The sentencing of Dean Del Mastro, Stephen Harper’s former parliamentary secretary and the good city of Peterborough’s finest whatever, should have been a brisk swift thing. But like everything Del Mastro, it grew sodden, the legal works gummed up by whining and eccentric complaints by the new lawyer he has hired post-conviction.

Del Mastro, former Conservative MP and longtime bully of the CBC, was found guilty of exceeding 2008 electoral spending limits, failing to report a personal contribution of $21,000 to his own campaign and knowingly submitting a falsified document. For overspending and lying about it, he could be sentenced to three years in jail and some onlookers were expecting this. What I was expecting was for Del Mastro to disgrace himself further, which is scarcely possible. But he did yesterday, seeking a mistrial.

A man who showed up at his trial with his mother, who wore his baby daughter’s hospital bracelet for his House of Commons resignation speech and who brought the baby to his sentencing, is a man who has no shame. He hides not just behind skirts but diapers. He is also a man who has no Kleenex and his Conservative ex-friends were unwilling to hand him any as he sobbed in the House.

I watched that resignation speech repeatedly, in awe that such a mean simpleton could ever have put his pants on by himself and toddled up to Ottawa in the first place. I would have written about it at the time but was so repelled by the cruelty of Del Mastro’s former colleagues that I held off. Del Mastro only cries at his own misery, his “amoral entitlement,” as one commentator put it, turning him into a human puddle.

Judge Lisa Cameron has been patient but I assume she has put many adults on the naughty step. When she found him guilty in 2014, she came close to saying he lied in court, referring to “inconsistencies and improbabilities” in his testimony. “He is avoiding the truth,” she said.

“That’s her opinion,” a still-damp Del Mastro told awed reporters. It was an extraordinary way to refer to a judge’s conclusion of guilt, and it goes to the heart of the Conservative approach to things they don’t like about this civilized and organized country. They take the law and chew at it.

The hallmark of the Canada Revenue Agency is fairness, but suddenly only charities the Conservatives dislike are audited. The Supreme Court says prostitutes must be made physically safe so the Conservative government sneaks in a law that gives prostitutes nowhere to flee. A declaration of war would be unpopular so the Conservatives send “advisers” to Iraq where they are likely to be fired upon, so must fire back, and bam, we’re at war. Canada already has a law effectively sentencing dangerous offenders to life in prison but the Conservatives parody their own punitiveness by announcing plans for a law saying “life” must really mean “life.” Science? The Conservatives terrify government scientists into silence.

And when a famous bullying Conservative MP is found guilty of poisoning a fair election, he’ll go to court to demand the judge judge her own judgment and effectively restart the trial. We have appeal courts for legal disagreements. We don’t have restarts or do-overs. When challenged about his idiocy, his lawyer said he was relying on “natural justice,” which sounds like a shade of lipstick.

But his tactics are effective.

Del Mastro twisting the rules while sobbing reminds me of a letter to the editor in my local paper from a sweet-natured new Canadian from Bangladesh. He had gone to a food bank for some temporary help and was shocked when he got home to find that some canned goods were past their Best Before date. Hadn’t it been inspected? “It was beyond my imagination that such a thing could happen in Canada.” And then predictably, people descended on him for his ingratitude.

But they misunderstood. The man had a preconception about Canada. It was, he clearly believed, a clean compassionate organized country with systems in place, where donated food would not be elderly and where rules were followed. This is how the rest of the world still sees us. Canada gleams.

It’s as easy to subvert such presumed Canadian tidiness as it is to donate dusty food. Who’s checking? People like Del Mastro get away with it because they can. His lawyer pointed out that the $21,000 cheque at the heart of the case included HST so it was really only about $20,000. He said voters whose election was stolen aren’t really “victims.”

And he basically argued in court that even if Del Mastro were guilty, his Liberal opponent still would not have won.

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So that’s OK then. We’re fine. The sentencing hearing that tests our patience continues.