Playing by accepted protocol and the rules of Parliament have never been at the front of the Stephen Harper playbook.
But the rules often viewed as inconveniences by the ruling Conservatives are coming back to bite them.
The party was left on the morning of the potentially most pivotal day of this election campaign in major damage control, scrambling to contain fallout from a leaked draft report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser outlining wanton, and maybe illegal, G8 spending.
In the draft, shown to Canadian Press reporter Joan Bryden, Fraser paints a picture of Industry Minister Tony Clement holed up at a ritzy resort in his riding, plotting how to dole out $50 million available for 32 projects.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff provided a more vivid image, suggesting Clement and his cronies were sitting around a Muskoka bar taking care of their friends.
Fraser also found that the $50 million came from a requested $83 million to alleviate border congestion, something the government never told Parliament.
“Therefore, in our opinion, Parliament was misinformed,” Fraser wrote in the January draft.
Clement at least deserves credit for reducing that backlog from Huntsville to the U.S. border, 350 km away.
When Conservatives fired back Monday, they found they were not fully armed.
If, as the Conservatives say, there is a later draft, or a final report, which removes the “inflammatory” language contained in Fraser’s draft, they were unable to get it formally released.
John Baird, the Conservative house leader in the last Parliament, called on Fraser to release her final verdict (as did all party leaders).
Fraser refused.
Rules, you know.
With Parliament dissolved, there is nowhere for Fraser to table her report.
Just a week ago, the Conservatives were leaning on the same rules that had them hamstrung Monday evening.
When Ignatieff called for the release of the Fraser report on the G8 legacy fund on its scheduled April 5 release date, the Conservatives moved into high dudgeon, calling the request “ridiculous.’’
“The auditor general is fully independent and determines — within the confines of the law — when she tables her reports,’’ a party spokesperson said.
Monday, as the Conservatives were hit with the damaging leak, Fraser channelled the Tory spokesperson.
“The Office of the Audit General of Canada remains the custodian of its reports until they are presented to the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling,’’ Fraser said.
“I strongly caution the public to wait until our final report on the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund has been tabled in Parliament and made public.’’
It was likely inevitable that the Harper government’s handling of the G8/G20 debacle last summer would finally stick after all the ridicule of gazebos, upgraded airports where no one landed, dirt trails to nowhere that were being paved, new sidewalks raised to create dwarf fire hydrants.
No one was hiding what was going on.
The chief Liberal critic on the file, Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland, called it world-record pork barrelling and even locals were stunned by the largesse being flung at their feet.
“This town is getting infrastructure improvements that will fill its appetite for probably 20 years, and it came at a time when the rest of the country and the world for that matter were suffering huge economic woes,” Mike Greaves, a Huntsville town councillor, marvelled at the time.
Indeed.
The final report is too important to be the subject of leaks and counter leaks.
Voters need to know.
And any small business person in Toronto still waiting for compensation for damage done during the G20 disturbances is owed the exact details of what was going on in the Conservative-friendly near north.
Tim Harper is a syndicated columnist for The Toronto Star.