Opposition parties are accusing the Tories of cheating to win the last federal election, if allegations by Elections Canada turn out to be true.
The federal Conservatives made "false and misleading" statements in their financial returns for the last election, according to the application for a search warrant used in last week's raid on Tory headquarters.
The affidavit, signed by Elections Canada investigator Robert Lamothe, alleges that Tory advertising transactions allowed the party "to spend more than $1 million over and above" its legal campaign limit of $18 million.
Known as the "in and out" scheme, the party allegedly shifted money from its national office into, and then out of, 67 local ridings. The tactic allegedly blurred the extent of Tory party spending on national advertisements.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told Â鶹´«Ã½net's Mike Duffy Live the Tories did nothing wrong. He said that the Tories employed tactics used by all parties.
"That's why we took Elections Canada to court because our party is being treated differently," he said.
He also questioned why Elections Canada found it necessary to use a search warrant and RCMP officers to raid Tory headquarters last week.
"We've provided every document they've asked for. I'm at a total loss as to why they took the unusual step of the high-profile search of our offices."
Van Loan said Elections Canada started their investigation only after the Tories took it to court for compensation for election spending which the government watchdog had denied. That case is unrelated to the warrant, and critics have said Elections Canada had launched its investigation well before the Tory suit.
Critics have accused Van Loan and the Conservatives of trying to obfuscate the matter by merging the civil suit with last week's raid on their Ottawa headquarters. Opposition leaders also alleged the Tories may have cheated to win the last election.
"That extra million dollars may, in fact, have turned the tide and won (the Tories) a minority election," NDP ethics critic Pat Martin told Â鶹´«Ã½net Monday afternoon.
"If the allegations are true, then it is cheating -- just the same as if you stuffed those ballot boxes with fake ballots. It's like Zimbabwe or something -- the whole election would have been crooked."
Martin said if Elections Canada makes its case, those Conservative MPs involved in the scheme should not be allowed to run in the next federal election.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion also accused the Tories of cheating, if the warrant allegations turn out to be true.
"Yes, it may have had an effect (on election results)" Dion said. "We'll never know for sure, but you don't cheat for nothing. You cheat because you want to have an effect."
Dion said the prime minister must address the allegations.
Emails amassed by Elections Canada in support of its application for the search warrant show that the Conservatives' own election advertisers had doubts about the legality of shifting money for campaign commercials from headquarters to ridings and back.
David Campbell, president of GroupM Canada, a company related to party ad purchasers Retail Media, says in an email that senior party officials were "thinking of switching" some ad buys "over to the ridings."
"Details are sketchy and I am not sure how national or regional TV would constitute a riding expense unless all the ridings in a region pooled expenses," he says.
Another executive, Andrew Kumpf, with the company that bought Conservative ads sent an email to a party adman questioning the legality of plans to buy ads on behalf of local candidates.
"While our thinking is that this option would be legal we are not certain beyond all reasonable doubt," wrote Kumpf.
Preemptive strike
The documents were officially released Monday, a day after an attempt by the Tories to preemptively manage the controversy.
An Ontario judge ordered the application to be unsealed last Friday, but court officials had said they would be unable to make the document public until Monday at the earliest.
On Sunday, the Conservatives held secret meetings with select reporters to give their side of the story.
The party, which had an advanced copy of the court application, showed Â鶹´«Ã½ the documents.
"Basically, it was an effort to preempt the release of the documents today and to give their spin," CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported Monday. "The media who were not invited, somebody tipped them off, and so they arrived at the event and they were knocking on the door and it sort of became a bit of a farce."
Party officials spoke about the search warrant for roughly 45 minutes, saying the party did nothing wrong and that they had followed all regulations in election spending, before showing reporters the court document.
"Probably what they should have done is invited everybody to one briefing and then gone through the documents rather than trying to cherry pick reporters and news organizations. It backfired on them," said Fife.
"Instead of getting more positive spin, or at least some of their spin out last night... they've got negative spin and I'm sure they're not very happy about it."
RCMP conducted the search on Tory headquarters last week, seizing a long list of financial and correspondence records that included invoices, receipts and emails.
Conservatives insisted Sunday that other parties had acted in a similar way during federal elections and they followed all regulations in election spending.
With a report by CTV's Roger Smith in Ottawa
