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The government’s cash-for-access scandals are multiplying like zebra mussels, as more ministers are revealed to have rented out their public office to anyone prepared to stuff hundreds of dollars into the Liberal Party’s coffers.

The case for the defence is that the government does not offer preferential access to donors and there is no conflict of interest, either real or perceived. All Canadians have equal access to ministers, said Marco Mendicino, the Liberal MP who drew the short straw and had to defend the scheme on CTV’s Question Period.

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The Conservatives heard clunking sounds in the Trudeau electoral juggernaut even before the prime minister lauded one of the world’s great dictators and found himself being booed at Sunday’s Grey Cup.

“They are breaking their own code of ethics and are close to breaking the law,” said Candice Bergen, again on Question Period.

Bergen had it half right. Five-hundred-dollar-a-ticket fundraisers in private homes, such as the one attended by finance minister Bill Morneau and the chief executives of companies that lobby Finance Canada, clearly breaches the Liberals’ open and accountable government guideline on preferential access for donors.