Dirty tricks

This is pretty pathetic - it makes the vandalism of campaign signs seem trivial:


TORONTO & SIMCOE – Liberals are warning residents about harassing phone calls as evidence mounts of an aggressive, unethical scheme organised and coordinated by the Liberal Party's political opponents.

In several ridings, residents are receiving rude, harassing phone calls from a "701" North Dakota area code that fraudulently represents itself as calling from a Liberal campaign. Reports made to campaign offices confirm that the calls have been made repeatedly, sometimes very late at night or early in the morning.

"These harassing and rude phone calls, originating from an American area code, are not being made by Liberal campaigns," said Joe Volpe, Liberal candidate for Eglinton-Lawrence. "Only our political opponents would benefit from these incessant phone calls, a tactic taken straight from the Republican dirty-tricks playbook."

"My campaign office in Eglinton-Lawrence received one of these phony calls, in which the caller stated they were calling from my campaign. When the caller was pushed by a volunteer to state where she was calling from, the caller admitted she was making the calls from a company called Dynamics," said Mr. Volpe.

These Republican-style phone calls, first discovered in Mr. Volpe's Eglinton-Lawrence riding, have also taken place in the ridings of Saint Boniface, Hull-Aylmer, Egmont, St. Paul's, Guelph, Simcoe Grey, Haldimand-Norfolk, Mississauga East-Cooksville, and Oakville.

Liberal Haldimand-Norfolk candidate Bob Speller called the phone campaign "a troubling and unwelcome development which unfortunately says something about the current state of politics in our country.