Expelled in 2007 from the Conservative caucus for daring to vote his conscience on the Atlantic Accord, the MP for Cumberland Colchester Musquodoboit Valley, former Progressive Conservative Bill Casey yesterday stood in the House of Commons asking the Speaker to investigate the Conservative Party's role in attempts to discredit him during the last election. The Chronicle Herald contains a detailed account of the story.

Voters in Casey's riding easily re-elected Casey as an independent, apparently holding him in high regard.

Back in the days of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, I recall Bill once led a fund-raiser for prairie cattle farmers who had been suffering greatly due to drought conditions that year. He arranged for feed to be bought and sent by train to the region. To me this concern for our fellow citizens seemed iconic of the best of the Canadian spirit - here was an Atlantic Canadian spearheading a fund-raiser for Albertan farmers.

At the outset let me state that I do not agree with the premise the Conservative Party supporters are promoting - that a coalition government is somehow undemocratic. In our parliamentary system a coalition government is entirely democratic.

Against

• Rally for Canada, provides a listing of rallies not in favour of the coalition
• National Citizens Coalition, Stephen Harper's old employer
• Petition on-line calling for an election

For

• Make Parliament Work, provides a listing of rallies in favour of the coalition; also in French: Pour un parlement qui marche.
• Canadians for a Progressive Coalition, contains an on-line petition (no email address required) and other resources; Candles for a Coalition, Thursday Dec/ 4.
• Smart Vote 2008, provides an on-line letter writing utility in support of the coalition
• Canadian Labour Congress provides its own basis for support of the proposed coalition
• Defend Our Democracy makes the point that Green plus Bloc plus NDP plus Liberal votes equals Canada's Majority. Provides a petition as well as a very useful letter writing tool.
• 62% Majority You are part of the 62% majority. Be part of the change.

We do not go to the polls to elect a Prime Minister or even a government, a fact lost on most voters. We elect members of parliament to represent us and it is these members who are then called upon to form a government, usually based on which party has the largest standing in the House.

When one party has a majority of the seats, the nature of the government is a simple outcome. When, as has been the case for the past three elections, no party enjoys a majority of seats, then the Governor General will request one party to form the government if they have a sufficient plurality of seats to provide stability in government. Thus a Martin, and two Harper, minority governments were formed.

If no one party can provide a sufficient plurality of seats, the Governor General will ask for or entertain proposals from a coalition of parties who may wish to form a stable government. If no coalition can be formed, the Governor General has no option but to call another election. The key determining factor for the Governor General should always be stability in government.

Mr. Harper has shown by his actions that his government is unable to obtain and hold the confidence of the majority of the House of Commons, thus putting the government in an unstable position with no expectation that this situation will change. It is therefore a logical and completely democratic decision to approve the coalition government proposal put forth by the opposition parties who, it must be repeated, occupy the majority of seats in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives have little recourse. Stephen Harper has played his hand and badly so. They will try to rally public opinion with the faint hope that public expression can hamper the Governor General from accepting a coalition government. We'll see a media blitz soon enough, in addition to rallies planned for across the country.

Those advocating for a coalition government have the entirety of parliamentary history on their side, and the numbers in the House of Commons to make a coalition work.

The Governor General has only three choices. Call a new election - completely unacceptable given the proposal which has been made to form a coalition government. Proroguing parliament - cancelling this session - mere weeks after it started and with not a single bit of legislation passed is likewise not an option. With an election having just been concluded the Governor General has little option but to seriously entertain the coalition proposal.

Rallies supporting the coalition are also planned in the lead up to what will likely be a vote of non confidence in the government next week.

Two floor-crossers who ran were unceremoniously run out of parliament, perhaps haunted by the curse of David Emerson, uber-floor-crosser of them all.

While David Emerson wasn't the first floor-crosser muck with the democratic process, he'll go down in history as its worst example to be sure. Lets not forget that in this parliament, like peas in a pod, Emerson had company.

David Emerson was later joined in the floor-crossers hall of infamy by former Liberal then Conservative now nothing Wajid Khan, and by former Conservative then independent then Liberal Garth Turner. Where are they now? As of Tuesday's election results, all three are removed from parliament. Only two bothered to try for re-election, Emerson was too chicken to run.

One February morning about two and a half years ago David Emerson shocked the nation when he turned up at Rideau Hall to be sworn in as a member of Stephen Harper's Conservative cabinet. Only two weeks prior he'd been a sitting Liberal cabinet minister, re-elected in no small part thanks to his vow to be Stephen Harper's worst nightmare.

Reaction was immediate and intense. From the start it was clear that Emerson's virtually instant defection was not viewed as a Vancouver-Kingsway specific issue but one of national concern. Vancouverites supported by democracy loving Canadians from right across the country, including even conservatives, erupted in sustained furor which carried on for months. One thousand De-Elect Emerson campaign signs sprouted on lawns all over the city, urged on by Emerson himself who called his detractors "locusts", and by Harper who claimed the outrage was the work of only a handful of partisan protesters.

This chronic lack of understanding of Canadians is precisely why Harper has twice been restricted to minority governments, and despite the apparent strength of his recent win, my instinct is Harper will not politically survive the next attempt.

Contrary to Harper's assertions, support for the effort was both broad and non-partisan, and only grew each time he or Emerson opened their mouths. Indeed the De-Elect Emerson Campaign mailboxes were filled to overflowing with letters of support, spiced with only an occasional and usually lamentable attack. Harper continued his own attacks on democracy, stooping at one point to rip into Parliament's own Ethics Commissioner , Bernard Shapiro, who, rightly, responded to public pressure by calling an inquiry into the Emerson Affair.

Public anger continued to mount despite or because of various outlets including standing-room only town hall meetings, numerous street corner protests and the on-going lawn sign campaign. A plane buzzed parliament pulling a giant banner suggesting "Emerson Call Home"; more De-Elect Emerson lawn signs started showing up outside Vancouver on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa and Montreal, even in Pictou-Antigonish, home of Progressive Conservative Party sell-out Peter MacKay. Public fury ran unabated. A hastily arranged rally and protest march drew out over nine hundred young and old, from every ethnic group imaginable, one breezy April Sunday. The value of our vote had been more than devalued, it'd been as good as ripped from our hands by Harper and Emerson and as we marched down Kingsway past Emerson's constituency office, we all had a sense that what we were doing could at least make a small difference.

Politicians were not universally sympathetic, and Liberals, despite claims by Conservatives that they were supporting our campaign, were actually less than helpful. For example, despite being reminded that his native India had passed legislation restricting floor-crossing, Vancouver South Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh, who in current times is now claiming high and mighty moral indignation over what he perceives as the centre / centre-left abandoning him, refused to support our call for legislation.

Dosanjh wasn't the only one keeping quiet. Every Conservative MP who had voted for floor-crossing legislation in an earlier parliament shut up tighter than a west coast mussel. Former MP for Liberal Vancouver Quadra Stephen Owen (who was also critic for Democratic Reform) empathized with our concerns but refused to speak out publicly against his "friend" Emerson. Still a number of MP's from various parties (notably the NDP which to this day continues to support a floor-crossing ban) responded to our campaign's calls for support.

We've learned a lot from the l'affair Emerson and you can be sure this knowledge is ready to be shared with any constituency which falls victim to a politician that follows Emerson's footsteps, regardless of party or direction, in the future.

Considering what happened to Emerson, and the fate of other floor-crossers from this last parliament, with any luck other Canadians will be spared this ignominy for some time.

This is an update to the news Conservative Garry Lunn has been the beneficiary of suspicious third party advertising.

Galloping Beaver digs a little deeper into the story first reported in the Tyee, drawing lines between the third-party advertisers and Calgary based oil and gas giant EnCana Corp. This puts lie to the claim by Stephen Harper that his changes to the Elections Act have limited corporate influence in our electoral process - changes to the Elections Act have merely forced corporate influence further underground.

