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Canada's party of accountability and openness is at it again:
This "punishment" runs into the same problem as most punishments levied against corporations or other large organizations - it's simply too small. When you get a $1000 fine for doing something illegal that netted you $10,000 in profits, you don't see the fine as punishment - it's simply the cost of doing business.
For corporations, I've long advocated simply confiscating all of their profits for the period during which they were breaking the law. For particularly onerous crimes, nationalize the company and run it for a few years to get it back into a law-abiding state, then offer a new IPO to pay back any government expense. Maybe use this money to pay back shareholders who were not involved in the day-to-day lawbreaking of the original company. I view this as the rough equivalent of jail time for an individual. The death sentence would be simply revoking the corporation's charter and selling off its assets - difficult to do in this modern world, where the international division is out of reach from the state, but not impossible.
But what do you do for something like a political party that breaks the law and the fine doesn't hurt it. Their "profits" are political power, not money. You can increase the fine I guess, but you want to make sure that a fine that hurts the largest political party won't also cripple the smaller ones.
I think a punishment that fits the crime is the best method. 67 local candidates and the party itself where involved in this lawbreaking. Any of those 67 candidates that are currently MPs should go up for immediate by-election. The costs for administrating the election should be borne by the Conservative party rather than by Elections Canada. After all, Elections Canada just had its budget cut, so why shouldn't the guilty party pay for this debacle. Look on the bright side, if any individual MP is innocent, or from Alberta, they have nothing to fear from the electorate in a by-election.
On Thursday, the [Conservative] party and its fundraising arm pleaded guilty of spending more than the $18.3-million legal limit and of filing an election return that failed to report all the expenses it incurred.Source.
The court levied the maximum fine possible: $52,000. Tory spokesmen dismissed the whole mess as an "administrative dispute." The NDP said the ruling party had undermined democracy and it demanded an apology; the Liberals called it an "administrative scam" and speculated that Harper's party may have bought him an election.
This "punishment" runs into the same problem as most punishments levied against corporations or other large organizations - it's simply too small. When you get a $1000 fine for doing something illegal that netted you $10,000 in profits, you don't see the fine as punishment - it's simply the cost of doing business.
For corporations, I've long advocated simply confiscating all of their profits for the period during which they were breaking the law. For particularly onerous crimes, nationalize the company and run it for a few years to get it back into a law-abiding state, then offer a new IPO to pay back any government expense. Maybe use this money to pay back shareholders who were not involved in the day-to-day lawbreaking of the original company. I view this as the rough equivalent of jail time for an individual. The death sentence would be simply revoking the corporation's charter and selling off its assets - difficult to do in this modern world, where the international division is out of reach from the state, but not impossible.
But what do you do for something like a political party that breaks the law and the fine doesn't hurt it. Their "profits" are political power, not money. You can increase the fine I guess, but you want to make sure that a fine that hurts the largest political party won't also cripple the smaller ones.
I think a punishment that fits the crime is the best method. 67 local candidates and the party itself where involved in this lawbreaking. Any of those 67 candidates that are currently MPs should go up for immediate by-election. The costs for administrating the election should be borne by the Conservative party rather than by Elections Canada. After all, Elections Canada just had its budget cut, so why shouldn't the guilty party pay for this debacle. Look on the bright side, if any individual MP is innocent, or from Alberta, they have nothing to fear from the electorate in a by-election.
