Angry in the Great White North

There are reports that Wajid Khan, the former Liberal MP who joined the Conservatives, has been charged by Elections Canada:

Ontario Conservative MP Wajid Khan has been charged with violating the Elections Canada Act.

Khan, who crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives in January of this year, is charged with exceeding his campaign expense limit by $30,000 and paying for some campaign expenses he wasn't allowed to personally cover.

His former riding president and his car dealership, Dufferin Mazda, are also charged with paying for campaign expenses they weren't supposed to cover.

I was forwarded this email sent by Scott Fenton, Khan's lawyer:

Contrary to the news reports, Mr. Khan was not charged with any offences today. To be clear Mr. Khan has not been served with any process or summons in relation to any Elections Act charges.

Maybe we're talking about a delay between filing charges and serving papers. In any case, this is a curious problem. If there are charges pending, the egg is on the face of the Liberals, since Wajid Khan ran as a Liberal in 2004 and again in 2006.

Expect the Liberals to say, well, something about it not being their problem now, or how this shows Khan was not at home with the Liberals, or something.

As the report points out, the sort of money shifting from the dealership that Khan is alleged to have done would be illegal under new legislation, legislation that has been proposed by the Conservatives, and not by the Liberals:

When those returns were filed and made public by Elections Canada, they showed that Mr. Khan's car dealership had lent $179,946 to the riding association. The riding association transferred $32,000 to Mr. Khan's 2004 campaign, and $50,000 to his 2006 election campaign.

On Thursday, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan reintroduced a bill to make such loans illegal, barring corporations that are not financial institutions from lending money to political parties and riding associations. The bill was introduced in the spring, but died when Mr. Harper prorogued Parliament to start a new session in the fall.

I guess we'll know in the next day or so what the status of charges, if any, against Wajid Khan.