It appears you might have broken regulations under the Elections Act and worst of all you did it using your own money rather than taxpayer $$$.
Tories battered Evidence mounts of vote scheme |
OTTAWA -- Conservative Party brass spun into damage control mode yesterday as new documents reveal a mounting log of interviews, e-mails and invoices to support allegations the party overspent by more than $1 million in the last federal campaign through a so-called "in-and-out scheme."
Documents used to execute an RCMP-aided search warrant at Tory party headquarters last week were unsealed by a Toronto court Friday night but weren't released until today. Conservative officials released documents to some media outlets, including the 68-page affidavit from Ronald Lamothe, an assistant chief investigator in the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
In the statement, Lamothe said that he has "reasonable grounds" to believe the party exceeded its election spending limit and that candidates "improperly" claimed expenses.
'CONSISTENT PATTERN'
"I have noted a consistent pattern created by the Conservative Party of Canada or the Conservative Fund Canada to deposit funds into the accounts of various campaigns, only to have the same or similar amounts transferred, always under the control of the Conservative Party or the Conservative Fund Canada, back to the Conservative Fund Canada, the chief agent of the Conservative Party of Canada," he stated.
According to documents, Lamothe had sought to have the information to obtain the search warrant remain sealed because he thought making it public would hurt the probe.
The Conservative Party insisted everything was above board, and called the raid "retaliation" for the civil suit launched by the party.
"We are engaged in a legal dispute on what constitutes a national campaign and a local campaign. Period," an unnamed official said.
But Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said the Conservatives are spinning damage control in the face of mounting evidence.
"The argument they're trotting out are the same ones they've tried to bluff people with for the last year," he said. "This is not a trivial, little administrative matter."
67 CANDIDATES
Lamothe's investigation stems from a May 17, 2007, referral from the political financing, audit and corporate services section of Elections Canada, which asked to probe whether the Conservative Party incurred election expenses for media advertising claimed by candidates.
The alleged scheme enabled the party to spend $1 million over the limit and allowed 67 candidates to increase their reported election expenses with expenses they did not incur or pay for and claim a rebate, according to the documents. The spending cap for the Conservatives in the last election was $18.3 million.
According to an interview summary with Quebec Tory candidate Jean Landry, he was told by province's party organizer Pierre Coulombe that $30,000 would be deposited in his campaign account. Coulombe told him the party would count on an $18,000 return on it because Elections Canada would give him a 60% reimbursement when it was claimed as an election expense, according to the documents.
Another organizer provided "verbal instructions" on how the "infusion of funds" should be reported in his campaign return, the statements said.
Elections Canada vs Free Speech
Yesterday in a
National Post column I suggested revenge was behind that Elections Canada "raid" on Tory Party headquarters.
Today, in the same paper and on the same page,
David Frum suggests a more sinister motivation.
Frum argues the raid may have revealed the agency's "deep, sustained and highly ideological hostility to ordinary rights of free speech."
Elections Canada, he writes, is choosing to interpret its mandate in a way that is "indifferent to core freedoms".
I wholeheartedly concur with this analysis.
In all my dealings with Elections Canada bureaucrats (and I had a lot) they never gave the slightest inkling that they understood the importance of free expression. In fact, if anything they saw free speech as nothing but a nuisance.
And when it came to enforcing things like election gag laws, they displayed the close-minded-zealotry of the Spanish
Inquisition.
And yes Elections Canada does have an ideological bias. Check this
Globe and Mail column I wrote a few years ago for more on this.
How do we
defang this monster?
Frum has the answer: "Stop gagging speech. Stop telling the public and the candidates what they can and cannot say."
As Stephane Dion weighs the pros and cons of triggering a federal election over the Conservatives' proposed changes to the powers of the Immigration Minister, he would do well to reflect on one simple fact: 40% of skilled and professional male immigrants leave Canada permanently within 10 years. 
9. Has never been able to recapture the glory he achieved after he defeated Bobby Riggs in the famous “Battle of the Sexes.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose an important immigrant business audience in Toronto last night to launch a vigorous counterattack against criticism from ethnic communities of his government's proposed immigration policy changes. 
Efforts to court new Canadians are chipping away at traditional Liberal areas, Conservatives say
There's an old saying in politics that a "gaffe" occurs whenever a politician accidentally says what he really thinks. In that context, Barack Obama committed the ultimate political gaffe last week. He said because small-town, working-class.. 
The country's only armed transit police have been tasering passengers who try to avoid paying fares. 
Note to environmentalists: Remember, you were the ones who demanded biofuels the loudest. It turns out the production of biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel is likely to cause far more environmental damage than it prevents.. 