Why do politicians have all the fun?
The latest Canadian-style Disney adventure has to be these Robocalls that entered our world last week.
I expect you all know the background here, so I won't elaborate. Let's just say that a group of Conservative clandestine operatives, in the dead of night, snuck into the Brinks yard and stole the bullion. OK, it wasn't THAT exciting.
What really happened is that a bunch of people who were NDP and Liberal supporters, in a bunch of federal ridings in last May's campaign, had their votes sabotaged by the dirty tricks of people in the Conservative campaign offices. Electronic calls, posed as Elections Canada messages, and real life callers, posing as supposed Liberal or NDP campaign people ... sent the unsuspecting voters to the wrong polling stations, saying they were correcting errors made earlier, or spoke rudely to the voter/phone call recipient even though they were supposedly on the same side ... thus leaving the voter wondering if they should rethink their support of the local Liberal or NDP candidate.
Now, depending on who you're talking to ... this kind of tomfoolery happened in no fewer than 14 ridings or in as many as 39. All of it happened in ridings that were pegged as possible "toss-ups" between a Conservative and a Liberal or NDP candidate. That meant a lot of the action happened in southern Ontario, a bit in the Maritimes, with a sprinkling in Western Canada. Of course Saskatchewan was spared the fun because we didn't have any "toss-up" ridings. We've already been tossed ... several times, and we keep coming up Conservative, so the PC shysters had no reason to play here.
Of course everyone is calling for the perpetrators' heads, including the Conservatives, now that the cat is out of the bag. They have to appear interested in uncovering the no-gooders, but we all know that unless there is an arm's-length independent inquiry ... nobody will uncover much.
The Conservatives are desperately hoping they can quash this in a hurry and move on to something else, like a spring budget.
So far they've thrown a kid, a 22 or 23-year-old executive assistant to a backbencher, under the bus, hoping that we'll believe he was responsible for the entire operation ... sort of a George Smiley or James Bond light, if you will. He's been dismissed ... the issue is closed.
Not so fast. We don't believe that.
And don't feel sorry for the kid either. He'll take the lumps and be rewarded for it later. He'll probably be appointed to the Senate within two years. That's what the Senate is for ... rewarding those who take lumps for the party. OK, it probably won't be the Senate, but he'll land on well shod feet, don't worry about him.
Worry about us.
And let's be careful here to make sure that all parties are painted.
Remember the Gomery Commission and the Liberal advertising and promotion scandal that brought down Paul Martin? Yep, he who is without sin, casts the first fish line.
We'll just have to wait and see if that Speaker-kid Scheer, the RCMP, a judge or someone who is supposedly neutral and willing to do some work, takes this one on. It could be fun ... a lot more fun than kicking out gun registry and Canadian Wheat Board people. This could be the full entertainment deal before it's over. Haul out the popcorn, take a seat and see who sounds the most unbelievable on the nightly television talk shows.
Or we could watch a good hockey game. Or we could watch the Maple Leafs play the Blue Jackets!
You decide.
