Vengeance? Former Stephen Harper advisor says “bad blood” behind Elections Canada attack

Could this week’s all-out Conservative personal attack against the head of Elections Canada be about vengeance?

That’s what Tory pundit Geoff Norquay suggested Tuesday night during a panel on CBC’s Power and Politics. You see, Chief Elections Officer Marc Mayrand, a critic of the proposed Unfair Elections Act, took on the Conservative Party a few years back over the “in-and-out” election financing scandal.

The RCMP raided the Conservative Party’s offices in 2008, and charges were laid against four senior officials including Senator Irving Gerstein. The charges were eventually dropped as part of a plea deal that saw the Conservatives and their fundraising arm plead guilty to Canada Elections Act charges for exceeding the maximum allowable spending limit in the 2006 campaign as well as filing incomplete election records.

The party was fined $52,000 for breaking election rules.

Watch Norquay, Stephen Harper’s director of communications when he was in opposition, talk about the connection between this “old bad blood” and the Canada Elections Act.