Angry in the Great White North

The Liberal Party has already paid back $1.14 million to the treasury, saying this represents the sum total of money illegally diverted back to the Liberal Party by the various players in the Sponsorship Scandal.

I don't recall that any explanation has ever been put forward as to how the number was determined:

"We have not forgotten the $40 million in the sponsorship scandal that's missing,'' an unnamed Tory strategist told La Presse.

As always, there is a political calculation at work here.

If this was purely about the money, the government lawyers and the Liberal Party lawyers would meet and try to hash out a deal. Obviously, if it costs $5 million to mount a lawsuit and you net $3 million, it was a Pyrrhic victory. So numbers would be tossed back and forth, a sum agreed to, a cheque would be cut, and everyone would walk away.

The Liberals would demand, and get, a clause in the settlement that requires both sides to keep all details of the agreement absolutely confidential.

But is this just about the money?

There are two other motivations -- a high road and a low road.

Let's take the low road first. The government is after the money, but the Conservatives are after blood. The Liberals continue to slip in the polls. All the best potential leadership candidates have refused to run, leaving the field populated with newcomers and junior members. The other opposition parties continue to spend more time going after their fellow opposition Liberals rather than the government. A very public lawsuit, essentially a replay, in part, of the Gomery Inquiry, will add to the momentum. Momentum towards what? The death of the Liberal Party altogether?

It could happen.

In that case, a quiet settlement is the last thing the Conservatives want, even if it is in the government's interest.

The danger, of course, is that the Liberals could play it smart and make a legitimate and generous offer, with some evidence offered to suggest it is a fair number. If the Conservatives reject it and push for a lawsuit, it could be seen as a party using the powers of government to pursue purely self-serving political goals.

But then, thanks to the Liberals, that's why we're here having this debate in the first place.

Of course, the Liberals may not be all that smart, and in any case, they are broke, so maybe they can't make an offer. And offering any sort of evidence to show that the offer represents the true amount taken is dangerous because of questions that would be raised about why this was not revealed earlier.

Then there is the high road.

Accepting a quiet settlement along with a nondisclosure clause gets the Liberals off the hook. The message is sent that for the right amount of cash, a problem can go away. But cash is not the proper currency here. Political capital must be paid to make things right. One could argue that the Liberals have already paid that political price, but many would disagree. For many, it isn't enough that the Liberals lost the election. The Liberals must be utterly defeated -- many Liberals still think this is Conservative government represents a short pause before the Liberals return to their rightful place. The Liberals still see the Liberal Party as Canada's natural ruling party, and the Conservative Party as some sort of caretaker. A public and painful court case might disavow them of this view, which, ironically, will be a good thing for the Liberals in the long run.

Assuming the Liberal Party survives, that is.

A public case will also satisfy the public need to see justice done. A secret deal might make the most sense financially, but it's not always about the money. If the Liberals are allowed to scuttle out from underneath a lawsuit, the Conservatives could take a hit for letting it happen.

That's the downside of pushing the ethics thing -- sometimes it dramatically reduces your options, eliminating options that really aren't all that bad.

I did some research on this notion of a government taking a political party to court, by the way, and I can't find any examples that mimic the Canadian situation. That in itself might be a problem (back to that issue of a party using the government to do its dirty work). I did, however, find this example from 2003:

CAPE TOWN: The Institute for Democracy in South Africa is taking the country's five largest political parties to court in about two weeks. The group, also known as IDASA, wants to force them to reveal who gives them their money, even though South African law does not currently require political parties to identify their donors.

The Institute notes that South African political parties get some money from the government, and is arguing that the country's freedom of information law should therefore require the parties to reveal the rest of their funding sources.

The head of IDASA's politics program, Richard Calland said it is completely unreasonable to expect taxpayers to continue paying for parties' activities without knowing where they are getting the rest of their money. "Secret funding gives an opportunity for people who want to contaminate the political process by steering political parties, particularly those in government, in particular directions. We have been arguing for transparency in relation to this for eight years now, and regrettably none of the political parties have come to this particular conclusion that we have, and there has been a lack of action. We now feel that the only way to focus minds is to bring these legal cases against the five biggest political parties," he said.

The lawsuit targets South Africa's five largest political parties, including the ruling African National Congress, or ANC.

As far as I can tell, this lawsuit has not been resolved. Interestingly, the issue was the similar -- where is the money coming from? But even in this case, no one was alleging that any party was raiding the government treasury.

That sort of thing happens in tinpot dictatorships.

And in Canada under the Liberal Party, of course.