July 6, 2008
OTTAWA -- Opposition MPs fear the Harper government is preparing to cut off parliamentary business for the summer rather than endure an inquiry into allegations of election spending fraud by the Conservative party.
After months of Tory filibustering that delayed a probe of the so-called in-and-out election financing scheme, the Commons ethics committee is finally scheduled to begin hearings on July 15.
Chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand and other officials from Elections Canada, the independent watchdog that red-flagged the alleged irregularities, are slated to be the first witnesses.
But some opposition critics suspect Prime Minister Stephen Harper will prorogue Parliament, a pre-emptive procedural tactic that governments usually employ when they want to wipe the legislative agenda clean and start fresh with a new throne speech.
In this case, since the full House of Commons has already adjourned for the summer, the main impact would be to dissolve all committees, thus thwarting the planned examination of the in-and-out affair.
"Prorogation I think is a real threat," Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc said in an interview.
"If you look at the desperate way they tried to prevent the procedure and House affairs committee from ever meeting on this matter, it's obvious they'll stop at nothing to cover this up."
The procedure and House affairs committee was paralyses for months last winter and spring as the Tories fought off attempts by the combined opposition parties to launch an investigation of the election spending scheme.
But Pierre Poilievre, the Tory point man on the issue, blamed the opposition for the committee's dysfunction. He said the Conservatives would have been happy to air their election financing tactics as long as MPs also looked at the books of all the other parties.
Mr. Poilievre said he's heard nothing about proroguing Parliament to head off the hearings now planned by the ethics committee. And he insisted he's actually looking forward to questioning Mr. Mayrand.
"Elections Canada has a lot of explaining to do," he said in an interview. "They changed the rules after the game was over, and they singled out Conservatives for a practice that all parties follow."
Elections Canada alleges that the Conservative party funnelled money through 67 local candidates to pay for national advertising during the 2006 election campaign. The watchdog says the scheme allowed the party to exceed its national spending limit by $1.3-million, and also allowed individual candidates to claim rebates on expenses they didn't actually incur.
Under the scheme, the party transferred money to a candidate's local campaign and the candidate sent the money right back to party headquarters, ostensibly to pay for a share of the national advertisements.
As part of its investigation into the matter, Elections Canada brought in the RCMP in April to raid Tory headquarters.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have gone to court to contest Elections Canada's refusal to give rebates to local Tory candidates for the questioned ad expenses.
Mr. Poilievre said he wants to ask Mr. Mayrand about "hundreds" of examples of opposition parties making similar transfers that never raised an eyebrow at Elections Canada.
Tory members of the committee are also likely to raise questions about how journalists and a Liberal videographer happened to descend on Conservative headquarters just as the RCMP raid got under way.
Mr. LeBlanc contends the Tory ad scheme was unique in its scope and dismisses similar-looking transfers by other parties as "irrelevant."
He also predicts that, if the Tories don't prorogue Parliament or mount another filibuster, they will probably be "belligerent" in their questioning of Mr. Mayrand.
He noted that Mr. Harper has a long history of feuding with Elections Canada, despite the agency's international reputation for ensuring fair elections.
"I hope that the Conservatives are not as abusive and inappropriate with (Mr. Mayrand) at the table as they are when he's not in the room," said Mr. LeBlanc.
"They think that Elections Canada is like a committee of the Conservative caucus that Mr. Harper can bully and intimidate, when in fact it's an independent organization."
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