Money plays a big part in politics, much bigger than it should, so where and how political donations are collected and spent is important. As a bit of background, for each $100 that an individual donates to a federal political party the government gives back $75 as a tax credit. As a contribution gets much bigger, the tax credit declines, but this rather generous system is probably necessary to encourage the donation of funds to keep political parties viable.

In my view, generous becomes excessive when the federal government also reimburses federal political parties for 60 per cent of their campaign expenses if their candidate gets over 10 per cent in an election. That is, if a local campaign spends $70,000, the federal government will write a cheque for $42,000 of taxpayers' money. This would mean that party workers would only have to raise $28,000 more in order to have a $70,000 budget in their next campaign. Smaller parties that get less than 10 per cent aren't feeding at this particular trough, and have to start from scratch for each new election.

There are spending limits for both local campaigns and the campaign of the national party. I don't doubt that some people in the Conservative Party think that using local campaign budgets to finance the national campaign in other parts of the country is within the fine lines of the law. The courts will decide that, but what seems clear is that it is well beyond the intent of the law. In election campaigns we are selecting people worthy of making the law and overseeing the enforcement of the law. This shouldn't fall into the hands of people so willing to stretch the law.

To be fair, I wouldn't expect that Stephen Harper would have even been aware that this "in-and-out" financing was going on during his campaign. But he knows it now! He also knows that within each party there are very competitive people who value winning over all else, people whose respect for the democratic process takes a backseat to gaining political power. It is the party leader's job to keep these people in check. If he is worthy of being Canada's top lawmaker, he'll come clean on the errors in judgment made and plug the loopholes that his own campaign team has found.

Rob Strang is a former Orangeville town councillor, a professional engineer and a self-employed occupational health consultant committed to promoting sustainable development.