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-> This news was reported first by the Star (newspaper in Toronto, Ontario) however with a paywall. Now it has been picked-up by the CBC so it can be copy and pasted. = ) Senior party source says Brampton, Ont., mayor received $100,000 fine. Former federal Conservative leadership candidate Patrick Brown has been fined by the party for issues around financing irregularities, according to a senior party source. The source said that Brown — who was recently re-elected mayor of Brampton, Ont. — was told last week he would be fined a total of $100,000, or the total amount of the compliance deposit each candidate had to submit to the party to enter the leadership race. The party ejected Brown from the leadership race just two months before it was set to choose its next leader. At the time the party cited "serious allegations of wrongdoing" related to financing rules, which it referred to the commissioner of Canada Elections. The party said at the time that the decision to disqualify Brown was based on a recommendation from its chief returning officer. A dispute resolution appeals committee had to decide whether the officer possessed the evidence to recommend his removal. It said evidence included allegations that Brown allowed more than 500 non-compliant membership sales. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/patrick-brown-fined-conservative-party-1.6631046

I was impressed that Ted Cruz voluntarily renounced his Canadian citizenship to show his dedication to representing the United States. I would admire Andrew Scheer if he did the equivalent thing, renouncing his American citizenship to show his dedication to Canada, since he is running for Prime Minister in a few months. This is actually MANDATORY to run for office in Australia, or even to hold citizenship at all in Japan. I think it is important that our political representatives, if not all our citizens, should show their dedication to representing our nation first, and not have backup plans to reside in other nations if things go wrong. The only way I could be wrong about this is if Andrew's dad (deacon James D. Scheer, who was born in the Bronx in New York) immigrated to Canada prior to turning 19, or if he renounced his citizenship prior to Andrew's birth in 1979. Andrew hasn't supplied any evidence either of these things happened (James' older brother died in the Bronx, so the family as a whole never left) so I believe it is reasonable to assume he holds American citizenship by birthright by default.

Parm Gill, Conservative candidate for Brampton North, is under investigation by the Elections Commissioner for violating the Elections Act. This makes it the fourth election in a row that a Conservative candidate has been under investigation or charged with violations under the elections act. Parm Gill is accused of taking donations from constituents without permission. A man named Harbhajan Singh went around the community in the last election collecting donations from people via their credit cards for Liberal candidate Jim Karygiannis. Singh now works for the Conservative campaign and the accuser claims his credit card has been charged for a Conservative donation without his permission. You can find the full story here. Edit: Title length

More examples of Harper's failure to increase accountability in Ottawa. Daniel Kosick, a policy advisor for the Tories, took a position with a group that lobbied him while he was in office. Ethics legislation does not allow people in public office to accept jobs for 1 year with individuals or companies that they had "direct and significant" dealings with. Kosick met with this particular lobbyist at least 3 times in his last year in office. Kosick is also married to Michelle Rempel's former chief of staff and sister to the national campaign director of the CPC. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-ethics-conservative-conflict-1.3229323 Edit: Tags

The Conservative Party has been an utter failure on their promise of openness, accountability, and ethics. It's so bad, in fact, that even Sun News/Media reporter David Akin has taken the Tories to task on Facebook, writing: Those are the facts laid bare, not from the "liberal-mouthpiece" CBC, but rather from one of Sun's own. The evidence is damning and inexcusable. Edit: Transcribed Akin's post per moderator's request.