Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Stephanie Larocque highlights the Cons' gall in hanging onto federal reimbursements from their own ad scam even after having admitted their guilt:

You don't have to prove guilt when the charged plead guilty. And that is exactly what happened last week when the Conservative Party entered into an agreement in Ottawa where they would plead guilty to overspending and pay the maximum fine allowable under the Canada Elections Act if the charges were dropped against their senior members.

One might think that pleading guilty to attempting to circumvent the rules that manage our democracy would be done with an air of regret or remorse. When it comes to the Conservatives, however, you would be wrong. Instead, Conservative spokesman Fred DeLorey issued a statement claiming the plea bargain was "a big victory'' for the party in its five-year "administrative dispute'' with Elections Canada over the legality of the in-and-out scheme. "Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today,'' DeLorey said.

I don't think anyone has ever looked a an agreement that admits guilt as ever clearing anyone of wrongdoing. The notion is ludicrous. The coordinated overspending done by funneling funds through 67 ridings just happened spontaneously? No, the Conservatives accused of wrongdoing were only spared the embarrassment of having their involvement in the scheme dissected in open court rather than being cleared of anything.
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Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey responded that "The question of reimbursements will be dealt with in the ongoing civil proceedings." referring to the civil case the Tories brought against Elections Canada in which they dispute Elections Canada's ability to refuse to reimburse expense claims.

In other words, guilt not just without remorse, without apology, and without even having the decency to immediately repay funds improperly received from the taxpayers that they have already admitted were the result of a scheme to overspend their limits. Indeed, should they win the civil case they would compel Elections Canada to reimburse the outstanding expense claims which they have already agreed were illegal. The nerve of this position is staggering. They admit wrongdoing yet continue to seek a means of profiting from that wrongdoing, trying to have excessive refunds that were requested with fraudulent receipts taken from your tax dollars.

- pogge blasts Ontario's McGuinty Libs for decreeing that any deficit reduction will be accomplished solely through service cuts rather than even the most obviously needed tax increases.

- Mike DeSouza reports on Greenpeace's expose of multi-billion-dollar corporate lobbying against action on climate change.

- Tim Naumetz points out that even as the Cons claim to be retaining a meaningful gun licensing regime, their bill to torch the long gun registry also includes provisions to make it impossible to enforced the individual licensing rules.

- Finally, the Calgary Herald editorial board lists its home city as one of the areas which has been poorly served by utterly useless Con MPs over the past decade. And it's well worth using the attention of the NDP's national leadership campaign to change the part of the story which laments the lack of a viable alternative.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell laments Stephen Harper's determination to replace democracy with court rule:

Pierre Trudeau started it. Stephen Harper is finishing it off.

The "it" is the effective demise of parliamentary democracy and the installation of "court government" ruled by an all-powerful prime minister and his hand-picked, unelected, unaccountable "courtiers."

Fiercely partisan, these "courtiers," like their medieval predecessors, have only one purpose: to protect, advance and polish the image of the "king" -- the prime minister.

Not only are formal and traceable lines of policy-making and accountability gone, but parliamentary government has been turned on its head. The prime minister doesn't account to Parliament; Parliament accounts to -- serves -- the prime minister.
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There are other, more egregious examples: routine in-camera motions muzzling parliamentary committees and their opposition members, routine closure motions introduced simultaneously with all legislation.

But, Wiseman says, the prime minister's most dangerous undermining of Parliament to date was former governor general Michaëlle Jean's decision to grant Harper prorogation in December 2008 to stave off parliamentary defeat.

"Canada's Parliament," according to the director of the Constitution Unit at University College, London, "is more dysfunctional than any of the other Westminster parliaments," he continues. "No prime minister in any Commonwealth country with a governor general, until Harper, has ever sought prorogation to avoid a vote of confidence. Only in Canada has a government secured the prorogation of Parliament to save itself from political defeat and only in Canada has the governor general been party to it."

