wai young

Mitchel Raphael takes in the Speaker’s second annual celebration of the Scottish bard

The U.S. Embassy held an election party at the Château Laurier. Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan buttons were given out. Attendees could also have their pic taken with Barack Obama and/or Mitt Romney cutouts.

Just as there haven’t been answers these last few weeks

Are the Conservatives breaking an election promise by reforming Old Age Security?

To the Conservative campaign now, specifically to the Canadian Coptic Centre in Mississauga, where Mr. Harper wished to highlight his promise to establish an Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs. Behind him a Canadian flag, all around him, as the official news release describes it, “an enthusiastic and diverse crowd.”

According to ITQ’s tireless source on the ground, the recount is over and after a full ballot-by-ballot recall, Ujjal Dosanjh has held onto his seat with a 20 vote margin. Whoo! Go democracy! Does everybody feel a comforting sense of closure now?

There was a brief moment of panicked confusion at the ITQ RecountWatch desk this morning after Commenter (and blogger in her own right) Joanne noticed that Elections Canada had upgraded the status of the Vancouver South recount to “completed”. But if you check the date, it seems that those are the results as initially certified by the judge on October 24, 2008 — the day of the original (and, at the time, ostensibly finalized) “partial” recount of rejected and special ballots (plus a dozen or so handpicked ballot boxes) that sparked the original controversy over whether the Conservative candidate, Wai Young, had, in fact, conceded, and eventually led the judge to reverse his decision and go back to counting the remaining ballots by hand.

That’s what I heard from someone who was supposed to attend today’s hearing, at least — you know, the one in which Wai Young and a Conservative Party lawyer were going to appeal the decision to suspend the count last week. Apparently, the judge took the initiative to restart the count before the lawyers had even had the chance to make their arguments, so it’s back to the ballot-by-ballot examination tomorrow.

Okay, first off, I don’t blame people for raising a ruckus over the revelation that the judge who performed the recount in Vancouver South last week didn’t bother to open all the ballot boxes, instead choosing to re-check a random sampling of the 42,076 votes that were cast on election day – particularly when the margin between Liberal incumbent Ujjal Dosanjh and Conservative challenger Wai Young  dropped to just 22 votes. At the same time, however, it seems as though someone should probably point out that, contrary to the carefully coddled conspiracy theories so cherished by some denizens of the blogosphere, Elections Canada had nothing to do with the decision to conduct a partial recount, which was made by the presiding judge – in this case, British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm – in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Canada Elections Act, and also detailed here. Not even the Chief Electoral Officer himself has the power to appeal or overturn the result, which is considered final.