Canada's Conservative Party received a special delivery today: a bloody human foot.

The sealed but smelly package was mailed through the Canadian postal system to the Ottawa headquarters of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tory party. A receptionist began opening the box about 11:30 a.m. ET but stopped at the sight of "a substance that was deemed suspicious," according to a police sergeant.

"Upon arrival, officers noted that the (box) package possibly had blood stains on it," a police news release stated.

Police initially thought a heart was inside, but X-rays proved otherwise, the Ottawa Citizen says.

A fire department haz-mat team sampled the air before letting paramedics examine about a dozen people who were quarantined as a precaution. A coroner later determined that the appendage was human, and it was hauled away.

"It's just sickening," Conservative MP Brad Trost, who had come to the office for a meeting, told the Toronto Star. "If someone actually did send something in the mail, that's just abhorrent. I hope it has nothing to do with anything with politics. Hopefully it's just somebody's idea of a stupid joke."

Sick joke or political statement, Montreal police are wondering whether the foot is connected to (or at least was) a dismembered body found this morning in a suitcase that had been dumped on a street among trash bags.

"It is so early into the investigation that it would be impossible to determine that at this time," an Ottawa police spokesperson told the Citizen. "We can't be speaking to possible linkages."

The Globe and Mail in Toronto has more.