Liberal MP Karen Redman's "but": She uncovers In-and-Out in all the parties

Shocking revelations at the committee hearings looking into Conservative Party election spending.

Thanks to Liberal MP Karen Redman, we learned two things:

• Other parties engaged in In-and-Out funding and are being investigated by Elections Canada
• The Liberals are sore at Conservative efficiency, and believe that is why the Conservatives need to be punished

Marc Mayrand fails the memory test -- by twenty million dollars!

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand explained that one of the reasons the Conservatives are being targeted for investigation is that candidates and their agents weren't able to recall details of the advertising spending.

Well, that's why we write things down on things like receipts.  So we don't have to remember.

But that's not good enough for Marc Mayrand.

Marc Mayrand holds these people to a higher standard when it comes to remembering details like these. 

Amusingly, it is not a standard he seems to be able to meet.  In fact he misses the mark by a wide margin -- actually by nearly $20 million!

The Conservative Boxes: A good show for the cameras on the way out, then quietly returned

Seventeen boxes of sensitive Conservative material related to the In-and-Out affair being removed from Conservative Party headquarters by grim-looking Elections Canada officials.

The images from last April were quite powerful.

Would you like an update?  Well, for one thing, the boxes didn't leave the building, at least not until the relevancy of the seize material was determined.

And that determination was that over 85% of the material had nothing to do with the question of advertising financing in the 2006 election.  That material has been returned, but without a phalanx of cameras recording the march back into Conservative Party headquarters.

And the rest?  Virtually all of it was material Elections Canada already had.

Makes you wonder just what the point of all this was.  Just to put on a good show for the cameras?

In-and-Out and the question of privilege

The Globe and Mail is running a story on how Elections Canada tried to manage the story of the "raid" on Conservative Party headquarters.  But as an interesting side note, there is correspondence concerning the nature of legal privilege.

It seems to be far less strict than I thought, at least according to the General Counsel at Elections Canada.

Still trying to peg Andre Thouin and Raymond Lamothe as Elections Canada employees

The latest data from Elections Canada regarding contracts has been disclosed today.  I've been looking forward to seeing it in order to determine if investigators Andre Thouin and Raymond Lamothe are actually working for Elections Canada.

And yet with data covering a period ending a mere nine days before the search warrant was signed off by Raymond Lamothe, I still can't find where he was rehired by Elections Canada after his initial contract ran out in March of 2007.  The same goes for fellow investigator Andre Thouin, who collected the evidence on April 15.

Pierre Poilievre brings the Elections Canada Investigators' Manual to parliament

Until now, the debate on the significance over the apparent decision not to follow its own internal rules governing investigations and search warrants with regards to the Conservative Party In-and-Out issue has been limited to the blogosphere.  That changed yesterday when Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre raised the issue in the House of Commons.

Main stream media was the first to mention the Elections Canada Investigators' Manual

I just discovered that I was scooped by just over a week on the question of whether the investigators who pursued a search warrant targeting Conservative Party headquarters had followed the rules in their own manual.

Glen McGregor of the Canwest News Service mentioned it briefly in a story printed on April 15.

International observers: More power to Elections Canada, more foreign participation in Canadian politics

With the range of contentious issues facing the work of Elections Canada, from allegations of differing standards for party filings to the draconian rules about publication of polling results to the free-speech limiting interpretation of advertising rules, I thought it might be interesting to see what election observers from other countries think about Elections Canada.

Judging from a report from a branch of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe called the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the attitude seems to be that Elections Canada is doing fine, but there ought to be some rules that need to be changed.  Rules to protect the rights of prisoners to vote, to allow foreigners to become involved in Canadian elections, and such -- but when it comes to restrictions on the free speech of Canadians, well, the less said the better.  Perhaps literally.

In general, the ODIHR is more concerned that Elections Canada doesn't have enough power, and that the ODIHR does not have enough access to provide oversight of Canadian elections.

How the Conservatives were singled out by Elections Canada

One of the more difficult things for many Canadians to accept is the notion that Elections Canada had singled out the Conservative Party for special treatment.  Let's be honest -- it does sound a bit paranoid.

The actual explanation is really very simple.  Ridiculously simple.  But unfortunately, it does not dispel the conspiracy theory entirely.

Four questions concerning the search warrant

I try to eliminate some of the fog based on the speculation by asking some very simple questions.

