Angus challenges Stephen Harper to come clean on Conservative dirty tricks

Statement from Official Opposition Ethics critic Charlie Angus:

December 20, 2011

Conservatives making crank calls to disrupt other party’s campaigns is reprehensible. And according to Elections Canada, this isn’t even the end of it.
New Democrats are challenging Stephen Harper to come clean today about the Conservative Party’s involvement with crank calls and other voter suppression techniques during the election campaign.
Harper can start by answering the following questions:

1. How many Conservative offices were involved in crank calls?
2. Which campaigns were targeted?
3. What discipline, if any, was dished out on Conservative operatives involved in these dirty tricks campaign?
4. Was this scheme directed by the Conservatives’ campaign war room as an attempt at voter suppression?
5. What other voter suppression techniques did Conservatives use, either centrally or locally, during the campaign?
6. Will they fully cooperate with Elections Canada’s investigation?
7. Did they use any of these techniques in previous elections?

It’s time the Conservatives stopped thinking that they get to live by a different set of rules than everybody else. Stephen Harper must come forward today and take responsibility for the Conservatives attempts to keep Canadians from voting through these kinds of dirty tricks.