Sunday, March 4, 2012

Two Canadian Political Parties In Hot Water Over Use Of Technology


Bob Rae
Bob Rae. Image taken on January 11, 2007 by Will Pate.
During elections, people often get a recorded message on their telephone that reminds them to vote and tells them where to go, to vote.
These messages, which use pre-recorded voices, are known as robo-calls.
Canada’s federal Conservative party is being accused of using robo-calls to mislead the public, during last year’s election.
The RCMP and Elections Canada (the group that makes the rules for elections), are looking into accusations that some robo-calls steered voters to the wrong polling station, or to polling stations that didn’t even exist, which would be illegal.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he doesn’t know anything about the illegal robo-calls.
One member of Harper’s Conservative party, Michael Sona, has been accused of setting up the calls, but he denies doing it. Sona has quit his job because of the pressure of the accusations.
Meanwhile, the Liberals are also in hot water.
They used Twitter (a “social media” website) to spread some personal information about a Conservative MP.
Bob Rae, who is the interim leader of the Liberals, apologized to the MP in the House of Commons this week.
Although it was Rae’s staff member who did the tweeting, Rae took full responsibility; he said the party’s leader is always responsible for what his staff and party members do.

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