Bad Strategy

The Tories are in full damage control mode. Two days after the RCMP turned up at their party headquarters to execute a search warrant on behalf of Elections Canada, the party is scrambling to find a coherent and credible line to justify their situation to the public.

This may prove to be mission impossible. After all, it’s not every day that the RCMP turns up with a search warrant in hand at the headquarters of a national political party, and if the warrant and accompanying affidavit contain truly serious allegations against the party, they may simply have to brace themselves and take the heat.

But whatever they do, they should put an end to their current strategy: it’s all the fault of Election-Canada. For the past two days, they’ve basically been telling Canadians that the party was victim of an Elections Canada vendetta; they even and sent out a few of their pit-bulls, Peter Van Loan leading the pack, to spread conspiracy theories of Liberal moles trying to obtain documents pertaining to election strategy.

This defense is as worrying as it is counter-productive.

It’s worrying because it further undermines the position of Elections Canada, a national institution and the body responsible for overseeing our democratic process. If Elections-Canada can’t be trusted, who can be?

It’s counter productive because it makes no sense, and because Elections Canada is still generally trusted across the country.

So as far as I’m concerned, if the Conservatives, really want to put this issue to rest, they should start by humbly acknowledging a miscommunication between them and Elections Canada and follow up with a big piece of distracting news, such as an apology for the treating of aboriginals in the infamous residential schools. When Gilles Duceppe ran off to Quebec for a day to be a PQ leadership candidate, only to concede defeat and return to Ottawa the next morning, he got away with it by a apologising immediately. The conservatives should do the same.