The RCMP, you may have heard, raided the national headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada today to execute a search warrant on behalf of Canada's Elections Commissioner. Commissioner William Corbett is investigating allegations that the Conservatives broke 2006 general election advertising spending limits.
“Political parties have rules and they are set by a body that is non-partisan and we should all play by them. And when we’re offside, we should get slapped down for it. And today was a slapdown,” Liberal MP Garth Turner said outside the House of Commons today.
Turner campaigned and won his southern Ontario riding of Halton in the 2006 general election as a Conservative. He was then suspended from the Conservative caucus for violating caucus confidentiality and subsequently joined the Liberals. “The Conservatives in the last campaign were full of little tricks and schemes and ways that candidates and campaigns would have money flowing through them,” Turner said.
Something is strange here. First of all the opposition parties arrive at CPC HQ before the RCMP arrive to search the party's HQ.
Then a search warrant is granted in what the Conservatives say relates to the in and out scheme which is a civil matter not a criminal matter.
I thought serarch warrants were only allowed in criminal cases. Strange?
The search warrant was issued out of Toronto, not Ottawa where the party HQ's is located.
Is there another investigation going on which has not been made public?
I touch on these issues today.