Ted Musson makes a cross-country trek to protest robocalls

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      About a year ago, Victoria’s Ted Musson told the Straight he would be going on a cross-country trek to protest the voter suppression that happened during the 2011 federal election.

      The 70-year-old retired carpenter says that after several delays, he’s finally on his way. He arrived in Vancouver on June 15, almost a month after marking his first day on the road on May 19.

      “I’m in no rush,” Musson said in an interview on June 17 inside his motor home, which was parked on a quiet Vancouver street.

      A federal court ruled on May 23 that fraud was committed when misleading telephone calls, or robocalls, were made by unknown individuals to voters across the country pointing them to incorrect polling locations. Judge Richard Mosley noted in his decision that the “most likely” source of information used in making the calls was a database controlled by the Conservative Party of Canada. But the judge neither annulled the results of the election in the six ridings in question nor found that the use of the database information was approved by the Conservative party.

      The outcome of the court challenge filed by a number of voters and the Council of Canadians hasn’t changed Musson’s view that the current Conservative government is illegitimate. “They didn’t win the election,” he said.

      The federal government has a mandate until 2015, and Musson says he doesn’t mind if it takes him until that year to walk and drive to Ottawa. He is chronicling his journey at electionfraud2011.wordpress.com/. He can be reached at 778-350-3625.

      Comments

      2 Comments

      G

      Jun 21, 2013 at 10:37am

      The "robocalls" scandal has been mismanaged by the Council of Canadians. Their failure to proceed with due diligence with respect to some of the claims they supported showed their partisan motivation. They succumbed to partisan hyperbole which is something that must be avoided when structuring a legal challenge and supported claims that proved to be false which undermined their case. Rather than a dispassionate analysis the CoC provided a partisan denunciation of the Cons, something appealing to the anti-Con herd but not relevant in court.

      Doug Pederson

      Jul 15, 2013 at 3:20pm

      Just met Ted this morning 15Jul2013
      He has a transmission problem here in Osoyoos.
      He obviously use some help in his walk.

      Good going Ted. We need more people like you