Democracy Watch has a published a new media release. Here's the first three paragraphs:
OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch called on the federal Conservatives to introduce the bill to ban false election robocalls and strengthen election law enforcement that they promised to introduce by the end of September under a resolution passed unanimously last March by federal politicians.
Democracy Watch's national letter-writing and petition drive has resulted in more than 56,000 messages being sent to politicians across Canada calling on them to pass effective laws to stop election fraud robocalls, and to strengthen enforcement of election laws.
To their credit, the federal Liberals introduced private member Bill C-424 last May to increase fines for false robocalls and other fraudulent attempts to sway voters from $2,000-$5,000 up to $20,000 to $50,000. The Conservatives rejected Bill C-424 on Wednesday (Nov. 21).
56,000 messages actually doesn't seem like all that much. Surely there are more Canadians than that who want to see the health of our democracy protected. The Conservatives have made it pretty obvious that they'll stall on this as long as possible; they don't seem likely to act without a lot more pressure. If you agree, perhaps you'd like to send a letter. And even if you don't, there's a Rick Mercer rant at the bottom of that page so you might want to drop by anyway.
