Conservatives look bad in robocalls case

Marni Soupcoff, Opinion, The National Post:

With politics the adversarial sport it has become, it’s no wonder the Conservatives are putting up as strong a legal defense as they can muster against the Council for Canadians’ court challenge, which seeks to overturn election results in seven close ridings that the council says were influenced by Robocalls.

And part of putting up the strongest defense possible is moving to have your accusers’ lawsuit thrown out of court before it even gets started — for procedural reasons and/or (the “and/or” pops up a lot in motions to dismiss) for lack of merit.

But what might have happened if the Conservatives had thrown sound litigation strategy out the window, and decided instead to take the high road? What if their court filings had granted the need for a review of the electoral results to restore the public’s confidence in the electoral process, and argued only that the outcome of the election would not have changed absent the Robocalls?

Instead, the Conservatives have now come out on the losing end of a court decision that makes them sound like they think democracy is a bothersome trifle to be brushed aside when it gets in the way.

Was it really worth it to make the argument that verifying the validity of federal election results which lack public confidence is trivial? And if they don’t have the upper hand, then they should be admitting as much and calling for a byelection rather than contesting the suit.

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