political debate on Parliament Hill has been dominated by the robocalls — which opposition parties claim occurred in dozens of ridings — and Elections Canada has begun a major investigation after being deluged with thousands of complaints.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his senior campaign team have denied categorically any involvement in the affair, and no evidence has emerged publicly to suggest they are connected.
The Tories say they are victims of “baseless smears” by the Liberals and New Democrats — who contend that the Tories are stonewalling as they push for answers.
As this political jockeying was going on, Ipsos-reid conducted a blended telephone and online poll this week of 3,154 Canadians to determine their views.
In the survey, people were told there had been accusations that some people working for the Conservative party in the last election “made calls to supporters of other parties and either pretended to represent their party of choice and deliberately harassed them or to deliberately confuse them about which polling stations to vote at on election day.” The pollster also told respondents that Harper and senior Tories had said they had “nothing to do with these calls.”
The survey found 50 per cent of Canadians agree with the statement that “these accusations are true and the Conservative party had a co-ordinated campaign to deceive Canadian voters with misleading telephone calls in the last federal election.”
By comparison, 47 per cent disagreed with the statement, while the remainder said they did not know.
Ipsos-reid president Darrell Bricker said in an interview Friday the results are reflective of the current political landscape.
“The country is divided on this. There is a group of the population that thinks they probably were involved in some kind of shenanigans. It’s reflective of the fact that if you don’t like the Conservatives you probably think they are guilty of this.”
At the same time, said Bricker, the Tories maintain a strong level of support among Canadians who don’t believe they were involved in misleading robocalls.
As the controversy over the issue unfolded in recent days, there have been suggestions it might be necessary to hold byelections in ridings which saw narrow wins, and where claims of vote suppression may have tainted the results.
The Ipsos-reid poll suggests there would be strong public support for such a move. Sixty-eight per cent of those polled said if the Conservatives are found to have conducted the misleading robocalls, there should be new elections “in the ridings where it happened.” By comparison, 32 per cent disagreed with that course of action.