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Nothing like a search warrant to spice up your public image.
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RCMP at Conservative party headquarters
Meagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 15, 2008
OTTAWA - The RCMP were at Conservative party headquarters in downtown Ottawa on Tuesday morning, assisting Elections Canada in the execution of a search warrant.
"I can confirm that the commissioner of Canada Elections requested the assistance of the RCMP in the execution of a search warrant," said Elections Canada spokesman John Enright. "The commissioner has no further comment."
Reached by phone in Winnipeg, Conservative party president Don Plett also said that RCMP investigators and officials from Elections Canada were at party headquarters but declined to answer any other questions.
The Conservative party offices are on two floors of the downtown building.
Several Mounties were seen entering an office on one floor with small suitcase-sized cases marked "Division A."
Shortly after noon, Elections Canada official Andre Thouin stepped off the elevator and made his way to the Conservative party's 12th-floor offices. About five minutes later, he walked out of the office with a brown cardboard box in his arms.
"I have various documentation," was all Thouin would tell reporters.
While Elections Canada would not confirm what exactly its officials are searching for, their presence at Tory headquarters is likely in connection with a probe into campaign advertising expenses in the 2006 election.
Elections Canada is investigating what are called "in and out" transactions. The Tories are accused of channeling the costs of national advertising through the campaigns of local candidates in order to avoid exceeding their national campaign spending limit.
Parties are legally allowed to transfer money to candidates during an election campaign and did so for the 2006 election.
The Conservative party however, used the transfers in a way that resulted in candidates paying a total of $1.2 million for radio and television ads.Elections Canada says the Tories would have exceeded its legal campaign spending limit had it claimed the $1.2 million in advertising that the party transferred to Tory candidates.
Candidates are entitled to receive a 60 per cent rebate of allowable expenses and last year chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand rejected the expense claims filed by 67 Conservative candidates and would not agree to reimburse them for the advertising costs.
Seventeen of the candidates are sitting MPs, including several cabinet ministers.
Three of the candidates have told the Ottawa Citizen they believed the payments to the party were for national advertising, and one former candidate has said his campaign was compelled by party headquarters to join in.
Elections Canada said the candidates did not produce evidence that they actually contracted the advertising themselves and that local ads were intended to benefit individual candidates.
Conservative officials insist the ads qualified as local advertisements, not subject to the national campaign spending limits, because they included small-print tag lines with candidate and riding names at the end.
Elections Canada says the tag lines are not relevant in determining whether the ads are legitimate expenses for the candidates.
The dispute has sparked a court battle between Elections Canada and the Conservative party with 30 of the candidates challenging Mayrand's decision in Federal Court.
Commissioner of elections William Corbett launched his investigation into the transactions last April. He has the authority to pass on cases to prosecutors.
© Canwest News Service 2008
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RCMP at Conservative party headquarters
Meagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 15, 2008
OTTAWA - The RCMP were at Conservative party headquarters in downtown Ottawa on Tuesday morning, assisting Elections Canada in the execution of a search warrant.
"I can confirm that the commissioner of Canada Elections requested the assistance of the RCMP in the execution of a search warrant," said Elections Canada spokesman John Enright. "The commissioner has no further comment."
Reached by phone in Winnipeg, Conservative party president Don Plett also said that RCMP investigators and officials from Elections Canada were at party headquarters but declined to answer any other questions.
The Conservative party offices are on two floors of the downtown building.
Several Mounties were seen entering an office on one floor with small suitcase-sized cases marked "Division A."
Shortly after noon, Elections Canada official Andre Thouin stepped off the elevator and made his way to the Conservative party's 12th-floor offices. About five minutes later, he walked out of the office with a brown cardboard box in his arms.
"I have various documentation," was all Thouin would tell reporters.
While Elections Canada would not confirm what exactly its officials are searching for, their presence at Tory headquarters is likely in connection with a probe into campaign advertising expenses in the 2006 election.
Elections Canada is investigating what are called "in and out" transactions. The Tories are accused of channeling the costs of national advertising through the campaigns of local candidates in order to avoid exceeding their national campaign spending limit.
Parties are legally allowed to transfer money to candidates during an election campaign and did so for the 2006 election.
The Conservative party however, used the transfers in a way that resulted in candidates paying a total of $1.2 million for radio and television ads.Elections Canada says the Tories would have exceeded its legal campaign spending limit had it claimed the $1.2 million in advertising that the party transferred to Tory candidates.
Candidates are entitled to receive a 60 per cent rebate of allowable expenses and last year chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand rejected the expense claims filed by 67 Conservative candidates and would not agree to reimburse them for the advertising costs.
Seventeen of the candidates are sitting MPs, including several cabinet ministers.
Three of the candidates have told the Ottawa Citizen they believed the payments to the party were for national advertising, and one former candidate has said his campaign was compelled by party headquarters to join in.
Elections Canada said the candidates did not produce evidence that they actually contracted the advertising themselves and that local ads were intended to benefit individual candidates.
Conservative officials insist the ads qualified as local advertisements, not subject to the national campaign spending limits, because they included small-print tag lines with candidate and riding names at the end.
Elections Canada says the tag lines are not relevant in determining whether the ads are legitimate expenses for the candidates.
The dispute has sparked a court battle between Elections Canada and the Conservative party with 30 of the candidates challenging Mayrand's decision in Federal Court.
Commissioner of elections William Corbett launched his investigation into the transactions last April. He has the authority to pass on cases to prosecutors.
© Canwest News Service 2008