Cornered

Today's CP story about the latest developments in Conadscam may seem like a relatively minor one based on the wider scope of the Cons' electoral manipulations. But it may prove to be an extremely important one to the extent it may force the Cons' national party and their star Quebec candidates to make mutually contradictory arguments to try to avoid prosecution:

The Conservative party shifted thousands of dollars in advertising expenses from two of its top Quebec candidates to other Quebec candidates who had more spending room in their 2006 election campaigns, the lawyer for Elections Canada has suggested.

A former financial officer for the party confirmed last month in a court examination that expenses incurred by Public Works Minister Christian Paradis and former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier were assigned to other candidates...

(F)ormer chief financial officer Ann O'Grady said the expenses were "pro-rated" to the other candidates because the firm that placed the television and radio ads billed Paradis and Bernier for higher amounts than their campaign agents originally committed.

Elections Canada lawyer Barbara McIsaac probed O'Grady over records involving an eventual claim for $20,000 in radio and TV advertising by Paradis and $5,000 in advertising claimed by Bernier...

In the case of Paradis, O'Grady conceded the candidate had originally committed his campaign to a media buy totalling $30,000, was eventually invoiced $29,766 and subsequently received a "credit note" of $10,000 that was reallocated to another candidate, Marc Nadeau.

"Now, again, the reason for this was that Mr. Paradis had reached his limit with respect to spending as well, is that correct?" asked McIsaac. "He had to allocate some of his money to Mr. Nadeau, did he not, because he was close to his limit?"

"I would not know that," replied O'Grady, who replaced former Tory chief financial agent Susan Kehoe several months after the election.

McIsaac also questioned O'Grady over the fact that Bernier paid no production costs for his share of the advertising. Paradis paid only $233.93 for his share, even though McIsaac said other candidates paid $4,500 each for production costs.

So why does today's story matter? Remember that the Cons' defence on a national level is based on two arguments: first, that the it's the content of advertising rather than the process by which the advertising is purchased that determines whether that advertising is national or local; and second, that a candidate tagline is determinative as the type of content which establishes that advertising was in fact local.

There's plenty of reason for doubt that the Cons are correct on either of those points. But if they are, then today's revelations leave no room for doubt that both Paradis and Bernier must have violated the Canada Elections Act.

After all, consider the consequences if one assumes that candidate taglines that definitively determine responsibility for advertising. If so, then Paradis and Bernier - having applied their taglines to the Quebec advertising in question - must have been responsible for both the content and the cost of the ads. And that means that they must have been required to bear their share of production costs for the advertising done in their names.

To the extent Bernier paid nothing and Paradis paid far less than a prorated share of the production costs, then, they can only be seen as having falsely reported the amount actually spent in their names.

Conversely, the best defence for Bernier and Paradis to argue that one can't be so simplistic as to assume that the tagline alone tells the whole story, such that the intention of the agents who placed the ads has to be taken into account. But that would directly contradict the national argument, and provide implicit approval to Elections Canada's investigation of the intention behind the national scheme.

As a result, about the only consistent defence left for the Cons and their Quebec stars is to try to argue that they're entitled to spend what they like and report it (or not) as they see fit, with Elections Canada's role limited to paying the money the Cons claim to be entitled to. But while that may accurately reflect the Cons' view of the law, it doesn't figure to get them far either with Elections Canada or with the courts who figure to eventually rule on their behaviour.

(Edit: added labels.)