Elections Canada alleges the Conservative Party of Canada deliberately violated federal elections law by spending about $1.1 million over its national limit on media advertising and deliberately filed misleading statements in its official returns.

In a sworn affidavit released yesterday by the Conservative Party, a senior investigator in the office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections claimed last week's extraordinary search of the party's national headquarters was justified in order to obtain evidence supporting the allegations.

Ronald Lamothe, assistant chief investigator in the office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, stated investigators would look for material "that could reasonably be believed to evidence" of the offences.

He sought hard-copy and electronic copies of correspondence, emails, invoices, accounting records and all kinds of other papers that would outline discussions between Conservative officials and its media production and buying agencies Retail Media, Yield or Yield Integrated, Republic Publicité + Design Inc.

Specifically, Lamothe cited three potential offences under the Canada Elections Act.

The third allegation comes under the obligation to file "true and complete reports." The allegation is that the party's official agent filed returns with Elections Canada "that it knew or ought reasonably to have known contained a materially false or misleading statement" on its expenses.

The range of penalties for exceeding the election expense limit for a party's chief agent is $1,000 fine, three months imprisonment or both. A registered party is liable to $25,000 fine.

The information to obtain the search warrant says the Conservative spending limit was $18,278,278.64, and that the party claimed it spent $18,019,179.28, leaving it $259,099.36 short of its maximum election expenses spending limit.

"Had the Conservative Party of Canada included the amount of $1,375,451.91 that it spent for the (regional) media buy as a party election expense, it would have exceeded its spending limit by $1,116,352.55," stated Lamothe.

That money was allocated to local campaigns of 67 candidates, two of whom didn't get the 10 per cent of votes required to claim expense rebates, it said.

"It also improperly generated a potential reimbursement of 60 per cent of the media buy-related election expenses," for the local campaigns that participated, the affidavit says.

In the end, elections investigators, backed by RCMP officers, concluded their raid after two days. The warrant, filed in Toronto, was sealed. It was later unsealed Friday, but not to be made available to the public until sometime Monday or later.

Outraged over the unprecedented search, officials of the Conservative Party of Canada released the package of nearly 650 pages of the search warrant documents today.

Senior party officials took the unusual step of briefing a limited number of reporters on the documents at a downtown hotel Sunday afternoon.

Speaking on condition they not be identified by name, they framed some potentially more damaging emails that Lamothe cited in his package.

One of those emails included an email by an employee at the party's media buying agency referring to a call from the head of the Conservative Fund, Irving Gerstein.

"They may be spending up to their legal limit on this campaign," wrote David Campbell advising others of Gerstein's call. "They are also thinking of 'switching' some of the time over to the ridings. It sounded like the reason was to legally maximize advertising expenditures."

A senior official said emails may contain "heated language" in the course of a campaign, but no evidence of illegality.

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A Conservative official said the party never denied its campaigns are "centrally organized…that our national campaigns and our regional organizers were the drivers for this."

All ads produced and aired regionally contained the necessary local taglines, he said. But in some cases, he said candidates who agreed to go in on buying media advertising time "had second thoughts," and had to be told it was "too late."

"Transfers of money, including sales of goods and services by national parties to local parties is perfectly legal under the act. It's all part of running a modern, integrated national campaign."

But the officials denied the party deliberately sought to skirt national limits by using up spending room in local campaigns that were less likely to produce wins for the party, or that the Conservatives sought to direct media spending into ridings that were more likely to win them.

They scoffed at suggestions it might have made the difference in a dozen or so ridings and won the election, saying it is "crap."

He said the party exercised its right to advertise "in a free and legal manner. The content is ours to do. We took great pains to organize these regional buys to be consistent with Elections Canada, particularly the billing, invoicing and the authorization taglines."

The official said "this is not just about money or rebates." If it was, he suggested, there were easier ways for the party to get $1.2 million than through contested rebates from Elections Canada.

Party officials said the search was sweeping and "outrageous."

Dropping the moderate language about a "visit" from investigators, supported by the RCMP, they said Elections Canada "stormed" the party's headquarters.

Party officials said they had complied with all requests last year from Elections Canada to turn over documents, but never received one request from the commissioner's office which did interview their media buyer.

The party says Elections Canada has not applied the same rules equally to the Liberals, Bloc Québécois or NDP, which saw their national campaigns do similar "media buys" for local or regional campaigns. They also saw similar funds transferred between national and local campaign offices and similar expense claims submitted, and refunded, by Elections Canada.



