Article content continued

Since then, political debate on Parliament Hill has been dominated by the robocalls — which opposition parties claim occurred in dozens of ridings — and Elections Canada has begun a major investigation after being deluged with thousands of complaints.

Harper and his senior campaign team have denied categorically any involvement in the affair, and no evidence has emerged publicly to suggest they are connected.

The Tories say they are victims of “baseless smears” by the Liberals and New Democrats — who contend that the Tories are stonewalling as they push for answers.

As this political jockeying was going on, Ipsos Reid conducted a blended telephone and online poll of 3,154 Canadians to determine their views.

In the survey, people were told there had been accusations that some people working for the Conservative party in the last election “made calls to supporters of other parties and either pretended to represent their party of choice and deliberately harassed them or to deliberately confuse them about which polling stations to vote at on election day.” The pollster also told respondents that Harper and senior Tories had said they had “nothing to do with these calls.”

The pollster asked respondents if “a special, independent commission of inquiry with judicial powers should be established to find out what happened in the past election and make recommendations on our future election rules and structure.”

Seventy-five% of respondents said they agreed with that statement, while 24% disagreed.