Elizabeth May Warns of Robocalls and Other Shenanigans

Elizabeth May brought the Green Party national campaign to the University of Guelph earlier today to talk about their platform for education in Canada. The conversation after the announcement though turned to the young people the Green Party and May are courting, and whether or not they might be depended upon to make it out to the polls on October 19. May's answer reference a fairly infamous chapter in Guelph political history.

Voting is all important, May said before explaining why in particular reference to the Royal City:

"This riding, Guelph, is ground zero for attempts to defraud voters of their right to vote in the 2011 election. This riding is ground zero for the proof that whoever committed multiple criminal offenses across this country in trying to deny people the right to vote, got away with it, because they stopped with throwing a young member of the Conservative party to the wolves, and decided that letting Michael Sona go to jail was okay even though the judge's decision in that case, Mr. Justice Hearn, who lives in this community, was very clear that Michael Sona couldn't have done more than aided and abetted the crime. He could not have organized it, and there the investigation dropped. 

Could you imagine a criminal offense more significant than a widespread effort through hundreds of ridings to defraud Canadians of their constitutionally enshrined right to vote, and no investigation takes place after a judge in a criminal court says this guy didn't do it? He knew about it, he may have aided and abetted, but he didn't do it. And yet, okay, our work is done says the established law enforcement agencies of this country, no need to look any further into a widespread attempt to defraud the Canadian electorate of their right to vote. Every Canadian has the right to vote, and in this election you may have to fight for it. Don't wait for election Day. Go early, go to your returning office, make sure you are registered to vote, and by the way, you can vote any day now if you go to the returning office."

May added that established parties are counting on voter apathy to keep voters away from the polls on Election Day pointing out that in the last Federal Election 40 per cent of the voters didn't cast a ballot representing the "single largest voting block, the 'We didn't vote party.'"

"We have to engage every single citizen," she added. "When you don't cast a ballot in an election, you're not punishing the people who've turned you off democracy, you're rewarding them because guess what? They don't want you to vote."

You can watch the video from the press conference below.