Tough On Crime For Thee, But Not For Me

You’ve gotta hand it to those Harpercons. Really. I mean, only they can declare victory after pleading guilty to avoid trial for Senators Finley and Gerstein. 

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have struck a deal with prosecutors to drop embarrassing Elections Act charges against two Tory senators and other party officials accused of “willfully” exceeding spending limits in the 2006 campaign that brought them to office.

It’s the latest chapter in a long-running and unprecedented battle between the Conservatives and the country’s election watchdog – one the Tories insist is still not over.

Ain’t that special?

The Harpercons have been fined 52,000$ as part of their plea agreement. Some penalty! 52,000$, to them and their fund raising machine is chump change.  I would say that’s hardly motivation.  In fact,  Harper mouthpiece, Fred Delorey, is declaring this plea agreement a “victory” for them. Despite the way they spin, spin, spin, I would agree that this is a victory for them.

Furthermore, they still insist they’ve done nothing illegal!

“We acknowledge there were some administrative mistakes and we are paying for those through a modest fine,” Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said.

But, he said, “the practice in which we engaged in was legal and ethical.”

Yep! Legal and ethical…if you’re a Harpercon. If the Liberals pulled something like this, well, it would be ADSCAM! And why aren’t they in jail. The NDP wouldn’t be as lucky neither.

Furthermore, it seemed the priority was to protect two Harpercon senate appointees:

The plea agreement saves the Tories from risking the potential embarrassment of having two of its Senate appointees found in violation of the act, while the reduced charges let the party spin that it made an honest mistake. Prosecutors walk away having secured the same maximum penalties available had the court issued a verdict against the defendants, without the time and expense of a long trial.

No, we can’t have the expense of long trial, can we?  Those are are reserved for anybody else left of Stevie Spiteful and other, ahem! ‘miscreants’.

No, it’s not over neither, the civil portion of this  debacle is not over, yet. It will be heard before the Supreme Court, but count on them to get away with this now that there are more Harpercon appointees stuffing the Supreme Court of Canada these days.

Basically, the Harpercons bought their way to victory in the 2006 federal election and no one seems to care.

Yep, tough on crime for thee, but not for me, is the Harpercons’ basic message.