- Glen McGregor rightly asks whether the Cons will repay riding-level reimbursements affected by their in-and-out guilty plea. And it's hard to see how they could escape that consequence when - as I noted here - they've admitted as a party that the scheme resulted in riding associations claiming those expenses without ever paying a dime.

- Allen Thompson points out that the Cons' immigration clampdown is based on trying to set a reduced value on parents and grandparents. But the most striking change is the fact that the value of extended family has effectively been set at zero for the time being, thanks to the Cons' refusal to allow any new applications.

- Finally, Kim MacRael reports on the Cons' latest gratuitous dumb-on-crime posturing which figures to deliberately make Canada's criminal justice system less effective:

Prisoners who are placed in segregation as a form of punishment could also be denied visits from family and friends under the federal anti-crime bill, a measure the Canadian Bar Association calls “mean-spirited” and counterproductive.
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The bill proposes fundamental changes to the way inmates are treated behind prison walls, including the elimination of a rule requiring administrators to impose the least restrictive measures necessary on prisoners. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told the committee this fall the changes are based on recommendations from guards and would “modernize the system of discipline in federal penitentiaries.”

Under the legislation, administrators could limit visits to those being punished with solitary confinement for up to 30 days at a time.

Michael Jackson, a member of the Canadian Bar Association’s committee on imprisonment and release, said the plan runs counter to research on prisoner behaviour. “Segregation tends to ratchet up prisoners’ anger and makes them more difficult to control, [and] allowing visitors is one way of trying to alleviate it,” he said.

Mr. Jackson pointed to a 2008 study from Florida State University researchers that found prisoners who were visited by family and friends were less likely to reoffend. “To say we’re going to toughen up conditions by taking away visits is very mean-spirited and it doesn’t make correctional sense,” he said.

On agreed facts

Most of the commentary on the Cons' publicly-admitted law-breaking has focused on the mere guilty plea itself. (And I'll point to Sixth Estate's post as deserving of a look.) But the agreed statement of facts - which the Cons have equally admitted as true in the process of pleading guilty - tells a far better story than either the plea alone or the (unfortunately) minimal punishment.

After years of denials, the Cons have publicly acknowledged:

- that they allocated expenses to candidate campaigns which not only didn't agree to the arrangement, but weren't even capable of doing so:

The advertising expenses had previously been booked as part of the Party’s national advertising campaign. A number of local campaigns committed to the media buy transfer; however, a number of commitments received and acted upon by Donison were in respect of ridings where no candidate or Official Agent had yet been chosen or confirmed for the riding.
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Ridings in media market areas in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, in which little or no local or regional media broadcast contracts had been bought for Party advertising, were not accepted as participants in the media buy transfers. Donison later explained this omission to Don Plett, President of the Party National Council. Donison explained the omission of four (4) Manitoba ridings, as being due to the fact that “"we were in the hands of the ad people who had already made the market commitments on Day 1 of the campaign before we decided to do this""."”

- that they persuaded candidate campaigns to participate with the promise of free rebates for money not actually spent:

The selling points used to persuade local campaigns to participate in the media buy were that it was without cost to the local campaigns, because the Fund would be providing the monies, and the promise that the media buy ‘expense’ to the local campaign would be eligible for the 60% rebate of paid election expenses from Elections Canada.

- that the Cons' advertiser fabricated paperwork after the fact to pretend that ad buys originated with candidates' campaigns, even as it continued to operate based on the instructions of the central campaign:

On December 9, RMI rebooked the existing advertising contracts with broadcasters under a new RMI client name, which RMI called “"the Official Agents for Conservative Party candidates"” by means of a standardized email to media outlets. This message identified RMI as the purchasing agent for the Party. Each message said that they needed to “"shift dollars"” from the Party to “"the Official Agents for Conservative Party candidates"”. No specific candidates or ridings were identified. RMI noted that “"(t)his in no way changes the overall commitment we as agents have made on behalf of our clients."” RMI then specified that either “"all weight"” or specified dollar amounts of the “"current bookings"” were to be transferred from Party to the “"new advertiser name"”.
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When effecting the switch of advertising on December 9, RMI insisted that it was unwilling to deal with each local campaign which would be participating in this regional media buy program. It insisted that all media buys on behalf of candidates pursuant to this program be invoiced to the Party and paid by the Party. RMI received instructions regarding the switching of advertising and payment exclusively from the Party and the Fund.

