Legal fees mount in Tory case against Elections Canada

A curious story ...

TIM NAUMETZ

Globe-Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Legal fees approaching $500,000 have become a sensitive issue in the 18-month-old lawsuit the Conservative party mounted against Elections Canada over a controversial advertising scheme during the 2006 election.

It has reached the point where the court chastised a party lawyer because his objections led to a hearing described as unnecessary.

"Why are we even spending your client's money on this — the public's money?" the acting judge, Mireille Tabib, told Michel Decary as she agreed with arguments from a lawyer for Elections Canada in a procedural dispute.

Litigation costs from the lawsuit totalled $210,350 for Elections Canada alone by the end of October, a spokesman for the agency told The Canadian Press.

The Conservative party has declined to disclose legal fees and other costs it has paid. But high-priced legal help from the prestigious Stikeman Elliot firm of Montreal would at least match the fees being paid to Barbara McIsaac, a prominent lawyer from the equally prestigious McCarthy Tetrault firm.

The costs included services such as court reporting and transcripts as well as lawyer fees.

A separate Elections Canada investigation into the disputed election advertising cost $832,291 to November, says Elections Canada.

That means total costs for the dispute have likely risen to at least $1.4-million, including the undisclosed litigation costs for the Conservatives.

The Conservatives took Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand to court over his decision that the costs for radio and television ads that 67 candidates claimed as local expenses were in fact incurred by the party and should have reported as national campaign expenses.

That would have brought the Conservatives more than $1-million over their spending limit for the election.

Because the party receives a large part of its funding from taxpayers through election reimbursements, political allowances and tax deductions for financial contributions, the public in the end is picking up much of the legal tab.

James Morton