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.
...
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"”.
...
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.
...
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.]