Why another election? Stephen Harper’s government was charged with electoral fraud, contempt of parliament and incompetency.

Electoral fraud undermines the integrity of free and fair elections. It’s an attack against the principle and the practice of democracy. A party shouldn’t come to power or stay in power by using tactics that break the law. At its core, that is what the Conservative Party in-and-out scandal is all about.  That is why Canadians are going to the polls again – for the fourth time in seven years.

Electoral fraud by members of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government brought down the Canadian government.  Obstructing the House of Commons investigation of this electoral fraud brought about the vote of contempt of parliament against the Conservative minority government and their leader Stephen Harper.  The non-confidence vote tabled against Stephen Harper and his Conservative government was based on the findings and charge of contempt of parliament for electoral fraud.

Canada’s director of public prosecutions charged the leadership of Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party’s 2006 campaign team with breaking the law to affect the outcome of an election.

There are legal limits on what federal parties and candidates can spend during the course of an election campaign. The limits are there in order to ensure a level playing field between parties, so that our elections are both free and fair. In Canada, these laws help ensure that the people, not money, determines the outcome of an election.

That is the law that Senator Doug Finley, Senator Irving Gerstein, Michael Geniron and Susan Kehoe are charged with breaking. The Conservative campaign exceeded the 2006 legal spending limit of $18.3 million by $1.2-million.  The Conservatives broke the law by overspending $1.2 million on national TV advertising to influence the outcome of battleground ridings instead of the ridings that claimed the expense.

Whether or not you agree with the principle of campaign spending laws, they are still the law, and while the Canadian public and reporters may not be familiar with them, they are well known to everyone who runs a campaign. Even in a local campaign for MP, overspending is punishable with jail time.

Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have argued that it is an accounting dispute. The detailed allegations tell another story.  In order to make it appear that the $1.2 million was being spent locally, the national Conservative campaign transferred it to 67 local Conservative campaigns for 24 hours, then transferred it back out. The media company responsible for buying the ads stated that its invoices were forged or altered to support this version of events. Then, local campaigns applied for $777,000 in government rebates to which they were not entitled.

The accusations of forged and altered invoices make this much more than a mere “accounting dispute.” $187,000 of taxpayers’ money was paid out to Conservative campaigns before Elections Canada realized how widespread the scheme was.

At 67 candidates, it involves one in every five Conservative candidates in the 2006 election, in every province but Alberta. It includes 14 sitting Conservative MPs and four members of Stephen Harper’s cabinet: Stockwell Day, Josée Verner, Christian Paradis and Lawrence Cannon. Former minister Maxime Bernier’s campaign was also involved.

A lower court ruling that favored the Conservatives was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal. The Conservatives’ only defense offered to the lower court had nothing to do with whether the scheme was legal or not; they simply argued that Elections Canada had no business investigating Conservative election expenses: that it was the department’s job to just rubber stamp campaign returns and hand over taxpayer-financed rebates.

Even today the Conservatives are denying the seriousness of the charges and suggest that other parties have done the same, though there is no evidence to back up their claim. Other parties transferred money between local and national campaigns, but none have been charged with doing it to conceal illegal spending.

The company doing the ad buying and a handful of Conservative campaigns expressed reservations because they thought the scheme might break the law. One Conservative candidate in B.C. who did participate was angry because the money transferred in his name bought an anti-Liberal ad, when his main competition was the NDP.

In an effort to demonstrate to the public how lightly he takes the charges, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not removed senators Finley and Gerstein from the Conservative Caucus, though he removed Helena Guergis over a rumour of wrongdoing from a private detective.

That means that under Stephen Harper’s leadership, senators Finley and Gerstein, two people accused of breaking the law — and using forged documents to do so — still have a say in how our government is run. Gerstein is still in charge of the Conservative Party’s fundraising.

On May 2, 2011 vote wisely.  The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was toppled because of charges of electoral fraud, contempt of parliament and incompetency and those charges triggered the fourth election in seven years.  It is the first time ever that a Canadian government (Stephen Harper’s Conservative government) has been found in contempt of parliament.   Stephen Harper “stonewalled” parliament for four months on details of its core spending priorities, as well as breaking election laws.  Members of Stephen Harper’s government were formally charged with forging documents and misleading parliament.  The Conservative government of Stephen Harper was found guilty of contempt of parliament.

You wouldn’t let a convicted pedophile into your home to look after your children so why would let Stephen Harper be prime minister of Canada again?

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