- that the Cons themselves then manipulated their own numbers to make candidates' contributions match available cap room, rather than corresponding in any way to what any candidate received:

The invoiced media costs were for the media costs as allocated by RMI, or as apportioned by the Party and the Fund for campaigns sharing regional media markets. In two cases in Quebec, Kehoe reduced the invoice costs from RMI amounts to avoid campaigns going over their spending limit. The amounts that could not be invoiced as first planned were then distributed as increased costs to the remaining campaigns.

- and finally, that the Conservative Party and Conservative Fund of Canada both illegally failed to report campaign expenses, including not just the disputed advertising funds but also office expenses - resulting in the Cons overspending their campaign limit:

However, the Party and the Fund admit only that the costs of advertising, including Quebec advertising production costs, that the Fund ought to have reported to Elections Canada, but did not, totalled $9,737,722.11, rather than the $9,174,392.60 that was reported. Thus the Party and Fund admit that the cost of the advertising expenses not reported was $563,329.51.
The cost of the office expenses for the Party offices in Montreal and Quebec City not reported by the Fund in its election expense return of the Party’s national election expenses was $116,250. Thus the Party and the Fund admit that the total amount of expenses that the Fund failed to report to Elections Canada was $679,579.51.
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Thus the Party and the Fund admit to spending $420,480.15 over the statutory spending limit.

Needless to say, the above admissions go far beyond the Cons' spin about mere administrative technicalities (while looking at the amount of the fine alone largely misses that point). And it's well worth making sure to tell the whole story as to the deception and manipulation which the Cons have now publicly admitted to make sure the Cons face appropriate consequences from the public - rather than seeing the whole dispute as being over the penalty, and making it all the more likely that the Cons will pay no further price for their electoral law-breaking.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Everything wrong with Canadian politics in a nutshell

The Conservative Party of Canada admits to breaking the law, and describes it as a victory.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Content goes here.

- Pay no attention to mere pesky Nobel laureates with their baseless concern about Canada's consumer debt levels and housing prices. As long as Stephen Harper is sitting at a desk feigning concern, what could possibly go wrong with Canada's economy?

- Meanwhile, the Star tears into Harper over his party's contempt for Canada's election laws:

The Conservatives only invite more scorn by persisting with their threadbare claim that they are the victims of an “administrative dispute” and differences over “interpretations” of the law. As Liberal Dominic LeBlanc slyly noted in Parliament, “Mr. Speaker, there will be a lot of people in federal prisons tonight who will think they had an ‘administrative disagreement’ with the federal government.”

A party that campaigned to restore ethical governance cannot be comfortable being likened to criminals in denial, with election speculation in the air. Harper would do better to cut his losses, bow to Elections Canada’s better judgment, and accept responsibility for a sad chapter in the party’s history. This just gets worse.

- In case anybody was operating under the illusion that the Cons' Senate interference with the will of elected MPs was a one-time problem, no such luck:

Supporters are now optimistic the bill will pass when it comes to a vote Wednesday. The New Democrats and Bloc Québécois are solidly in favour, as are most Liberals and even a handful of Conservatives.

That doesn’t mean it will become law, however. MP Glen Pearson, the Liberal critic for international co-operation, says Conservatives have told him it will be killed in the government-controlled Senate. It could also die if there’s an early election.

But that should serve as reason to turf the Cons as soon as possible - since the longer they have to stack the Senate, the more time it will take for any alternative government to be able to actually pass legislation.

- Finally, great news out of my home riding of Wascana, as U of R professor Marc Spooner has put his name forward as the NDP's candidate for the next federal election. There's plenty of work to be done in both winning over votes which currently default to Ralph Goodale and working to boost turnout in parts of the riding which see woeful participation at all levels of government, but Spooner's profile and focus on housing issues should make him an ideal candidate for the effort.

