Foreign influence in elections is a long-standing tradition that has ramped up in recent decades with the growing influence of the regressive movement’s focus on open borders, a global economy, and global citizenship.
Years ago, I saw a story about European leftists demanding the right to vote in American elections, and I was appalled. The logic was that because America is a—the—world leader, all the world’s citizens should have a say in, and cast a countable vote for, who runs our country . . . and the world.
U. S. meddling in foreign elections has always been explained as serving our national interests. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn’t.
Who can forget Hillary cackling gleefully about the death of Gaddafi? Or Obama funneling taxpayer money to a left-leaning Israeli campaign infrastructure in an attempt to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu?
As the American media obsesses about purported Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, a new report about foreign influence in the Canadian elections that resulted in a win for far-left Justin Trudeau has been released. The study reveals that millions in foreign moneys were spent to defeat then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Foreign money funnelled towards Canadian political advocacy groups affected the outcome of the 2015 federal election, according to a document filed last week with Elections Canada and obtained in part by the Calgary Herald.The 36-page report entitled: Elections Canada Complaint Regarding Foreign Influence in the 2015 Canadian Election, alleges third parties worked with each other, which may have bypassed election spending limits — all of which appears to be in contravention of the Canada Elections Act.The Canada Elections Act states that “a third party shall not circumvent, or attempt to circumvent, a limit set out . . . in any manner, including by splitting itself into two or more third parties for the purpose of circumventing the limit or acting in collusion with another third party so that their combined election advertising expenses exceed the limit.”“Electoral outcomes were influenced,” alleges the report.
The leftist Tides Foundation was particularly active in contributing to Harper’s defeat, and Obama’s campaign operatives were on-the-ground in Canada helping Trudeau.
The National Post continues:
In total, the 114 third parties spent $6 million and many of those third parties were funded by California-and New York-based Tides Foundation — which is known in Canada for holding numerous anti-Canadian oil campaigns.In 2015, Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million of U.S. money to Canadian third parties in the election year, according to the report.Crockatt’s seat was one of the 29 targeted by an organization called Leadnow through its “largest ever campaign” called Vote Together. The complaint by Canada Decides alleges that foreign money “spawned” Leadnow and helped fund an elaborate campaign to oust the ruling Conservative Party.. . . . Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt says Canadians should be concerned about any kind of foreign involvement in our elections.“The whole concept and idea of foreign influence in an election is an important issue and is something that Canadians should not tolerate,” Bratt said Monday.
According to the Toronto Star, the Canadian Conservative party is filing formal complaints about foreign influence in the election.
However, news of the soaring number came on a day when two Conservative party members publicized their own formal complaints about improper foreign influence by the left-leaning U.S.-based environmental pressure group, Tides Foundation, in the last campaign.Alberta MP Michael Cooper, the Conservative deputy justice critic, wrote to Côté’s office to ask him to begin an investigation into almost $700,000 in contributions from Tides to eight Canadian registered third-parties in 2015.Cooper listed the Council of Canadians, Dogwood Initiative, Ecology Ottawa, Equieterre, Greenpeace Canada, Toronto350, West Coast Environmental Law Association, West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation — as groups he said received money from the U.S. advocacy group.
Cooper’s complaint is that these groups received thousands of dollars from a U.S. interest group during the same year as an election in which they were active as third-party campaigners. It is possible that they used this money on election advertising, which could contravene sections of the Elections Canada Act that prohibit foreign influence on voters as well as the use of foreign-donations on election campaign advertising by third parties, he said in an interview.Cooper pointed to Côté’s testimony before a Senate committee, in which Côté said his office interprets the law to mean third parties can’t use foreign contributions on election advertising within the six months before the writ is dropped. That means any money from Tides between February 2015 and election day in October would be offside, Cooper said.“There was a clear, clean transfer of money,” Cooper told the Star on Tuesday. “That raises broader concerns about foreign entities and foreign interests trying to influence our democratic politics.”In addition to Cooper’s call for an investigation, former Conservative MP Joan Crockatt — who lost her seat in Calgary in 2015 — says she submitted a separate complaint to Elections Canada. Her allegation is based on a report from her group Canada Decides, which she said investigated the flow of $1.96 million in foreign money from the Tides Foundation to third party groups in Canada that were active during the 2015 vote.
Just as Democrat politicians demurred from allegations of external, foreign tampering with elections while Obama was president (and allotting taxpayer dollars to influence the Israeli elections), the Canadian left declines to comment on potential foreign tampering, from which they benefited, in their elections:
For its part, the Liberal party has not filed any complaints about undue foreign influence in the last campaign.“The Liberal Party of Canada has not filed complaints in this regard,” said spokesman Braeden Caley. “The government has indicated that it intends to review the limits that political parties and third parties can spend during and between elections, and the Liberal Party of Canada welcomes that review.
Election tampering for me, but not for thee?
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