Angry in the Great White North

Courtesy of Bourque, we get this from the Globe and Mail:

A Liberal Party panel increased Joe Volpe's fine for breaking leadership campaign rules to $20,000, overruling a complaints officer who suggested $1,000 was enough.

The panel's full report was issued yesterday, detailing the findings of an investigation into allegations that Mr. Volpe's campaign paid the membership fees of supporters it recruited to join the party.

Who was the complaints officer? Long-time Liberal Party lawyer, Doug Mitchell:

The party appointed Montreal lawyer Doug Mitchell as a complaints officer to investigate the allegations -- the same lawyer who represented the Liberal Party at the Gomery commission as well as former Business Development Bank of Canada president François Beaudoin in his Shawinigate wrongful-dismissal lawsuit.

So Mitchell is a man who as made excellent money defending the Liberal Party from allegations of corruption. And the Liberal Party decided he was the right man to determine if Joe Volpe was cheating?

Let's think it through.

It's very significant that Mitchell was so forgiving despite intransigence from Volpe:

Mr. Mitchell and his investigator, Montreal lawyer Charles Côte, asked to question Mr. Volpe's Quebec campaign workers, but Mr. Volpe's campaign did not make them available, the report said.

So with incomplete information and a target of the investigation being unhelpful, even furtive, Mitchell decides $1,000 is enough to...what? Teach Volpe a lesson? Send a strong message to the other candidates?

Clearly not.

I think Mitchell was acting like the Liberal Party lawyer and trying to protect his client, instead of a complaints officer trying to protect the integrity of the membership process. Arguably, the lack of integrity in the membership process hurts the party, but that's a subtle point.

Did Mitchell make a big deal that Joe Volpe was not helping with his investigation, thus drawing media attention? No.

Did Mitchell suggest a significantly large fine sure to draw media attention? No.

Did Mitchell suggest no fine at all, sure to draw criticism from other leadership campaigns and even more media attention? No.

It was almost like a plea bargain. An attempt to find a solution that is measured not on whether it was right or wrong, but on whether it created the least amount of discomfort for the client, in this case, the Liberal Party. A minimal fine, in Mitchell's estimation, was that solution, since it would generate the minimum of fuss and bother.

But like a lot of clients you see on TV crime dramas, the Liberal Party ignored the advice of the laywer and has made a very different decision. Volpe gets the $20,000 fine and thirty days to get out of town. That was splashed on the news, and given that Volpe is planning to fight this, will stay in the news.

Is the Liberal Party looking for a fight? Maybe it is. Maybe the party has made the calculation that it needs to be seen stomping hard on allegations of improprieties. The $20,000 fine is not about forcing Volpe out, but about forcing Volpe into a confrontation. That's why Mitchell's recommendation was rejected -- it didn't suit the Party's desires. Maybe the Liberal Party looking for a black eye and a bloody nose in order to prove to everyone it has what it takes to take on corruption within its ranks and crush it.

Is this about exorcising the ghosts of Gomery? Makes sense, actually, since Volpe is one of Paul Martin's people. Though not directly tied to the Sponsorship Scandal, Volpe was a minister at the time. Tossing him overboard won't bother the Liberal Party executive all too much, focused as it is on the future, on candidates like Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae who are untouched by that scandal. By getting rid of Volpe, and doing so in a very public way, the party might be trying to immunize itself from further criticism on ethics.

It sounds twisted, but given that the the fine was set by the party, utterly ignoring the advice of their own complaints officer, you have to think that the Liberal Party had a punishment in mind even before the investigation began. A punishment that was certain to generate publicity.

That's when you have to think that the publicity is, in fact, exactly what the party is looking for. The publicity that a defense lawyer always tries to avoid.

Mitchell is probably shaking his head. Maybe because he doesn't like publicity. Maybe because he's worried that this plan will backfire if Volpe wins his fight against the fine. Maybe because he figures that even if everything goes according to plan and the Liberal Party is seen tossing out the cheater and getting kudos in the papers and on the blogs for doing so, Canadians won't be ready to trust the Liberals for a long, long time, so what's the point?

Maybe Mitchell was trying, and failed, to protect the Liberal Party from itself. The fine has to be paid by the end of October. We'll know by then.