Needless to say, we'll figure to hear plenty more about the revelation that Tony Clement administered G8 Muskoka pork-barrelling out of his constituency office to avoid the accountability that comes with actual government consultations. But the story looks to form only a smaller piece of a much bigger puzzle.
It's never been much secret that the Cons have tried to use every tool at their disposal to create a unified party and government structure which can exert the most possible influence while facing the least possible accountability. For obvious reasons, though, it's never been clear just how many functions they'd reclassified or how many lines they'd blurred or erased in order to take advantage of that integration.
Yes, we've heard about the examples of MPs' official dealings with constituents getting channeled directly into the Cons' party database. But that linkage between MP and party interests can at least arguably be distinguished from the misuse of governmental authority.
In contrast, the latest revelation about Clement signals a direct choice to have government decisions made through extragovernmental channels. And the harder the Cons fight back against challenges to Clement's fitness to administer public money through the Treasury Board in response, the more reason we'll have to think that the strategy goes to the top rather than being limited to Clement himself
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