Hat tip to BCL

Who is Doug Finley? He is a senior conservative - one of the true inner circle - who ran two federal election campaigns for Stephen Harper. In 2009 he was rewarded for his efforts with a plum patronage senate seat, along with another political crony, party fundraiser Irving Gerstein.

Senators Finley and Gerstein, along with former party officers Susan Kehoe and Michael Donison in February of this year were charged with Elections Act offences and are currently involved in court cases relating to the so-called "in and out" financing scheme that. If found guilty those charged face penalties ranging from fines to jail time.

If one low level party worker, Sebastien Togneri, currently under police investigation, can be summarily dismissed from the Harper election campaign machine (after the media take notice) why is a very high level operative who has been under investigation for years and has since been charged and appeared before the courts on serious offences still allowed to participate in this election?

Finley's wife is a minister in Harper's cabinet. Finley himself is connected to Harper at the groin - he ran Harper's leadership campaign for the newly minted Conservative party in 2003/04. Gerstein was the chief fundraiser for not just the Conservative Party but also for many years headed the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada Fund. These are not low level party flunkies but experienced political operatives who have a deep understanding of Canada's Electoral Act and in fact must have a deep understanding of the rules of conduct in order to perform their roles. Along with Stephen Harper himself, Finley and Gerstein are a the top of the Conservative food chain. It'd be impossible to name two individuals more senior and central to the party or its electoral success. For that reason alone these Elections Act charges really matter.

Given the circumstances, why is Finley working in the Conservative campaign war room? And does Gerstein have any role in this campaign or the party at this time? What about the other two charged? And why are Finley and Gerstein even permitted to occupy their seats in the senate?

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Government: tough on crime only when it doesn't involve them.

if the parties take turns at damning the CBC ... isn't that more or less the way it should be?

From CBC's Inside Politics blog please consider Seeing double in Ottawa, by Terry Milewski, the intrepid CBC reporter who garnered all of our attention during the "pepper-spray" APEC summit in Vancouver back in 1998:

[The cannons roar anew] over the alleged wickedness of the CBC. As the Conservative government launched another broadside at the supposed Liberal bias of the Mother Corp, the Globe and Mail found itself in need of a picture for its story. How to illustrate a boring press release and grab some eyeballs for the Globe website?

A cunning editor found the solution: Brian Gable's deft cartoon of a Darth Vader figure in a CBC News studio, stamping scripts as "defensible" or "indefensible" while telling the anchorman, "Please, just carry on as if I weren't here."

That cartoon was so good, they used it twice. And they didn't have to change a thing. But greybeards at the CBC recognized it.

First published on Nov. 13, 1998, the cartoon originally lampooned the Chretien government's attacks on the Liberals' supposed enemies at, yes, the CBC. Reduce, re-use, recycle: the Globe goes green!