On projection

Gerry Nicholls' latest most certainly demonstrates a pattern of interaction between Elections Canada and right-wing organizations. But it's the exact opposite of what Nicholls is trying to pretend.

Here's the sum total of Nicholls' evidence of a supposed "vendetta" by Elections Canada against Stephen Harper and the NCC:

Now before you write me off as paranoid, consider the background. Before the charge was laid against us, the NCC had long been a vocal opponent of Elections Canada's attempts to impose free-speech stifling third-party advertising laws on the country. We called them election gag laws.

In fact, in 2000, our president at the time -who happens to be current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper -went so far as to publicly call the then head of Elections Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, a "jackass."

More to the point, the NCC also frustrated Kingsley by ceaselessly fighting his gag laws in the courts at every turn, delaying their implementation for years.

Now, it shouldn't take a particularly close examination of that "background" to notice that it involves absolutely no wrongdoing by Elections Canada.

In fact, the obvious conclusion is that the NCC went out of its way to attack Elections Canada at every opportunity, through both legal means and personal insults. And Elections Canada didn't take the bait: instead of sinking to the NCC's level, it chose only to work on enforcing the law as it stood. Which would seemingly be exactly what one would want out of an independent regulator.

But as far as Nicholls is concerned, his own side's jackassery (to apply the term where it actually belongs) somehow serves as evidence of wrongdoing on Elections Canada's part. Because apparently as soon as somebody is on the receiving end of enough baseless cheap shots, it can't actually do its job without been seen as harboring a vendetta.

Needless to say, there is indeed a parallel between that case and the Cons' in-and-out scandal. But the connection is that in both cases, Stephen Harper has tried to pre-emptively attack an independent regulator which can't return fire in the hope of avoiding being subject to the law - apparently keeping in reserve the ludicrous argument that his own unwarranted attacks could somehow be used to smear Elections Canada, rather than serving as evidence of his own bad faith.

Under those circumstances, the hard-earned "terrible news coverage" arising out of the Cons having brazenly broken the law is still far better than the Cons deserve.