Tory MP blames Elections Canada

Sloppy voter lists part of problem, he says

OTTAWA— A maverick Conservative MP has taken a new tack in the robocall affair, pointing a finger of blame at Elections Canada for sloppy voter lists.

“Hired live phoners or automated calling systems are only as good as the data provided to them. You know the saying, ‘garbage in, garbage out,’ ” said Maurice Vellacott, the MP for Saskatoon-wanuskewin, in a statement released to media Monday.

“I suspect that at the end of the day, if Elections Canada has the resources to do a proper investigation, they’ll find they’re themselves significantly responsible, that tech issues with marrying EC lists to available electronic phone lists is part of the problem, and in a few instances there may have been malfeasance by one (political) party or the other,” wrote Vellacott.

“Let’s reserve judgment until the full story comes out.”

Until now, most Tory MPS and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have suggested that the alleged instances of misdirecting voters were either the work of a lone, or rogue political operatives; or the work of the Liberal party’s telemarketers having made errors; or the result of honest, inadvertent errors made by sincere get-out-the-vote calls that were tripped up by Elections Canada having made changes to some 127 polling locations.

On Monday, Harper’s parliamentary secretary, MP Dean Del Mastro, who stood in for Harper to respond in the Commons, insisted any mess-ups were the fault of the Liberals alone.

Now Vellacott says he issued the statement because there has been too much “hyperbole” around robocalls. In an interview, he clarified that he did not intend to suggest incompetence at Elections Canada headquarters, and does not have an opinion on whether it is able to conduct the necessary inquiry into complaints.

Vellacott told the Star he was merely highlighting Elections Canada’s “difficulty” with tracking voters’ addresses between campaigns, now that there is no voter enumeration exercise. “I’m not faulting Elections Canada for the very difficult job of tracking this information.”

Andrew Macdougall, spokesman for Harper, said in an email: “They are Mr. Vellacott’s views.”

Vellacott said there have been “numerous address errors by Elections Canada in every one of six federal elections I’ve contested.”