Hundreds protest robocall scandal in downtown Vancouver

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Hundreds of people attended a robocall rally in downtown Vancouver Saturday afternoon demanding an inquiry into the scandal and perhaps even some byelections.

“Who’s vote? Our vote!” was the chant as about 400 activists marched from the Vancouver Art Gallery to Victory Square.

Protester Daniel Stover was among them.

“It’s not even standing up for democracy, we’re standing up for the country,” he said.

Leilani Riddle also spent her afternoon at the protest.

“We send observers into other countries to make sure that they have democratic elections, and yet it appears we don’t have them ourselves,” she said.

Jon Holmes, carrying an upside down Canadian flag, said he has had it with the Conservative government.

“An upside down flag is the international sign of distress, in that it’s non-confidence in our government,” he said.

Many said if wrongdoing can be proven, new elections should be called.

“Any riding where the robocalls were shown to have been done — been illegally done — they should have byelections in every one of those ridings,” said Stover.

Vancouver East MP Libby Davies was there to address the crowd.

“We’re going to keep demanding a public inquiry — an independent public inquiry — until we get to the bottom of this sordid mess,” she said.

Vancouver Quadra MP Joyce Murray also riled up the protestors.  

“It is not nothing to Canadians,” she said. “Canadians died for this, Canadians care about this: Our right to vote.”

More than 31,000 reports of possible election fraud during the May federal election campaign are under review by Elections Canada.

The flood of calls began after details were made public about an Elections Canada investigation into reports of voters in Guelph, Ont., being told to go to polls that didn’t exist. Since then, people from dozens of ridings have reported receiving similar calls.

The Harper government has acknowledged there was a problem with the campaign in Guelph and a party staffer connected with the campaign there has resigned.

Similar protests to the one in Vancouver happened across Canada on Saturday.

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