Someone has launched a program of automated phone calls allegedly impersonating the NDP in Saanich-Gulf Islands. Gary Lunn's campaign denies involvement yet questions remain unanswered.

The Tyee has further details on last night's story about alleged impersonation of the NDP being a factor in today's vote. Garry Lunn's campaign denies any involvement. Calls made into the riding urged voters to cast their ballot for a candidate which had earlier been forced to drop out of the race.

We didn't do it. I hope nobody's thinking it's us. If they were, I'd be quite upset. Byng Giraud, Campaign Co-Manager for Garry Lunn

The automated telephone calls made to electors in Saanich-Gulf Islands are said to have stated the following:

Support Julian West of the NDP. Everyday families need to know they have someone in Ottawa fighting for them. Stephen Harper is the wrong kind of strong. Wrong on the economy, wrong on health care and wrong on the environment. Stéphane Dion has been his best friend over the last year and now wants to impose a second carbon tax on British Columbia. Jack Layton and the NDP won't let that happen. Let's put the priorities of the kitchen table first. Tomorrow vote Julian West of the NDP. Alleged impersonation of NDP campaign

I've written about Giraud before in context with the David Emerson affair. Giraud has acted as a lobbyist and power broker in conservative politics for some time. Currently he is Vice-President, Policy and Communications, for the Mining Association of B.C.. His candidate, Garry Lunn, as a sitting Minister of Natural Resources is in a position to directly respond to issues of specific concern to Giraud and the association he represents. He is therefore highly motivated to see Lunn re-elected, although that certainly doesn't mean he has knowledge of or any culpability in connection with the alleged fraud.

I accept that there could be an innocent explanation for this. While the NDP has discounted the possibility of their accidental involvement, its at least a possibility they had something preprogrammed which never was cancelled. Remote, but possible. There could be other parties or individuals behind this. Or it could be someone connected or supportive of the Garry Lunn campaign. After all, the stakes in this riding are higher than most.

The best we can do is ask questions and hope that Elections Canada and police investigate fully. Here are some sample questions they ought to ask:

1. Do any current or past members of the Conservative Saanich-Gulf Islands Electoral District Association (SGI EDA) have present or past connections with demon dialing services?
2. Will the SGI EDA pass on the names of those member(s) who have present or past connections with demon dialing services to the appropriate authorities, unbidden? If asked? Will they investigate on their own accord?

I have great respect for certain members of that EDA; these are people who would never knowingly be involved with such a deception. Yet my confidence in these individuals does not mean there isn't a rogue person or persons working undemocratically, and potentially illegally, under the radar without the knowledge of the EDA.

A by-the-numbers view illustrating an unusual number of individual third party advertisers supporting a single candidate

This post will be updated as new information is obtained

Yesterday I wrote about concerns I have regarding the use of the race card in the local race in my riding, Vancouver-Kingsway. Without editorializing on the content of the advertisement I thought it would be interesting to look at the issue of third-party individuals running advertisements in this riding strictly from a numbers perspective.

If one trawls through the Elections Canada databases for riding and candidate contributions, and the list of third party advertisers, you can come up with the following by-the-numbers view of the issue too. What you'll find is that third-party advertising by individuals in support of an individual candidate is extremely rare. There are thousands of candidates country-wide yet it would appear only one has attracted the individual support of multiple individual third party advertisers.

These facts and numbers infer no wrongdoing, but the facts alone do cause one to ask questions and want to look deeper at third party advertising in general and in Vancouver-Kingsway in particular. The facts as they are known today include:

1. Of the 51 entities found within Elections Canada's national list of registered third parties as of October 13, only 7 are individuals as opposed to organizations, and of those 7 one is connected to VoteForEnvironment.ca which is a multi-candidate multi-party advocacy internet site.
2. Of the remaining 6 individuals, all are from B.C.
3. Of those 6, half or 3 of the B.C. individuals are supporters of Ms. Yuan. Each of the 3 are running Chinese language advertisements in her support. Another, apparently as yet unregistered individual, appears to be also running a supporting advertisement which would have a cost such that registration of this individual would be required under the Elections Act. Each of the four third parties have been identified by the required English language text at the bottom of advertisements printed in Chinese media. The three registered individuals are:

• Alan Deng
• Wu Zhi Dong
• Yi Xin Chen

The three registered individuals have authorized advertisements benefiting Ms. Yuan in the following publications:

As might be expected, certain of these names will be found in Elections Canada reports on donations to the riding association. Nomination donations for Ms. Yuan were not available on the Elections Canada web site at time of writing.

Of thousands of candidates running in 308 ridings across the country only one candidate - Wendy Yuan - appears to have multiple third party individuals running election advertising in her support. The by-the-numbers view looks like this:

• Number of ridings: 308
• Number of candidates across the country: more than a thousand
• Number of third party advertisers in total: 51
• Number of third party advertisers supporting causes rather than individuals: 45 (best available estimate)
• Number of individual third party advertisers not supporting multiple candidates or causes: 6 (best available estimate)
• Number of other candidates having no third party advertising support: all but a handful
• Number of other candidates having multiple individual third party advertising support: zero (best available estimate)
• Number of other candidates having multiple individual third party advertising support: zero (best available estimate)
• Number of registered third party advertisers supporting Liberal candidate Wendy Yuan: 3
• Number of unregistered third party advertisers supporting Liberal candidate Wendy Yuan that likely should be registered under the Elections Act: 1
• Number of third party advertisers supporting Wendy Yuan's campaign: 4
• Number of times Wendy Yuan's campaign or third parties have used a racial appeal for votes: many

Automated telephone calls, or "daemon dialers", are being made to Saanich-Gulf Islands residents urging them to vote for a NDP candidate which has dropped out of the race. Police and Elections Canada asked to investigate.

From the dirty-tricks-are-us department:

Automated phone calls urge vote for candidate who withdrew

A number of residents in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding received recorded telephone messages Monday, urging them to vote for NDP candidate Julian West - who left the race after controversy over a public-nudity incident 12 years ago. Irene Wright, executive member of the NDP's federal riding association for Saanich-Gulf Islands, said Monday night night people started phoning her around 5 p.m. to say they had received an automated call encouraging them to vote for West in Tuesday's election.

A woman's voice in the recording said the call was endorsed by Bill Graham, president of the NDP Saanich-Gulf Islands riding association, and from the "Progressive Voters Association of Saanich-Gulf Islands."

By using caller identification information, the call's origin appeared to be the fax number at Graham's address.

"It's not coming from our fax machine," said Graham. "Somebody is fraudulently using our name and our fax number to send out a misleading message." Graham said he has checked with the federal and provincial NDP campaign offices, who told him that they have not contracted any automated calls to be put out in the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding.