Bob Rae, MP

It’s time for a Royal Commission on election fraud

Misleading, harassing phone calls? Instant-voters with no address? Not in my Canada. It’s time for the truth.

That’s why yesterday in Question Period I called on the Conservative Government to immediately launch a Royal Commission on electoral fraud.

And that’s why today the Liberal Party of Canada proactively disclosed its calling data related to the 2011 federal campaign to assist Elections Canada with their ongoing investigation, setting the standard for openness and transparency.

We need to determine whether the Canada Elections Act and other Canadian laws are sufficient to protect your right to vote.

Only an independent, fully-empowered Royal Commission, alongside the Elections Canada investigation – and any possible investigation by the RCMP – can rebuild that trust.

Please click here to sign the petition and add your voice to the call for a Royal Commission on election fraud.

Then please forward this email to family and friends and share the petition on Facebook and Twitter – because a Canada that protects your right to vote is worth fighting for.

http://lpc.ca/royalcommission

Thank you.

Bob Rae

US Crisis Has Some Lessons For Canadians

The deep partisanship that has marked the crisis in the United States Congress has some lessons for Canadians.  Polarisation is not the “new normal,” as New Democrats and Conservatives are preaching.  It corrodes the body politic and takes us away from the simple truth that most people want a moderate, intelligent politics that’s based on facts, evidence, good values and compromise. 

In 1991-92 the first ministers of the country met many times to discuss the constitution.  In the corridors and in the inevitable discussions late at night we would gather together to talk about what was really on our minds – the economy and the state of public finances.  The recession was taking its toll, and a “Canadian consensus” began to emerge – the country, and its provinces had to get their finances in better shape.  The twenty year process of increasing deficits and debts had to come to an end.  It was not a Progressive Conservative insight, or a New Democratic one, or a Liberal view, it was simply a widely shared, practical perspective that there were limits to borrowing, and that it would take a common commitment to get us to a better place.

It was not easy, but it was also not bitterly partisan.  When Jean Chretien became Prime Minister in 1993, and began his own deficit attack a year later, most Canadians understood that it had to be done at the federal level as well as in every province. 

The red/blue left/right split in America makes bi-partisanship almost impossible, and has taken that country to an entirely avoidable brink.  As President Obama stated this morning, this is not some natural disaster beyond the wit of people to resolve.  It is fixable and takes political will and a sense of the common good to fix it.

Most Canadians do not actually want a viciously partisan, left/right divide in this country.  Despite Stephen Harper’s musings, the country has not suddenly turned hard right.  Sixty percent of Canadians voted against Mr Harper’s party and its politics.  And we need to understand that most goals in politics, as they are in hockey or soccer, are scored from the centre.  That’s where the action is, and that’s where most Canadians are.

But not the dead centre where it’s safety first and always ‘on the one hand and the other hand,’ but rather an action-filled, resilient, and lively centre that is not afraid of ideas, debate, and looking at issues afresh.  And that’s where the Liberal Party needs to be as well. 

The one note the Conservatives can’t seem to avoid is the note of smugness and arrogance – about the election, about everyone else’s finances, about whatever issue they discuss.

The Conservatives insist that Canada’s economic record is light years ahead of the rest of the world.  And yet the Canadian economy actually shrunk in May, and the combined debt of all governments in Canada – the number that matters in a federal country where provinces can borrow on the open market – is well over a trillion dollars.  We have no grounds for smugness, and no basis for arrogance.

Somali Diaspora Can Help Canada Lead

At Cafe Sinai in Scarborough a man stood up at the end of a hastily convened community meeting and said “Somalia is broken but we are still human beings and we are not broken.”

Canada’s big aid agencies need to listen carefully to the activists in the community who know what has happened and want to help.  The people I met with today want a special envoy to be appointed to emphasize the need for political solutions, and encouraged parliamentarians to meet quickly to deal with the full depth of the humanitarian crisis.

“Cut the red tape and bureaucracy” was a common cry, as was the need for the Canadian government to meet with the diverse Somali community to discuss how to help and respond.

There was disagreement as well as discussion.  Some urged donations to charities that others said were not necessarily reliable or on the ground.  Any government has to insist on accountability and transparency before matching funds.

We need to harness the knowledge and energy of Canada’s Somali community as we respond with the rest of the world to the famine that has now struck the Horn of Africa. We have a chance to show we’re ready for the world and ready for leadership.

Nature Makes A Drought, But Politics Makes A Famine

The full dimensions of the humanitarian crisis in the horn of Africa – in Somalia, Ethiopia and northern Kenya – are now becoming clear.  The lives [...]

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Statement by the Hon. Bob Rae, MP and the Hon. Glen Murray, MPP

Earlier today, a suspicious package was delivered to my constituency office in Toronto. The situation was resolved without incident or harm to any member of my staff.

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