Elections Canada Refutes Harrison’s Allegations
Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 14:40
Desnethe-Missinipi-Churchill River MP Gary Merasty says he’s happy that the investigation into alleged wrongdoings in his riding during the last federal election turned out in his favour.
Elections Canada has completed its probe into the affair and has concluded there was no evidence of ballot box stuffing, or that voters on certain reserves were swayed to vote Liberal by raffles or Liberal-friendly campaign literature at polling booths.
Merasty says he completely forgot about the investigation, and had moved forward from the controversy.
Still, he says the outcome proves that nothing was done wrong as alleged by defeated MP Jeremy Harrison.
Merasty believes the next challenge is to continue increasing the Aboriginal voter turnout.
He hopes Harrison’s comments that compared certain Aboriginal communities to “banana republics” will not discourage those First Nations and Metis people from voting in the next election.
Merasty defeated Harrison by 67 votes in an election that drew a record turnout in the northern Saskatchewan riding.