Michael Cole, photographed at his Toronto home on February 29, 2012, received a late-night robocall on election day. He has his wide were “both very annoyed,” he told the Globe and Mail. Photo: Fred Lum, Globe and Mail.

So, people are asking me (well some people anyway), “have you changed your mind about THE current big issue in Ottawa since your post this past Sunday (‘Catching up with false robocalls rising in 2011 Canadian federal election’)?” My short answer, for what it’s worth, is I still don’t know – and I suppose I remain something of a professional sceptic. But here are four more or less fresh thoughts on the subject, based on assiduous inspection of the online daily press:

(1) THE SUPER PAC THEORY. The text here is “Readers speak out on robo-calls: ‘It definitely changed my vote’” from today’s Globe and Mail.  And I make special reference to the very last sentence: “Despite the opposition complaints, Stephen Harper’s government has distanced itself from the misleading calls. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister declared categorically: ‘The Conservative Party can say absolutely, definitively, it has no role in any of this.’”

My own first reaction here is : Well yes, of course, one thing we’ve learned from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert lately is that if a political party is going to do something like this, it’s also going to organize something outside itself to do it – so it can retain just the kind of deniability PM Harper is exercising right now (and perhaps even honestly?). This is the SUPER PAC theory of False Robocall 2011 in Canadian federal politics. And who knows? It may not be entirely crazy?

There is some further support for this kind of theory in another item from today’s Toronto Star : “Robocalls also made during Ontario election, say Liberal, NDP candidates.” And here as well we have official deniability: “Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said … ‘When I heard about this I checked with my campaign team to verify … We looked through our scripts, and no, we did not engage in any of those types of activities.”

Despite some nay-saying that some naysayers may be saying, Jon Stewart's new Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC is definitely not coordinating with Stephen Colbert in any way, it was announced early this year. Is this telling us something about Robocall Canada today as well?Â

But really …  lert’s see now … did we engage in any activities punishable by jail time (asks Mr. Hudak, you might say)? Well, apparently not: we have no record of this at all! The current last word here, as far as I’m concerned, comes yet again from John Ibbitson’s Globe and Mail column today: “Mr. Harper laid down a powerful marker in the House of Commons Wednesday, declaring emphatically that no one associated with the party’s national campaign had anything to do with fraudulent calls …Yet clearly, fraudulent calls were placed by people acting in what they believed to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Until that contradiction is resolved, this issue will fester …”

(And just in case you think all this is based far too much on Central Canadian media, click on “Read the rest of this page” and/or scroll down, for the last three more or less fresh thoughts on the subject, also based on the online daily press on Canada’s Pacific Coast.)

* * * *

(2) WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? It has seemed interesting to me that the clearly enough non-conservative Chantal Hébert from the most beautiful province has been sceptical about the depth and durability of false robocalls rising in the 2011 Canadian federal election.

At first I was especially struck by the conclusion in her Toronto Star column yesterday: “Hébert: Elections Canada best bet to investigate robo-call scandal …  Canadians may never know all that they should about what took place in the muddy trenches of the last federal campaign. But if they ever get the beginning of a definitive answer, it will come from Elections Canada or the RCMP or even the media, and not from the warring parties in the Commons.”

But then I bumped into this Postmedia News item, from today’s Vancouver Sun: “Elections Canada won’t probe ‘annoying’ calls, ex-MP told … Elections Canada said last week it cannot investigate political calls that are ‘annoying, repetitive or (of) a partisan nature’ unless there are signs of intimidation or ‘false pretence,’ raising questions about how far the agency will go to probe the robocalls scandal.”

This reminded me as well of two other items, from yesterday and the day before : “NDP seeks public inquiry into robocalls (Vancouver Sun) and “Former Tory staffer urges ‘guilty party’ to take blame in robo-call controversy” (Globe and Mail). I guess if I’m relying on anything to get to the bottom of the swamp here, it probably is what Mme.  Hébert calls “or  even the media.”

(3) THREE DAYS IN THE VANCOUVER SUN. It is also interesting, I think, that the narrative of the false robocalls story this week, certainly as far as I can see, hasn’t looked much different in Western Canada’s biggest metropolis than it has back east.

On Monday, February 27, eg, Barbara Yaffe had a familar-sounding column in the Vancouver Sun: “Yaffe: Robocall imbroglio has ring of familiarity … it’s not that difficult to imagine the Conservatives might have undertaken a broader campaign of mischief at the riding level during the last election … While only one campaign worker has resigned, people will be concerned about the general ethics of a campaign in which a worker would imagine such misleading automated calls might be tolerated.”

Also on February 27 in the Vancouver Sun there was “’Robocall’ probe puts Tory campaign in Guelph, Ont., under microscope.” And then on February 28 there was “Robocall scandal allegations unprecedented, says former elections boss …  ‘We have never seen anything like this alleged case in terms of this potential organization and impact in terms of numbers,’ said Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s chief electoral officer from 1990 to 2007 …”

Finally, on Wednesday, February 29 we had “Meet the robocalls scandal’s prime suspect: ‘Pierre Poutine‘” in the Vancouver Sun. And the story here seemed pretty much like the Toronto Star story in “‘Pierre Poutine’ fingered in Elections Canada robo-call probe” and even “Conservative scripts misdirected voters in 2011 election, say call centre staff.”

(4) THE IBBITSONIAN BAROMETER OR TRACE VARIABLE. I ended my own notes-in-progress this past Sunday with “I have been especially impressed by the definitely conservative John Ibbitson’s argument that ‘it is certainly true the Tories push their campaign tactics to the edge of legality and sometimes beyond’.”

At first it seemed to me that Ibbitson was backpedalling somewhat from this assessment in his three subsequent columns on the issue: “Voter-suppression scandal will be a test of Harper’s leadership” (which appeared online late in the evening of Sunday, February 26, but only in the Monday, February 27 edition of the print newspaper) ; “Conservatives bank on robo-call storm blowing itself out” (Tuesday, February 28) ; and “In the robo-call affair, time and the law favour the Tories” (Wednesday, February 29).

Today you could say that Ibbitson has gone back to his earlier position, with “Tories lose control of agenda as they try to ride out robo-call storm.” Here as already noted above the pundit writes:  “Mr. Harper laid down a powerful marker in the House of Commons Wednesday, declaring emphatically that no one associated with the party’s national campaign had anything to do with fraudulent calls … Yet clearly, fraudulent calls were placed by people acting in what they believed to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Until that contradiction is resolved, this issue will fester … “

Toronto TV journalist Pooja Handa and friend (Deejay Ra Radio?). What do they think about Robocall imbroglio? We will probably never know? Or not yet anyway?

At the same time, for balance etc Mr Ibbitson is also concerned to point out : “The opposition, mind you, is no better. NDP MP Pat Martin is so over-the-top in his accusations – ‘the most comprehensive election fraud in Canadian history,’ he calls it. Somewhere Sir John A. is smiling – that he risks discrediting the NDP’s entire line of attack. And Liberal Leader Bob Rae has the millstone of the Vikileaks embarrassment – it turns out someone in his own office was behind the calumnious e-mails attacking Public Safety Minister Vic Toews –  undermining his righteous anger.”Â  (Well, maybe … But then there has also been Thomas Walkom in the Toronto Star this past Tuesday: “Compared to robo-scandal Vikileaks is a prank.”)