OTTAWA—If this was CSI Robo-calls, things would be wrapping up just about now, with the black hats being marched to face justice because of the great forensic work of a vote suppression expert in a white lab coat.

But this is not going to turn out that way.

Instead, Elections Canada, even if you accept that it has skilled investigators, access to RCMP experts, adequate manpower, and whatever money it needs to do its job, faces a daunting task.

Canadians anxious for answers could wait years while a probe plays out behind closed doors.

It is going to take patience, but the government should not confuse that with indifference.

Elections Canada is now immersed in an investigation that, by the end of last week, was the subject of 31,000 complaints.

We don’t know how many are politically motivated but we can surmise that many of them had come from voters who are looking back 10 months, their memories jogged by media reports, the timing and details of the calls perhaps murky, the incoming phone number, if available, likely not logged.

The last time Elections Canada launched a probe of alleged Conservative electoral irregularities, the so-called in-and-out spending scandal, a dramatic police raid on party headquarters devolved into a probe that finally spanned more than four years and two federal elections.

Ultimately, charges against the Conservatives were dropped in return for the payment of a $50,000 fine for “inadvertent” non-compliance of the Canada Elections Act.

The Conservatives claimed victory.

They are happy enough to go back to that well.

Part of the ever-elastic Conservative defence clearly aims to muddy the waters for any investigation.

Two men have been deputized to deliver the daily schoolyard defence in front of an increasingly glum-looking Conservative bench.

There is Pierre Poilievre, the slight, soft-spoken choir boy lookalike from Ottawa who respectfully buttons his jacket as he stands at attention in the Commons, then whispers something barely audible in French.

He lowers the temperature. But he does not answer.

Then there is Dean Del Mastro, the eyebrow-arching, “aw shucks” stonewaller from Peterborough who handles the English questions, alternately blaming Liberals and burnishing his party’s “punctilious” electoral practices.

Baseless smears, they counter.

Bunch of sore losers on the other side, they taunt.

They blame the Liberals for using American robo-callers, they toss in allegations of lawn signs being lifted from yards and pamphlets pilfered from mailboxes.

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Monday brought a new twist when Saskatchewan Conservative Maurice Vellacott blamed the Conservatives’ chosen investigative body, charging Elections Canada was, in some cases, misdirecting voters through plain incompetence.

“If Elections Canada has the resources to do a proper investigation, they’ll find they’re themselves significantly responsible,’’ said Vellacott, offering up the political equivalent of soaping the judge’s windows.

The Conservatives are often aided and abetted by an opposition gang that overreaches, tossing out references to Watergate, Vladimir Putin and fixed elections and muddies the waters itself with charges of late-night prank calls that have been the hallmark of campaigns since the invention of the ballot.

Conservatives don’t want a public inquiry because they need only look to Paul Martin and the quick demise of the Liberals for a reminder of what happens when you cede control to a public entity.

They want to keep this in the hands of Elections Canada, try to keep the damage localized, admit irregularities in Guelph but nowhere else, and keep their argument focused on a pristine national operation.

All the better to pin any ultimate blame on rogues and over-exuberant kids who wandered off script without the knowledge of the centre.

The opposition does want a public inquiry for the obvious benefit of keeping the issue in the public eye and more opportunities to fling over-the-top charges.

It appears this will continue to rest with Elections Canada.

Canadians do not vote again federally until the autumn of 2015.

They will be smarter voters.

But they also deserve a professional, thorough probe so they know exactly what happened in 2011.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca