Thursday, March 15, 2012

Now I'm Not Calling Mark Holland A Liar.....

because some of the voting irregularities he alleges occurred in the riding of Ajax-Pickering did in fact happen. It's just that Holland has the victim wrong, that would be Conservative MP Chris Alexander.

"Mark Holland, who lost to former ambassador and Tory star candidate Chris Alexander by just more than 3,000 votes, says there were so many calls inundating the Ajax-Pickering, Ont., riding he does not believe the cost could have been covered by the local Conservative campaign, and that many or most of them must have come from outside the riding."

In fact there were misleading and harrassing phone calls, with the caller identifying themselves as calling from the Conservatives. In fact, Alexander's office received angry complaints from Conservative supporters who were threatening to not vote if they continued to receive several calls a day from the party. The problem is it wasn't the party making the calls. Next:

"Mr. Holland cited other voting irregularities, which his campaign noted to local Elections Canada polling officials along with the inexplicable phone barrage, that included members of the riding’s growing Afghan community turning up to vote, but finding their names had already been counted as having cast ballots.

“The riding was bombarded with calls, and in every conceivable language. It certainly struck us that the cost of being able to have that many calls and do it in that many languages was well in excess of whatever a campaign limit would allow,” Mr. Holland said."

Actually, in regards to this allegation, my opinion, and it's just that, my opinion, Holland is full of shit. I can't think of any other way to put nicely. Holland's electoral success before the 2011 election rested on his campaign targeting the ethnic vote. Anyone who knows the riding is well aware of the time Holland spent targeting the Westney/Rossland/Salem corridor in Ajax, and the Major Oaks/Brock corridor in Pickering. The Conservative campaign focused on the vote south of Kingston Road, in the older part of Ajax. Come to think of it, Holland appears to be the first to allege robocalls in languages other than english or french. For that reason alone this ridculous allegation should be thrown on the trash heap.

I don't have enough time nor space here to list all the things the Conservative candidates have been the victims of in the riding of Ajax-Pickering, suffice to say that complaints have been made to EC, and some alleged wrondoing or contravention of rules by the Liberal campaigns.

In regards to the robocall allegations, Holland's biggest problem is he's late to the table. To further prove my point, this is an email exchange between journalist Stephen Maher and myself.

"Sir, I read your post with interest. Can you tell me: When you got the call? Did it identify as Elections Canada? What the number or area code was? Stephen MaherNational political columnist, Postmedia News. (contact info not included from email)

My reply: "Hi Stephen. I received the call on my home phone. It was quite awhile ago but I think it was on the day before the vote. No idea what the caller id number was as it was such a long time ago. If I remember correctly it stated it was Elections Canada, and was a male voice in english followed by I assume the same info in french by a female voice. Both voices sounded to be prerecorded. I do remember it wasn't a local area code though, which here is 905. And no name included with the call display. It said my polling location was at a school in the Westney, Rossland area. There were legitimate polling locations in that area, but it's the farthest one can go in Ajax from my house. I just assumed it was an error on someones part. If you have any more questions drop me an email. I'll be happy to do whatever I can. Thanks. Paul

It's important to note my reply was sent to Maher March 3. And now, March 15th Holland comes out with this tripe? In fact reports in the media weeks ago made note of the fact there were no allegations of robocalls in the riding. At the time, Holland remained silent, and now weeks later, states it's the reason he lost the election. There are a number of reasons Holland was defeated. Arrogance, gun registry, poor leadership by Ignatieff, a party polling in the low 20% range. One needs only look at the trend in voting in the riding, starting in the 2004 election forward. What you see is a consistent trendline with Liberal support slipping and Conservative support rising. In fact in the 2008 election Holland's margin of victory decreased, despite the Conservative candidate being named late, having no campaign office for the first two weeks of the campaign, etc.

So if the failed former MP wants to go down this road, I really have to ask. Are you really that pathetic Mr. Holland?

p.s. Holland lost by 3,000 votes. Today Elections Canada stated the actual number of complaints filed is 700. A number of them were legitimate complaints for the riding of Guelph. Regardless, even if one were to assume all 700 complaints arose from the riding of Ajax-Pickering, you still would have been kicked to the curb. Do the math dumb-ass.

12 comments:

maryT said...

Considering all the dirty tricks Holland pulled while an mp, from marching stolen files thru the streets to his outrageous comments in the HofC. Liberals still have not accepted they were defeated by larger numbers in the last 3 elections. And considering that it was liberals who called those un-necessary elections, the voters turned on them big time. Didn't Paul Martin call one when he had a majority with a couple of years left in his mandate. And didn't the coalition get together to charge contempt to force an election. Actions have results, just not what they wanted. And does anyone believe that the coalition was positive another minority would be elected so they could put their coup in place with Layton as PM. NDPQ in for a big shock in 2015, they will not form the govt by legal means.

paulsstuff said...

That's right Mary. They wanted an election, forced one on Canadians, and still won't accpet the results.

Sammy said...

To answer the question you posed,"are you really that pathetic Mark?"..I would respond with a resounding YES he is! This guy gave me the creeps every time I saw him on tv.A blowhard of Olympic proportions.

robins111 said...

There was a concerted effort by the Canadian firearms community to dump poor skid mark. The project was called 'Turf Mark Holland'. We sent Chris Alexander about $10,000 in small donations. As you can well imagine, his sniveling has received the contempt it deserves on the gun people's sites.

paulsstuff said...

Ya, I noticed Marky Mark never mentioned the gun lobby that actively put the boots to him.

Bec said...

Mark H is the Liberal version of P Martin.
Both blowhard jerks.
M is far more whiny and entitled while P is a foul mouthed A$$.

Separated at birth is my guess.

robins111 said...

Paulstuff... when he does do his whining about the firearms community.. its referred to as the 'well funded gun lobby'. Even though it only exists in his mind.. essentially, he spit in the face of 2 million plus Canadians, and suffered the consequences.. the funny thing is, the community isn't going to stop at him.. next up... we'll let you know.

Anonymous said...

Compare the two candidates..Mark Holland never met a mic he didn't like. He said a lot of BS in the HOC but didn't have the same guts outside of the house. He was a soft on crime Liberal who liked the criminal and thumbed his nose at victims. A teenager who never grew up. The gun registry brought him down plus his ugly mouth. He was Liberals Pat Martin. Iggy even asked Alexander to join the Liberals he was so impressive and Alexander turned him down. People still have the visions of this smart a$$ Holland on the streets with Marlene Jennings, another failed candidate, running for a mic after snooping through private Conservatives papers. He's a sneak and I wouldn't put anything past him.Alexander is a decent person and well qualified for the election which he won. Liberano soar grapes.
Ontario Girl

Anonymous said...

You may not want to call Mark Holland a liar, but how about sore loser, whining crybaby, sniveling little twit, egomaniac, and fool.

Anonymous said...

Check out this story...Ken Drydens riding...the real estate agent said he didn't see anyone show up at the fake poll the Liberals said the call sent them to...last sentence. Bogus shenanigans to me

Eduardo Harari, a volunteer on Ken Dryden's Liberal campaign in York Centre, has told Elections Canada that he received eight bilingual fake Elections Canada robocalls telling him his polling station had moved: the first on April 21, the last on May 2, election day.


"It just said that due to the large amount of people that have been voting at my current location, my voting location had been changed, to 3500 Dufferin, unit 101," he said.


Harari reported the calls to Elections Canada during the election, and then again after the story broke, after which he was interviewed by Elections Canada investigator Tim Charbonneau.


Charbonneau has also interviewed Peggy Walsh Craig, who recently told the Toronto Star that she received a similar fake Elections Canada robocall in the northern Ontario riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming. Both Harari and Craig say they received voter-identification calls earlier in the campaign, purportedly from the Conservative Party, and told them they would not be voting Conservative.


There is no evidence in either riding that the apparent effort to confuse voters was successful. A spokesman for a real estate agency at the address where Harari was directed to vote said Wednesday that they couldn't recall any voters showing up there on election day.


Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Elections+Canada+striking+information+gold+robocalls+probe+source/6309344/story.html#ixzz1pEthkhHN

Check out Peggy Walsh craig on google and who SHE is...ha

Ontario Girl

Anonymous said...

Average number of complaints to EC during any federal election: 400 to 500.

With almost 1,000,000 more ballots cast, the 2011 election has, to date, approx. 700 similar complaints.

Do the math – draw your own conclusions. Figures from EC reports to date.

Anonymous said...

It's a shame that mark is not running this riding. You people are all pathetic. Chris is the worst thing that could have happened to us. He's the real liar. "I'm 100% opposed to the Pickering airport". Had he not lied about that during the election, he wouldn't be in office right now.