The person or persons responsible for thousands of misleading
robocalls during the last federal election will likely never face
criminal sanctions, and the penalties available under the Canada
Elections Act are such that they provide little deterrence.
Those are two of the revelations
contained in a discussion paper released this week by Elections Canada
looking at “improper telecommunications with electors” connected to the
2011 federal election.
The paper notes provisions of the Criminal Code “may be of limited assistance in dealing with inappropriate communications.”
It is unlikely the misleading
robocalls would meet the test for a criminal conviction for mischief or
for making harassing calls, for example. And a criminal conviction for
personation requires “the personation must be of a real person,” the
paper states. “The offence would not be applicable to a call or caller
represented as ‘Elections Canada,’ nor to a fictitious character such as
Pierre Poutine.”
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