Deep thought

"Yeah, but at least we didn't take kickbacks!!!" was a nice Con talking point while it lasted. I look forward to the transition to "Yeah, but we're no worse than the Libs were!".

On prior knowledge

From Jennifer Ditchburn's story on the Cons' conscientious objectors to the in-and-out scheme, a reminder that one of their supposed law and order stalwarts knew all too well the dangers of similar ruses:

Mark's former campaign manager, Debby Sorochynski, said she recalls being asked to receive money and then have the funds withdrawn quickly afterward.

Sorochynski said she remembers the issue because it sounded similar to a case involving Conservative cabinet minister Vic Toews, who pleaded guilty and was convicted of electoral overspending in a Manitoba provincial election.
Three other candidates in that election were also convicted of the breach of electoral laws.

The provincial Progressive Conservative party had asked candidates shortly before the 1999 election to sign an authorization to absorb $7,500 each in central campaign expenses, according to the Winnipeg Free Press' account of court testimony. Toews' lawyer said at the time that Toews initially did not want to participate in the plan.

"That was a well-known, documented story in Manitoba, so when the national office offered an opportunity to get involved in something that sounded similar to that, we just said No," said Sorochynski.

So what does it say about the Cons' central command that its apparent source of ideas for campaign management came from a scheme that managed to get a prominent Con (among others) convicted of breaching the law at the provincial level?

Of kingpins and pawns

Somehow the reporting on Doug Finley's Twitter outburst has missed a rather remarkable point. So let's note that senior Cons seem to be following up with their new strategy of unveiling policy on Twitter by now using it to undermine their own legal position.

After all, Finley is personally facing charges arising out of the in-and-out scandal. And presumably, one of his defences would seem to have been that he personally wasn't responsible for the shifted costs and fabricated receipts forming part of the scheme - particularly since he didn't play a direct role in the transactions on the public record.

However, it wouldn't make any sense for Finley to say personally and publicly that Harper wasn't in a position to know about the decision-making process surrounding the in-and-out transactions unless he had enough personal involvement to know what did and didn't filter up to Harper. So Finley may have managed to substantially undermine his own defence in under 140 characters.

But does that make Finley's tweet credible in its exculpation of Harper? Let's revisit the Cons' governing philosophy per Paul Wells and John Geddes:

Someone who was there paraphrased Harper’s message to his ministers at his first cabinet meeting in 2006: “I am the kingpin. So whatever you do around me, you have to know that I am sacrosanct.” Harper was telling his ministers that they were expendable but that he wasn’t. If they had to go so that his credibility and his ability to get things done were protected, so be it.

So what implications might that philosophy have for Finley - a Harper loyalist since long before the Cons took power, who presumably had a role in building Harper's own internal message?

To the extent Finley believed his party's own hype, it would seem as likely as not that he'd be willing to throw himself under a modest-sized bus for the sake of protecting the kingpin. And that means there's reason to call the attempt to insulate Harper into question - even as it serves as substantial evidence against Finley himself.

Update: Leftdog has more.

Wednesday Morning Links

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- Lest there be any doubt, the Federal Court of Appeal's decision strongly rejecting the Cons' arguments about rebates isn't any more conclusive of the individual charges against four key Con insiders than the ruling below. But the fact that Elections' Canada's interpretation of the law it's in charge of enforcing has been found to be correct is still a rather important development - particularly since there's no general right of appeal unless the Supreme Court of Canada chooses to grant leave (which is does only in a small fraction of cases).

- Scott Payne's contribution to Aaron Wherry's series on the current state of the House of Commons is well worth a read. But I'd argue that his general metaphor is part of the problem: while politics are too often seen as a matter of merely hooking in votes on a one-time basis, the true measure of success should be to get people to want to be involved more generally.

- Having already duly mocked Lorne Gunter's inane column on the Senate, let's note that Chantal Hebert's more reasonable analysis still looks to be somewhat off base.

