Montreal ridings also targeted by misleading calls

Several ridings in Quebec were among those targeted by misleading calls during the last federal election, according to the Liberal members of parliament elected in those ridings.

Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler and Lac St-Louis MP FrancisScarpaleggia both claim voters in their ridings received calls telling them their polling stations had been moved.

'A strategic attempt to skew the vote,' Scarpaleggia says

Both said they reported the calls at the time but did not file official complaints, though they are now considering doing just that.

"At the time, we had no idea that it could be part of a larger, coordinated, orchestrated, strategic attempt to skew the vote in a number of ridings," said Scarpaleggia, who said Tuesday hiscampaign manager received complaints from close to a dozen voters about similar misleading calls.

"The people who were called in my riding were sometimes told that they were called by Liberals," Cotler said. "So it was a kind of double offence: both being given false information and then attributing that false informationas if the Liberals were the authors of it."

"They were upset," Cotler said of the constituents who called his campaign office. "In some instances, they just didn't vote."

Cotler won his riding by a mere 25 hundred votesa surprisingly tight race in a Liberal stronghold that was once the riding of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Last November, the long-time MP and former justice minister cried foul over what he called misleading calls made to his constituents about a "pending by-election" for his seat, whichCotler said he had no intention of vacating.

More reports of misleading calls pour in

Former Liberal MP Bernard Patry, wholost to the NDP's Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe in his west island riding of Pierrefonds-Dollard, said he, too, heard about misleading calls on election day last May. He said he was approached by two voters who saidthey'd received calls and been directed to the wrong polling station.

The Conservative government has denied any involvement in the growing scandal, and Elections Canada is now investigating several complaints.