Oh, NOW it's bad...

Under today's "Are you fucking kidding me?" category: Stephane Dion is hot under the collar because the Tories were caught overspending their elections limit by $1million - aprox. 5.5%.

Don't get me wrong - it all seems very shady. The way I understand it, party headquarters tranfered funds to the coffers of 67 or so local candidates who were under their spending limits. I don't know much about elections law in Canada, but I gather that would've been OK if the candidates had spent the money on their own campaigns. Instead, they claimed deductions on the surplus and then transfered it right back. Somehow this was supposed to escape the RCMP's notice...don't ask, doesn't make much sense to me. Sounds like the kind of thing that would've easily turned up on any run-of-the-mill government audit - but this is a new story, so I guess details will surface as it goes on.

I would just like to say that, wrongdoing or no, it's awfully rich of the LIBERAL Party to be whining about this.

Dion said the money could have influenced the outcome of the January 2006 election, which saw the Grits ousted from power and the Tories form a minority government.

"Yes, it may have had an effect," Dion said. "We'll never know for sure, but you don't cheat for nothing. You cheat because you want to have an effect. You want to have more voters for you in an illegal way."

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how a measly million dollars is supposed to have been decisive in an election that the Tories were winning handily until the last couple of weeks. More than that, I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how the "Sponsorship Scandal" and "You had an option, sir" Party suddenly grew a conscience about these things?

I will make a prediction, though. In the end this hurts Harper and the Conservatives ... not one whit.