30-10-95 PPS. "Referendum fraud one of greatest scandals in our political history"

On m'a fait savoir que j'ai fourni un lien défunt quand j'ai cité l'article de Webster dans mon billet 30 octobre 1995 et suites : je me souviens. J'ai corrigé cette situation, et pour rendre autant justice à Webster que j'en ai rendue à son collègue Macpherson, je cite l'article au complet, çi-bas :
Referendum fraud one of greatest scandals in our political history
 
BY THE GAZETTE (MONTREAL)JUNE 1, 2008 
 
Those "spoiled" referendum ballots from 1995, off for burning or shredding or kitty litter or whatever, represent a huge failure of Quebec society. What we have here is inaction in one of the great political scandals in Canadian history - arguably, the greatest of them all. If it had succeeded, its consequences would have far outranked the Pacific scandal or Beauharnois, Munsinger or sponsorship.

To recapitulate, many thousands of perfectly valid No votes in the sovereignty referendum were thrown out by Parti Québécois poll officials. More such votes were accepted only because observers on the scene raised a stink. Nobody knows how many No votes across the province were, or almost were, illegally invalidated - but their total could have been decisive in what everyone knew would be a skin-of-the-teeth poll.

Simply put, this was fraud that could have cost us our country.

Now, you might think this would qualify as a Big Deal. You might think it merited serious investigation, followed by ruthless prosecution, followed smartly by a few large cheeses being strung up by their thumbs, preferably in public and in prime time. The message might have gotten through that Quebecers will not accept this sort of criminality.

Yet none of the institutions we depend on for truth and justice seem to give a damn. All have given it the big yawn. Banana republics are, by comparison, models of diligence and integrity.

When the affair hit the light soon after the referendum, thanks to sleuthing by The Gazette's William Marsden, Quebec's election commissar could hardly bring himself to take notice. His successors, true to form, have laboured on the file only to dispose of it. The police and crown took a couple of low-level schmucks to court, said tsk-tsk when the case collapsed and dropped all charges against 29 others.

Our learned judges, meanwhile, have mostly contented themselves with gratuitous advice to stop wasting their precious time. And our political parties, those tireless defenders of the public weal? None of them has given a peep about this ingenious, outrageous scheme to thwart the will of the people and deliver us to political chaos and financial disaster.

During the referendum campaign Daniel Johnson, leader of the No forces, made the very sensible observation that you don't break up a country on a recount. Ah, but could one have saved the country on a recount once the separatist "victory" had been trumpeted across the seas and things begun to unravel?

Could we have got the Patriotes back in the tube? These are big hairy questions we almost had to answer, thanks to this brazen attempt to rig the vote.

So where did it come from? Are we seriously to believe that a few PQ bottom feeders thought up this ingenious plot to declare No ballots "spoiled"? Tell me another. We'll never know, though, once the ballots have been destroyed physically and expunged from the collective memory.

Let's dream for a moment. What might Quebecers have learned if a judge had handled this case with the ferocity of "Maximum John" Sirica, the jurist who broke open the Watergate scandal in Washington? What if we'd had the equivalent of Senator Sam Ervin and his committee calling out the John Deans and other slimy Nixon operatives to testify live on national television?

How high up did all this go? What did (insert famous name) know and when did he know it? How widespread was the planning for this criminal caper? How flagrant were the "spoiled ballot" calls (pretty damned flagrant, according to those who have seen examples)? Should we insist on United Nations observers if we ever have to go through this again?

A disagreeable element in the affair has been the performance of the province's francophone media. Usually, they do a commendable job of political coverage - always excluding the hotline ranters and the tabloids that cynically punched up the "reasonable-accommodation" crisis. Usually, one applauds. But it's hard to be enthusiastic about coverage of this sorry affair.

Almost throughout the piece, our colleagues have exhibited deep incuriosity. Their liveliest contributions have been to berate The Gazette for not letting this one go; for breaking the story in the first place, then not having the decency to let it die a quiet death.

Get over it, almost everyone keeps telling The Gazette, as the ballots edge their way toward the memory hole. Keeping the story going without them - without the physical proof - will not be easy. Loud will be the sighs of relief in certain quarters when the ballots meet the shredder.

Meantime, I'll be filing all this in a folder whose title sums up a memorable mess: VOTE THEFT. Just an incredible story, and one that has not done us proud.

Norman Webster is a former editor of The Gazette.