A ROBOCALLS TIMELINE HIGH POINTS IN THE ELECTIONS CANADA
Mid-April: Two weeks before the May 2 federal election, the OttawaOrléans Liberal campaign files a complaint with Elections Canada over misleading calls received by supporters.
April 30: Someone buys a prepaid ‘burner’ cellphone at a Guelph convenience store. It is later registered to a Pierre Poutine of Joliette, Que. A ‘Pierre Jones’ calls Edmonton telephone marketing firm RackNine and tells owner Matt Meier he has been referred by a Conservative.
May 1: Someone buys four gift cards worth $460 at two Guelph drug stores. Poutine uses the cards to transfer money to a PayPal account, then makes three payments to RackNine, using a Pierre Jones email address. Poutine makes seven calls to RackNine’s phone system and logs into his account, uploading a file with 6,737 phone numbers, then a second version of the list containing his own cell number. Poutine then uploads two voice recordings — a call, which is never sent, purports to come from Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote. The other is a fake Elections Canada call telling voters their polling location had changed.
May 2: Election day. Poutine logs into RackNine from a Rogers IP address in Guelph shortly after 4 a.m. At 10:03 a.m., the first of 7,676 robocalls is sent out mostly to Guelph voters, but also other Ontario ridings. Hundreds of Guelph voters turn up at wrong locations to cast ballots. Conservatives win a national majority.
June 8: Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews files a legal document seeking Bell Canada records for the burner cellphone used to make deceptive calls.
Nov. 23: A court order executed on RackNine seeks records related to the Conservative campaign in Guelph, including records of calls from the Quebec-based disposable cellphone. RackNine owner Meier unable to produce the IP address of sender.
Dec. 19: An Alberta court filing includes records obtained by Mathews from RackNine, including call logs, information for three PayPal accounts and details from at least two separate accounts, one under the name Andrew Prescott, deputy campaign manager for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke.
Feb. 23: Reporters Glen McGregor of the Citizen and Stephen Maher of Postmedia News break the story that Elections Canada is investigating calls that misled voters in 18 ridings across Canada, including Guelph. PM Stephen Harper denies Conservatives involved.
Feb. 24: Michael Sona, communications director for failed Guelph Conservative candidate, resigns as assistant to a Tory MP.
Feb. 25: Citizen-Postmedia story points to existence of a systematic voter suppression effort involving calls targeting Liberal voters in tightly-contested ridings. Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae says he believes the tactics helped defeat his party in the election.
Feb. 26: NDP MP Pat Martin says 34 ridings received calls advising people their voting station had changed.
Feb. 28: PM Harper challenges opposition to prove his party is guilty.
Feb. 29: Postmedia and the Citizen report that, in a sworn statement, Election Canada’s Mathews reveals the disposable cellphone used to call RackNine is registered to Pierre Poutine.
March 2: RackNine files $5-million suit against the NDP and Martin, saying the MP singled out its conduct in a negative light at several news conferences. In the 10 days since robocalls story broke, Elections Canada is deluged by more than 31,000 messages related to the emerging scandal.
March 13: Sona says he was stunned to learn he’d been fingered by anonymous Tories in the Guelph robocalls case, saying he had not spoken to Elections Canada investigators. Harper refuses demands into a judicial inquiry, saying Elections Canada had already begun a probe.
March 15: Elections Canada head promises to get to the bottom of allegations of fraudulent or improper calls.
March 20: Failed Guelph Tory candidate Burke says he doesn’t believe his campaign
had anything to do with Poutine robocalls.
March 23: Court documents show Pierre Poutine created RackNine message in support of Guelph Liberal candidate Valeriote. It was never sent. Instead, more than 7,600 calls, pretending to come from Elections Canada, directed voters to wrong polling stations.
March 23: Council of Canadians advocacy group begins filing court applications on behalf of nine voters seeking to overturn election results in seven ridings won by Conservatives.
April 17: Citizen-Postmedia report says Elections Canada investigators are combing through records at Conservative headquarters trying to determine who downloaded a list of phone numbers of non-Conservative supporters in Guelph.
April 18: Conservative party and Responsive Marketing Group (RMG), the party’s main call bank company, reject as false a sworn affidavit from an ex-phone worker in Thunder
Bay who says she and her colleagues misdirected voters in the days leading up to the election.
