It is, perhaps, somehow fitting that the first major achievement of Maxime Bernier’s still-unnamed libertarian-leaning political party may be to expose a loophole in the fine print of our otherwise tightly regulated political financing laws.

In an email sent to supporters last month, the one-time Conservative leadership candidate claimed to have raised more than $90,000 in the weeks since he had parted ways with his former party — donations that, as the Canadian Press reported, he described as a “all the more generous,” as his team can’t yet provide contributors with tax receipts, which can only be issued by a registered party.

Bernier doubtless intended that phrase to apply to the willingness of Canadians to hand over cash without the promise of an eventual write-off, which is fair enough.

But it’s worth noting that some of those contributions may also be far more generous on a dollar-by-dollar basis than is usually the case for Canadian politics, as neither he nor his party-in-the-making are subject to political financing rules that govern registered political parties: No $1,575 annual cap on donations, no rule against taking money directly from private companies, industry associations or labour unions — or even from sources based outside Canada.

He’s also not obliged to report the details of those donations to Elections Canada — which, in turn, means that the resulting names and contribution amounts won’t be added to the publicly available database that records contributions to registered parties.

Under federal election laws, the rules won’t kick in until he files the necessary paperwork, and the registration doesn’t take effect until the party nominates or endorses at least one candidate in an election or by-election — which Bernier has made it clear is his ultimate goal.

The question, however, is why he wouldn’t want to wait as long as legally and logistically possible to do so.

After all, not only is his new party effectively operating outside the existing federal election laws — which, as noted above, don’t apply until the party is registered — but as the financial limits and reporting rules aren’t retroactive.

That means that he can use that $90,000 — and any other funds he collects between now and when the party is deemed eligible for registration — as a starter fund for his eventual campaign.

According to Elections Canada—and yes, Process Nerd double-checked because she couldn’t quite believe it — there are no restrictions on depositing cash into a newly created political party’s coffers.

The party does have to provide Elections Canada with a audited statement of assets and liabilities within six months of becoming registered, but as far as the law is concerned, the annual limits and disclosure rules only cover donations made after that point.

It should be noted — highlighted, and underlined at least twice — that there is, at least at press time, no reason to think that Bernier or his team are deliberately delaying the registration process — nor, indeed, that they’re even necessarily aware of the advantage that this administrative limbo could offer.

In fact, he may well be planning to voluntarily disclose at least some details related to the financial underpinnings of his new party.

UPDATE: Shortly after this article went up, Process Nerd got a call from Maxime Bernier himself, who confirmed that he is fully committed to following the existing political financing rules — even, as it turns out, when he’s not legally required to do so, which is why he’s putting all donations received to date into his official bank account as an independent candidate in Beauce. Given the circumstances, he’s still not allowed to give out tax receipts, but as the money will initially go into his campaign account, it will be covered by the standard financing rules, including contribution caps and reporting requirements. When the party is officially up and running, he’ll work with the federal elections agency to transfer those funds from the campaign account to the central party coffers. “I don’t want to use loopholes,” he assured iPolitics. “It’s easy to raise money when you have good ideas.”

In theory, though, there doesn’t appear to be anything stopping someone from setting up the framework for a new political party, but waiting until the last possible minute to register while spending the intervening months (or even years) raising as much cash as possible and socking it away until it can be added to the coffers of the registered party to deploy on the hustings.

And while it’s still very much a thought experiment, it’s hard to see how this couldn’t create a double standard on the campaign trail, with new parties being able to draw on a far wider potential funding pool than their more venerable adversaries.

There are, of course, any number of reasons why a nascent political party might want to register as quickly as possible — not just the ability to offer tax receipts to eligible donors, but also access to the voters list, which would be a crucial resource for building a contact database, and the comments emanating from Bernier and his team suggest that they’re hoping to be registered — or at least eligible for registration — as soon as possible.

Even so, however, given the recent surge in concern over outside interference in the democratic process — not to mention the importance in preserving public trust in our electoral system— it might be a good idea to look at tweaking the law to make sure that we know the source and disposition of all money that might find its way onto the federal election hustings, regardless of whether it was collected before or after party registration.