Elections Canada

As much as the politics of last week’s Elections Canada raid on Tory headquarters are proving to be absorbing, there is something much more important at stake: the credibility of the independent body in charge of monitoring elections.

In a nutshell, the Conservative Party is currently accusing Elections Canada of bias. They are calling the organisation “unfair to Conservatives”, and insisting that “other parties are allowed to transfer money without any problems.”

Elections Canada, in case you hadn’t quite realised, isn’t some kind of Liberal lobby group or anti-conservative think-tank. Elections Canada is the independent body in charge of monitoring federal elections in our country. It’s the organisation which makes sure that all of our ballots are counted, that the candidates and their parties obey election laws, and that the democratic process is fully respected on voting day. They are the ones, who, after polling stations have closed, decide whether the next government will be Liberal or Conservative.

This isn’t just any job. It is a role that requires full impartiality, respect for the democratic process, and, well… competence.
Until last week, none of this was ever in question. Actually, Canadians were so confident in Elections Canada that they sent members abroad to teach other countries how elections should be run. Elections Canada was like Statistics Canada: always right.

Now though, the governing party is calling Elections Canada biased and refusing to abide to its interpretation of the law. Actually, the Conservatives are suing the Elections Canada. It’s almost like disagreeing with the results of the latest Census and suing StatsCan to prove your point. Simply put, this is unacceptable. We need to know before the next election whether Elections Canada is incompetent, with all the implications this would entail, or whether the Conservative Party simply lied.