Robocalls - The "We Just Kidding" Excuse

The legal action around the 2011 robocall scandal is another reminder that real-life legal proceedings are nothing like Law & Order; one hour and you're done! The bad guys are in jail, and it's on to the next case. The comparatively glacial pace of real-life legal matters as compared to their fictional TV counterparts in understandable - We want justice, and we want it now! - but the wheels of jurisprudence grind slowly and deliberately. Every once and a while though, news breaks and we get somewhat closer to a resolution.

In the news this week were the details of a partially lifted publication ban on the case thus far against Michael Sona, director of communications for the Guelph campaign of Marty Burke during the 2011 election. Sona is charged with wilfully preventing or endeavouring to prevent a voter from casting a ballot, and the court placed a publication ban on the case this past August. After petitioning by various media sources, including PostMedia and the CBC, the ban was partially lifted in September, but the full ban coming off this past Wednesday. As for Sona himself, court proceedings have been held over till June at which point it will be decided whether or not Sona will be taken to trial, but the new papers suggest that he maybe somewhat less than the innocent pawn he's been selling himself as since he was thrown under the bus by the party he so loyally served last year.

Sona Gets a Bygones From Elections Canada

Michael Sona, a Conservative Party staffer and communications director for the Guelph campaign of Marty Burke last Federal Election, was the first to be thrown under the bus when the robocall scandal broke last March. But it seems that the indictment in the court of public opinion might may been a bit premature. 

Today's news is that Elections Canada investigator Al Mathews seems to have misquoted Burke campaign volunteer Matthew McBain, who you'll remember was asked about Sona's possible involvement in the robocalls when another staffer said he directed Sona to McBain when he asked about “looking about doing some stuff that might not be okay." 

McBain had responded that he had thought that Sona was interested in doing something more akin to prank calling, than a widespread effort to disenfranchise Guelph voters, but to clarify, Matthews said that a report he released unintentionally implied that Sona was talking to McBain about the latter and not the former.