Jumping the gun

Kady O'Malley's latest live-blog from the Ethics Committee hearings features yet another strong indication of just how far outside the law the Cons were operating in how the scheme was put together, as some of their Conadscam expenses were allotted to ridings at a time when no candidate or official agent was yet in place to legally approve any spending:

12:37:50 PM
More one-last-things from Marcel Proulx, including one I was wondering about earlier: how was it that the list of ridings was finalized before some even had candidates? Because it was all about the ridings, Campbell says.

Not surprisingly, the problem with that explanation is that the Canada Elections Act says otherwise.

In fact, under sections 438(4) and (5), no expenses related to a candidate's campaign can validly be incurred or paid except under the authority of the candidate's official agent. And it should be glaringly obvious that nobody would be in a position to authorize expenses under those sections at a point when neither the candidate nor the official agent has yet been named for a riding.

All of which offers yet another damning piece of evidence against the Cons' ever-more-laughable argument that their Conadscam spending should be treated as candidate expenses. And judging from the committee hearings so far, the latest example doesn't figure to be the last.