Elections Canada warrant makes no mention of interviews with senior Conservative officials

Elections Canada investigators have a process by which they attempt to get documentation from people they suspect as having broken the law regarding elections.  Reviewing the warrant, I don't see any evidence that the process was followed with regards to officials at Conservative Party headquarters.  I wonder if that explains why officials drove all the way to Toronto to have a judge who specializes in commercial litigation sign a warrant dealing with electoral law.

What's wrong?  No specialists in electoral law sitting on the bench in Ottawa?

Maybe that's want they wanted to avoid.

Elections Canada Investigators' Manual

Helpfully, there is a manual that explains just how an Elections Canada investigator is supposed to do his job, including the level of non-cooperation that has to be reached before a search warrant is justified.

In-and-Out Timeline

A list of the major event moments in the In-and-Out story.  What's so remarkable is just how short the list is.

Some answers and more questions about Andre Thouin

Unexpectedly, the question about Andre Thouin's exact job is turning out to be more interesting that I expected it would be.

Elections Canada: Who does Andre Thouin work for?

A minor detail, but you know Andre Thouin?   He's the Elections Canada official photographed carrying out that box of material from Conservative Party headquarters.  Here's the thing.  I can't find him in the staff list.

Can the Liberals really use this picture?

That picture of Andre Thouin of Elections Canada carrying out papers from the headquarters of the Conservative Party is quite striking.  But can it ever find its way into Liberal Party election material?

I doubt it.

If the search warrant was leaked...

...the someone could be in a lot of trouble.

Repost: Liberal and NDP in-and-out funding

Do other parties engage in the same sort of funding practices as the Conservatives?  You look at the evidence and decide for yourself.

Did Elections Canada use the Mounties as props?

What exactly was the role of the RCMP officers who participated in yesterday's visit to Conservative Party headquarters?  Did the Mounties know what role they were to play, and who was setting the stage?

What is Elections Canada hunting for?

Big news from the capital is, of course, the so-called "raid" on Conservative Party headquarters by the RCMP.

OK, call me old school, but it ain't a raid unless someone is rappelling down the side of the building.

But it is interesting even if it isn't much of a raid.

Elections Canada is looking for something.

Evidence?

Payback?

Revenge?

Is the In-and-Out Scandal just Jean Landry's frustration blown out of proportion?

Did the Conservatives coerce candidates into questionable ad spends designed to violate campaign spending limits? That is what the Liberals would have us believe, based in large part on media interviews with former Conservative candidate Jean Landry. Dig deeper though, and you discover a far more complex story that calls into question the basis upon which Elections Canada initiated an investigation.

Did this all start because of one frustrated ex-candidate?

Evidence of how the Liberals and the NDP engage in their own In-and-Out funding efforts

In a rather long post (made longer with all the evidence I'm presenting), I'm reviewing how the Liberals and the NDP organized, funded, and ultimately declared local advertising. The Liberals are claiming that the Conservatives engaged in some sort of money laundering scheme, magically converting national funds into local funds for advertising that was clearly not local, in an effort to break the law with regards to spending limits in the last election campaign.

The Conservatives have shot back that it wasn't illegal, which is why all parties do it. And you know what? It looks like they all do.

Breaking News: Conservative Party staffers serve libel notice on Liberals [confirmed]

From a trusted source who knows, news that just adds to Stephane Dion's troubles. The Conservatives have served notice that they intend to pursue a libel action against the Liberal Party.

Update: Confirmed

Update: Details in the mainstream press, and how this links to the Sponsorship Scandal.

Stephane Dion's advertising spending trick

Ottawa is embroiled in controversy. The Conservatives are being targeted for having moved money from the national campaign office into local riding associations to use to buy local advertising. But the advertising was in fact purchased from the national campaign. It consisted of the national ad with the local candidate's name added to the end (connecting the local candidate to the national party brand).

Elections Canada is calling foul, saying the ads weren't truly local. The Conservatives argue that the ads were local, and in any case, that sort of judgment call is not for Elections Canada to make.

The Liberals are in a frenzy, demanding inquiries and such. People go to jail for this sort of thing! Fraud! Fraud!

Hey. No one is doubting that advertising was actually purchased by the Conservatives.

The Liberals ought to be careful. A quick look at one shows something that looks, well, strange. I was looking at Stephane Dion's returns.

Conservative advertising controversy is insulting

That Elections Canada is even involved in passing judgment on whether a particular ad is effective as a local ad is fundamentally insulting. Political advertisements are aimed at me, the voter, and not at Elections Canada. I get to pass judgment on the ad campaign when I vote. Elections Canada ought to butt once it has confirmed that the money was spent on advertising.

Angry in the Great White North by Steve Janke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. Based on a work at stevejanke.com.