April 26: Citizen-Postmedia reports Elections Canada seeking phone records to trace calls designed to send voters in Nippissing-Timiskaming to wrong polling stations. Tories won seat by 18 votes.
May 4: Elections Canada investigator Mathews, in a sworn statement, links the IP address used by Pierre Poutine to log on to RackNine computers to an account held by Andrew Prescott of Guelph candidate Burke’s campaign.
May 22: In a 750-page legal brief, the Tories ask Federal Court to dismiss legal challenges by the Council of Canadians in seven ridings, saying there’s no evidence anyone was denied the right to vote.
June 8: Despite Pat Martin’s April apology, RackNine says it will go ahead with defamation suit against the NDP MP.
June 21: Elections Canada says William Corbett, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, is retiring and being replaced by Yves Côté, a former justice department bureaucrat.
July 19: The Federal Court rules Council of Canadians lawsuit can go ahead
Aug. 1: Lawyer for Council of Canadians asks Elections Canada, which has so far stayed mum, to provide the COC with details of its pursuit of complaints from voters in 200 ridings.
Aug. 9: An official with the Responsive Marketing Group, the Tories’ main voter-contact firm, says allegations of voter suppression are categorically false.
Aug. 10: Court documents show the IP address used by Pierre Poutine led to an open Wi-Fi connection in a private home. Five Guelph Conservative campaign workers had also used the address.
Aug. 14: The RCMP confirms for first time it is assisting Elections Canada, saying one of its officer visited a Guelph resident on June 27 to obtain a recording of a deceptive phone call.
Aug. 22: Postmedia reports that as of Aug. 16, Elections Canada had fielded 1,394 complaints about misleading phone calls in 234 ridings.
Aug. 24: The CRTC fines Guelph Liberal MP Valeriote’s riding association $4,900 for a robocall anonymously attacking his Tory opponent’s abortion stance in 2011 campaign.
Aug. 27: Court documents released to the Council of Canadians show Elections Canada has not sought phone or Internet records for any calls beyond Guelph.
Sept. 6: CRTC says the federal Conservatives violating regulations requiring it to maintain a do-not-call list.
Sept. 10: The NDP’s Martin asks for public help raising $250,000 for defence in RackNine defamation suit.
Sept. 22: Postmedia reports Elections Canada’s investigation has extended beyond Guelph to Ottawa, Toronto and Burlington.
Oct. 22: Embarrassingly, Council of Canadians forced to drop its challenge in one riding after revelations a complainant didn’t know in which riding she lived.
Nov. 2: Council of Canadians argues a Supreme Court ruling that every reasonable effort should be made to enfranchise citizens means the 2011 election results in the six disputed Tory-held ridings should be overturned.
Nov. 9: Postmedia reports that Ken Morgan, campaign manager for failed Guelph Conservative candidate — and who declined to be interviewed by Elections Canada
— now living in Kuwait. Two other Burke workers also refused to be interviewed.
Nov. 17: Postmedia reveals that starting on April 29, Elections Canada confronted the Tories about calls directing voters to the wrong polling stations, but met with denials.
Nov. 20: The six Conservative MPs facing legal challenges of their election wins say there’s no evidence a single person failed to cast a ballot because of misleading phone calls.
Nov. 26: Postmedia reports that Andrew Prescott, a member of Conservative campaign in Guelph, says he’s lost his hospital computer job because he was tarred by the Pierre Poutine affair.
Dec. 10: As Federal Court case begins, Tories’ lawyer says Council of Canadians wants “payback” and to push “anti-Harper” agenda.
Dec. 12: A Quebec man who contacted Elections Canada in March becomes first complainant to say robocall prevented him from voting.
Dec. 13: Conservative lawyer argues in Federal Court that allowing wide latitude for challenging elections would open up every election to potential litigation.
Jan. 11: Court document shows Elections Canada investigator John Dickson received records of incoming and outgoing calls of 45 Rogers customers complaining of pollchange calls in the week before 2011 election.
Jan. 14: Postmedia reports Elections Canada investigators plan to interview Tory campaign workers as part of their robocalls probe.