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OTTAWA – Dean Del Mastro, the former Conservative MP who was convicted for elections offences, is imploring parliamentarians to investigate what he alleges is “bias” from the federal commissioner of Canada’s elections and Elections Canada.
In his first appearance on Parliament Hill in years, the former Peterborough, Ont. MP also spoke about his potential return to political life and spoke in detail about his short time in jail for breaking Canadian election law.
Del Mastro accused Yves Côté, Commissioner of Canada Elections and Elections Canada as a whole, of having a personal vendetta against him, one that he says has become more obvious after new attention was given to how the commissioner handled the case of more than $117,000 in illegal campaign contributions between 2004-2011 by SNC-Lavalin.
He was convicted in 2014 of three offences under the Canada Elections Act: overspending, failing to report a personal contribution of $21,000 he made to his own campaign, and filing a false report during his 2008 re-election campaign. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail, four months of house arrest and 18 months of probation, but was released on bail as successive and ultimately failed appeals wound their way through various courts, ending when the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear his appeal.
Del Mastro served as a parliamentary secretary to former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, where he often was the face of defending the party amid the robocall scandal. He posited on Thursday that he thinks Canada’s federal electoral bodies and the top staff took his comments at the time personally and subsequently launched what he called a “selective prosecution” against him with “extreme malice” and “bias and breathtaking inequity.”
In the SNC-Lavalin case, the company admitted wrongdoing, was offered and entered into a compliance agreement. Though former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Normand Morin was charged and pleaded guilty to two charges related to illegal political contributions. He was fined $2,000 plus court fees.
Del Mastro said he was never afforded the opportunity of a compliance agreement, and if he had, he would have taken it, though throughout the affair he has maintained he did nothing wrong, calling it an “accounting dispute.”
“If the commissioner of Canada Elections has never allowed or been subject to political interference, then why does it appear to be so blatantly obvious? If the real goal of Elections Canada is free and fair elections then why do they appear to be placing their full weight on one side of the scale of justice?” Del Mastro said.
At a press conference on Parliament Hill, Del Mastro provided reporters with a copy of an unsourced comparative study of elections results that he argues shows that there was no evidence of influence in his election based on his contravention of elections rules.
He also provided several pages of years old emails from Del Mastro’s former lawyer Jeffrey Ayotte and a letter from current Conservative MP Scott Reid to the ethics commissioner at the time about a key witness that testified against Del Mastro about voter identification work that he did for Del Mastro during his 2008 campaign.
Del Mastro said that Elections Canada failed to collect all records and information in his case, and that while he is not interested in re-litigating his case, he now thinks that it’s time to put it all before a parliamentary committee and that the findings then be referred to parliament or an appropriate enforcement body, as he feels his legal avenues have largely been exhausted.
One outcome Del Mastro said he’d be hopeful for would be the federal justice minister overturning his conviction. He also spoke about the newly-stayed charges and high-profile court battle of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, saying he understands what he went through.
Del Mastro has sent a letter requesting that either the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, or the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee take on a probe into the matter, including calling on Cote to testify. With just over four weeks left before the House adjourns for the summer and other pressing work before these committees, it is unlikely that his request will be picked up on within this Parliament.
Nevertheless Del Mastro said he thinks it is “imperative,” especially considering there is a federal election around the corner that parliamentarians do all they can to ensure trust in all electoral agencies.
In a statement, Michelle Laliberte a spokesperson for commissioner Cote cited confidentiality in speaking to the Del Mastro investigation.
“However, I will say that the charges in this case were the result of a lengthy investigation, the results of which led the Commissioner to believe that an offence had been committed under the Act…. I would also point out that the judge also included jail time as part of the sentence, which is extremely rare in cases related to Canadian electoral law,” she said.
Last week Cote took the uncommon step of issuing a statement on the SNC-Lavalin agreement in which he stated that “at no time, since the current Commissioner was appointed in 2012, has an attempt been made by any elected official or political staffer to influence or to interfere with any compliance or enforcement decision that did not directly involve them as the subject of the investigation.”
Cote said the independence of his office is crucial and said if he ever felt political pressure or interference, he would report and denounce it. Background information provided with his comment stated that the evidence gathered in any case is a central consideration in determining how to handle the matter.
Considering running again
Del Mastro, who is now self-employed, says that if he is not able to get vindication through a parliamentary study, that “the only way I’ll ever truly get vindication on this is to put my name back on a ballot and to have that name restored by the electors.”
His June 2014 conviction came with a condition of a ban from running federally for five years. He did not elaborate on which level of government, or for which party he’d be interested in running for.
In advance of his appearance in Ottawa, Del Mastro said he has heard from some of his former Conservative colleagues who offered words of encouragement.
Though he said his experience on Parliament Hill taught him that political parties are “a wolf pack.”
“As long as everybody is running together, everybody eats. But break your ankle and get injured… and you might well be their next meal,” he said.
Del Mastro also spoke Thursday in considerable detail about his experience in a Lindsay, Ont. jail, where he says he spent 12 days in segregated confinement and eight days amid the general population.
Del Mastro said he thought he was going to die on his first night in jail, describing his segregation cell as “like being inside the mind of a crazy person.”
He also offered that the now infamous footage of him in handcuffs and leg shackles being put in the back of a van to be transported, was more painful for him than just the publicity of it. Del Mastro told reporters that one of his ankles was sprained and swollen at the time but he was “too proud” to use crutches.
With files from The Canadian Press
