The reviews are in

The Star-Phoenix editorial board on yesterday's Conadscam ruling:

Justice Luc Martineau boiled the complicated "regional media buy (RMB)" scheme down to whether the candidates voluntarily agreed to participate and if they did, in fact, incur the expenses themselves.

If such ads that promote the party and leader are interpreted as justified for helping the candidate at the constituency level, it only furthers public sentiment that local MPs are mostly empty vessels who are filled up by the party machine and their leader once they get to Ottawa.
...
The effect, of course, is to render party campaign spending limits almost irrelevant. Even when the court accepts that the tab for what's essentially a national advertisement to promote the party and leader was picked up by the party itself, if the candidate agrees to give up a portion of his spending room to accommodate it, everything's fine, one infers. The taxpayer is on the hook for reimbursement of a portion of these costs.

In an era of ever-growing evidence of tight control over individual MPs by party leaders, is there any question whether candidates wouldn't agree "to incur these expenses themselves" if they are asked?
...
If Elections Canada won't appeal this decision, as it should, it's up to parliamentarians to do what the judge suggests is their job. The odds of that happening in today's House are all but nil. To let this decision stand ill-serves Canada's electoral process.