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Remember that Dean Del Mastro guy? He’s the Conservative who was accused of improper spending practices during a federal election. You know, that one. No, not that one. The other one. He sits as an independent MP now, but he remains faithful to his constituents in…uh, hold on. Peterborough.Yeah, Peterborough.

Like all Canadian investigations, it has taken years to look into his alleged $21,000 overspending in campaign finance. Elections Canada claims that Mr. Del Mastro knowingly submitted false documents as vindicating proof.

 

EthicsAdrian Wyld

Ethics
Adrian Wyld

 

Forget perjury. Del Mastro is asking the courts to investigate how Elections Canada got a hold of his private finance documents. The Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada Marc Mayrand is also to blame for this “malicious and planned attack” because taking documents pertaining to him donating to his own campaign should be kept totally private, according to Del Mastro. Elections Canada is clearly at fault here for being so rude and breaching his privacy. Releasing private financial documents may be unwarranted, but the disparaging contents of the financial documents in question are a tiny bit unwarranted too.

Yes, shame on Elections Canada. As Dean Del Mastro put it ““Mr. Marc Mayrand […] is duty bound by statute to protect against this type of behaviour.” Wait, the taking private documents behaviour or the breaking the law by issuing huge donations to yourself behaviour? Members of Parliament are bound by statute to uphold and protect the concept of peace, order, and good government. Forget that, too.

This summer, Del Mastro will be putting forward a “spirited and indisputable defence.” What sort of indisputable evidence? That’s a great question. Del Mastro has been dodging all questions, maybe his plan is to use the element of surprise. There isn’t a lot of precedent saying the element of surprise works in court, but whatever helps Del Mastro sleep at night. He seems cool and confident about the road ahead, but I can only imagine what was going on in his constituency offices when he discovered his campaign records had been leaked. It probably looked a little something like this:

 

(Minus the Scottish accent, of course)