Internal conflict

I'd figured that thanks to Harper's famous micromanagement and message control, the Cons would at least hold out as long as possible before putting forward a "blame the underlings" defence to the questions surrounding their 2005 convention. So much for that expectation, as the party's executive director has come out firing at riding associations who engaged in cheque-swapping:

"The national party has no knowledge that this practice ever happened," Mike Donison, the party's executive-director, wrote in an e-mail to the Vancouver Sun Monday.

"The party certainly would not have ever approved or condoned this practice."...

In a letter to The Hill Times in Ottawa, which published a story on the issue Monday, Donison noted that Toews was not a party employee but didn't say what status she may have had as a volunteer with the party.

Donison indicated that party officials aren't necessarily aware of how riding associations handle tax receipt matters.

Of course, part of Donison's motivation is presumably to suggest that the matter should be dealt with internally rather than investigated by Elections Canada. But it's glaringly clear by now that the investigation isn't about to stop. It only remains to be seen who ends up taking the full force of the backlash...and now that riding associations have been tossed under the bus, it'll be interesting to find out whether they'll fight back with further evidence to the effect that the practice was known by all concerned.