UPDATE: The Conservative Party has confirmed it is targeting MP Irwin Cotler's Montreal riding, which has resulted in rumours of the Liberal MP stepping down.
The Tories hired a company called Campaign Research to call Mount Royal constituents and identify voters, a Conservative representative told the Globe and Mail. The representative maintains that identifying voters is a common practice year-round.
Read more at TheGlobeandMail.com
There is no "pending" or "imminent" by-election in my riding of Mount Royal. However, if you heard otherwise, you wouldn't be alone.
For the past two weeks, calls, faxes, and emails have been pouring into my constituency office asking about a by-election. It quickly became clear that constituents had been contacted by a call service -- identified by caller ID as "Campaign Research" -- and asked whether they would support the Conservatives -- and/or Stephen Harper -- in the upcoming by-election. When some callers questioned whether there was a by-election, they were told either that I had resigned or that I would be resigning imminently.
I rose in the House to assert that these calls were a "breach of privilege" -- violating the right of a member of Parliament to perform his or her work unimpeded while sowing confusion in the minds of the electorate. I believe this would be the case for any member of Parliament targeted by these calls -- and my point was supported by members of the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Green Party. Simply put, if we allow these false and misleading calls to be made, constituents may become confused as to who their member of Parliament is, and may be caused to think he or she has stepped or is stepping down.
The larger problem with these calls has been their consequence for my work; namely, the calls have overshadowed all of my parliamentary initiatives and advocacy efforts. In my riding this past weekend, I was stopped at every turn by constituents asking if it were true that I was resigning. And, since the calls began, every journalist with whom I've had a discussion has brought up the calls.
Because of the coverage these calls have received, no attention has been paid to the nearly 40 amendments I proposed to the omnibus crime legislation, Bill C-10. No major papers devoted any article space to my serving as international legal counsel in the case and cause of Maikel Naibil, a leader of the Tahrir Square revolution and now one of Egypt's first political prisoners in the post-Mubarak era, a man whose life hangs by a thread as he has been on a hunger strike for some 95 days.
I spoke in the House 10 times this past week -- expressing concern that the crime bill violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom; calling upon the government -- as had Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier -- to table the evidence in support of its omnibus crime legislation, and in particular its overhaul of the Youth Criminal Justice Act; and, speaking at length in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in critique of the Government's attempt to shut down debate on its legislation.
Further, and also still just in the course of one week in Parliament, I introduced a bill to protect Canadians detained or imprisoned abroad, spoke out against Chinese repression of Tibetan monks, warned of mass atrocities in the Sudan, and pressed for tougher Iranian sanctions, including listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization in Canada. All of this seemingly fell on deaf ears.
While I don't expect the press to follow MPs at every turn, even on subjects I thought would garner coverage -- and be of particular interest to those in the press -- such as some of the subjects above and the parliamentary debate over hate speech and Human Rights Commissions in which I participated -- all went practically unreported.
While there is a certain societal fascination with the scandalous and salacious -- particularly in politics -- we cannot let it overshadow the real issues and their merits. Indeed, this is why the false calls are so particularly disturbing -- they have nothing to do with my record or stance on the issues. They create a non-issue and adopt it as a premise. While I'm happy to engage with constituents and have debate, dialogue, and discussion on the issues, it is impossible to engage with spurious attacks that confuse and cloud the issues -- and obscure the real ones and the public right to know.
Indeed, this is why the House should rule against the acceptability of these calls. Parliamentarians -- indeed all Canadians -- deserve better.
Irwin Cotler is the Member of Parliament for Mount Royal. He is the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.