canada vs conservative party - GUILTY

It's been a long-running saga of illegal activity and denial but it's ended somewhat happily with a plea of guilty from Stephen Harper's law and order Conservative governing party.  The party engaged in what is best described as money laundering in the 2006 election and got caught by Elections Canada's audit of campaign spending.  Sitting on a large cash surplus, exceeding what it was allowed by law to spend on its national campaign, the party transferred some of that cash to local constituency organizations who then spent it on national advertising which may have helped it defeat the incumbent Liberal government.

For five years, the Conservatives battled Elections Canada and denied any wrong-doing.  Now, apparently secure in a majority government and hoping voters will have forgotten their illegal activity by the time of the next election, there is a guilty plea-bargain.  By avoiding a trial, the Conservatives' most senior officials are saved from testifying and being cross-examined in the courts of law and, as a result of their bargain with the Crown, Senators Gerstein and Finley don't have to worry about exchanging their red chamber offices for a jail cell.

Sadly, by dragging this out for half a decade, the Conservatives have won, despite being guilty of a flagrant violation of the law and undermining democracy.  They were successful in maintaining plausible deniability of wrongdoing through the 2011 election.  Barring getting caught in further breaches of the law and ethics over the next three years, this is unlikely to even be mentioned in the 2015 campaign.  Unless by aging bloggers who won't forget when it was Canada vs the Conservative Party the verdict was guilty.

Link: Conservative senators avoid charges in Elections Canada plea deal; The Globe and Mail