I'll add that newly minted west-coaster Gwyn Morgan, the former CEO of EnCana, was also a financial backer of Stephen Harper and at least one other cabinet minister. As one of his first acts following the 2006 election, Harper attempted to get Morgan nominated as chair of the federal government's public appointments board. Opposition parties nixed that.

It is my earnest submission that signing the Kyoto Protocol would go down in history as one of the most damaging international agreements ever signed by a Canadian Prime Minister. Gwyn Morgan, former CEO EnCana Corp

Yet Gwyn Morgan's influence on the national stage has remained constant. Currently Morgan writes a regular column for the business pages of the Globe and Mail. His former company, EnCana, of which he was the driving force and founding CEO, is lobbying for opening B.C. coastal waters to increased oil tanker traffic (Oil, Water, Salmon Do Not Mix). The company plans to build a bi-directional "gateway" (a term David Emerson uses frequently) pipeline to the coast from Alberta.

Morgan was also one of the principal forces behind the Alberta oil and gas community's fight against Kyoto, a passion he shared with then Opposition Leader Stephen Harper. (Harper: Past, Present, Future Inaction on Climate Change)

Having lost the battle for the environment at the federal level, coastal oil and gas development, pipeline terminals, and tanker traffic needs to become a front of mind issue-and in a hurry-such that it becomes one of the major ballot questions in the upcoming provincial election.

British Columbians don't want to see more oil and gas development at the expense of real progress in building alternative sources of energy for our province. We certainly do not want to see oil and gas exploration on our coastal waters, nor tankers plying our dangerous but incredibly beautiful and productive coasts. Gordon Campbell has tried to innoculate himself against criticism from environmentalists by adopting a carbon tax (a policy, if not an implementation, which I support) yet with his other hand behind his back he is enabling everything which British Columbians have repeatedly spoken against.

Record low voter turnout, blindness to the important issues - we get the government we deserve

Two days ago I detailed 3rd party advertising done on behalf of Wendy Yuan, Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Kingsway.

Today there's a similar story in The Tyee covering a number of groups - all sharing the same address - who registered as 3rd parties in support of Conservative Garry Lunn who had been facing a formidable battle to keep his seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

The groups are Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria, the Dean Park Advocacy Association, the Economic Advisory Council of Saanich and the Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council. Their respective contacts are Donna Evans, Ralph Bodine, Patricia Trottier and Dana Dickinson.

Interestingly, all four share the same address, 800-1070 Douglas Street in downtown Victoria, the office of the law firm Crease Harman and Company. They also share the same phone number. The receptionist said she'd never heard of Evans, Bodine, Trottier or Dickinson. Andrew Macleod, Oct. 15 2008 The Tyee

One wonders if any of those groups paid for auto dialing services. One also wonders how effective third party election advertising restrictions really are.

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.

Liberal candidate Wendy Yuan denies playing the race card (Oct 11, Georgia Straight)

Patrick Tam

A story in local press erupts over concerns raised by local political photographer, Patrick Tam, that the Yuan campaign is engaging in race-politics.

Such suggestions could be made about many campaigns across the country, and I'm not sure I would have looked carefully at this article except for the fact that Tam is the one that lodged the complaint. Tam covers political events for all parties, and in all my interactions with him, the strong impression made upon me by Patrick is that he is a man of fairness and integrity. Between Tam's involvement and the fact that it's playing out in my riding the story has naturally caught my attention.

Here is the advertisement which sparked the controversy. Note it's paid for by a third party. The campaign denies foreknowledge, of course.

Additionally, an official advertisement released by the Yuan campaign exhorts:

Please unite, on 10/14 cast a vote for your ethnic Chinese candidate, Wendy Yuan.

Patrick points this out as a racist appeal for votes and I agree. Candidates shouldn't be asking for the vote based on their race or skin colour, and nor should their supporters. Sadly this approach typifies much of campaign 2008 where the politics of attack and division have dominated over that of ideas and the future.

Here is the response by Yuan's principal challenger, Don Davies.

This article updated to include a more accurate translation of the quote attributed to the Yuan campaign as well as further coverage of this story:

• Critic accuses Liberal Yuan of prejudice (Oct 13, The Tyee)