Frankly speaking

CanWest reports that the Cons have once again broken the rules in order to better submit to the will of His Harperness - this time, by using MPs' mailing privileges to send out centralized party messages without even pretending to refer to any MP:

The House of Commons is reviewing the way it educates MPs about sending mail after a Conservative caucus research group mailout was sent to households across Canada for free, a privilege the group does not enjoy.

According to the Canada Post Corporation Act, mail sent to or from members of the House of Commons is not subject to postal fees, an arrangement often referred to as the "franking privilege." However, the Conservative Resource Group's mailing did not have the name of a sponsoring MP as part of its return address...

The recent mailout features a picture of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, and invites recipients to choose between GST policies allegedly championed by the two men.

The black-and-white flyer asks recipients to send their responses to CRG Government Caucus Services at the House of Commons, but does not include the name of a specific MP who will receive them.

On its face, the mailing issue may be slightly different from others such as Conadscam. While Conadscam seems to have come about precisely because the Cons couldn't legally spend additional money on the national level, there's nothing stopping the Cons from using their oft-trumpeted fund-raising returns to send out exactly the same mailing while paying for postage. (Though it's worth pointing out just how petty the scheme looks in that context.)

That said, it's easy to see how both schemes, along with the Cons' general control over MP messaging, originate from precisely the same general strategy. In each case, anything a Con MP could possibly acquire as a result of a place in politics - be it campaign spending room, mailing privileges, or even the very ability to attract a media audience - is seen as ultimately belonging to Harper and his central command. And in order to better serve Harper, any Con MP is expected to ignore the legality of what's being done in his name as long as it helps to disseminate the party message just a little bit further.

In that context, it should be obvious that merely educating MPs about the rules governing their franking privileges (as discussed in the article) won't ultimately accomplish much. The greater issue is instead that of a government which once again seems to think that rules don't apply to it - and only Canadian voters can ultimately solve that problem.