Of course, nobody will dispute the point that abolition figures to be a difficult process. But I'd argue (as the NDP seems to be doing) that the experience of Canada's previous failed attempts at constitutional reform should be taken as a signal that there's more chance of success in seeking a popular mandate on specific issues, rather than trying to cobble together a full constitutional package through complex negotiations with ever-changing parties.

And it's also worth noting that Stephen Harper used to agree on abolition as an alternative (with no such criticism from the likes of Hebert) - that is, until he stacked the upper chamber with enough of his cronies to be able to override the will of Canada's elected representatives.

- Finally, let's start working on the backlog of developments in the potash sector with this observation from Erin:

PotashCorp paid zero Potash Production Tax in 2010. In other words, the company is swimming in writeoffs and had no taxable profits according to Saskatchewan’s profit-tax formula.

The company’s entire $77-million royalty payment was the provincial resource surcharge, set at 3% of sales.
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PotashCorp’s 2010 Canadian income tax expense of $333 million comprises about $200 million to Ottawa and $133 million to provincial governments. Because the company also operates in other provinces, Saskatchewan is probably getting less than $133 million.

Meanwhile, PotashCorp is paying $113 million of corporate income tax in Trinidad, where it has a nitrogen facility. In the previous year, 2009, it actually paid more corporate tax to Trinidad than to all levels of Canadian government!

From day one

I don't yet have much to add to the CP's coverage and associated Pundits' Guide posts about the latest area where the Cons' 2006 election return is being challenged.

But it's pointing out that based on the revelations not surfacing until now, the details of how Harper and company won power nearly five years ago are just now trickling out even where they relate to publicly-available returns, with the Cons fighting every step of the way. And that combination of the delay in the truth coming out and the Cons desperately trying to suppress it should leave little reason for confidence about what's happened during the time they've been in power.

In, Out and Around

Radio Free Collingwood points out the first public signs that the Cons may have replicated their 2006 campaign finance manipulations in 2008:

While anxiously awaiting the posting of Helena Guergis’ campaign expenses (just to see if the cost of her four-page newsletter is definitely there), Radio Free Collingwood has been perusing the expenses of other Conservative candidates.

And what are we finding? More of those $15,000 transfers to the Conservative Fund of Canada. While not all of the candidates are posted, thus far there are about 20 Conservative campaigns that made the transfer; for the most part, the expense is listed as a ‘election survey’, though some did list it as ‘miscellaneous’.

As RFC notes, there doesn't seem to be an obvious accompanying transfer from the Cons' central fund to the same candidates in question as there was in 2006. But it'll be worth following up to see if the Cons merely added a couple of diversionary steps to make their actions more difficult to track.

On a quick look at the returns mentioned by RFC, each of the candidate returns does seem to show multiple sizable transfers from the riding associations to the candidates. And if the Cons simply modified their 2006 scheme to remove the obvious number matches and to add transfers to the riding associations into the process, then they may soon find themselves dealing with the fallout from two campaigns worth of charges.

On double-dipping

Following up on this morning's post, let's note that if the Cons did indeed "double-dip" to try to claim both national-level and riding-level rebates for the same polling expenses, expense reports filed with Elections Canada suggest that the Cons would have inflated the riding-level numbers beyond the actual cost of the national polling in the process.

The Winnipeg Free Press identified transfers from candidates' campaigns to the national party totalling $854,000 under the heading of "election surveys or other surveys or research", while the Cons' party return lists only $697,105.00 in expenses under the same category. Which means that if the dollar values refer to the same material, then the Cons would have received rebates totalling $860,952.50 for their initial expenditure: $348,552.50 at the national level, and $512,400 at the riding level. Or in the terms discussed in this morning's post, the Cons would have claimed and received $1.24 in rebates for every dollar spent on surveys and research.

Of course, that kind of return on investment seldom materializes without some significant risk. And it remains to be seen what the Cons' electoral manipulations may wind up costing them.