He kept his own cheque off his return to stay under the limit

Dean Del Mastro won Peterborough for the Conservatives in 2006. In the fall of 2008 he ran again, under a campaign expense limit of $92,566 and a cap of $2,100 on what he could personally contribute to his own campaign.

He had first passed on the supplier's quote, the Court of Appeal recorded, because he thought he would be eligible for similar services from the Conservative Party. When "the anticipated party support was not forthcoming", early in the campaign, he went back to the supplier.

On 15 September 2008 his campaign signed a contract with Holinshed Research Group for voter identification and get-out-the-vote calls, worth $21,000. On 2 October, at about half the contract, Holinshed stopped for non-payment. The trial judge found what happened next: he promised full payment, the calls resumed, and he paid from his personal account.

Exhibit 7

His official agent had moved to pay the bill from the campaign account. "It was soon realized, however, that the payment of Holinshed's invoice would put the appellant's campaign over his expense limit," the Court of Appeal wrote. The supplier was told the campaign could not pay, and the calls stopped. The trial judge accepted the supplier's evidence that on 2 October he said he would pay for the calling himself, and asked the supplier to "work with" him on the invoicing.

The cheque was dated 18 August 2008. The Court of Appeal found that he wrote it on about 9 October, and that it was "back-dated" to "a date before the election writ period."

The Court of Appeal named the reason he paid it himself. "The appellant and his campaign team realized early in the campaign that they would exceed his campaign limit if they incurred the Holinshed expense." And: "This was why the appellant paid the bill personally and then 'worked with' Hall to procure a false invoice." Frank Hall was Holinshed's. Our read: the money moved off the books.

After the election came the paperwork. The trial judge found "continuing efforts to absorb some of the election expense of the Holinshed Voter ID and GOTV work into other contracts". The return his official agent, Richard McCarthy, filed listed $1,575 paid to Holinshed. His own $21,000 was not reported. Total expenses: $91,770, "ostensibly just under" the limit, in the Court of Appeal's words. He signed the solemn declaration on 10 February 2009.

Exhibit 8

The invoice behind the $1,575 came from the supplier on 12 December 2008, after the election, for "limited voter GOTV". It was dated 14 September. Our arithmetic: count his own cheque in place of it, and his expenses come to $111,195, which is $18,629 over the limit.

Elections Canada's list for the 2008 election shows $54,593 of his allowable election expenses reimbursed from public money.

He kept rising. He was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage from November 2008 to March 2011, and to the Prime Minister from May 2011 to 19 September 2013. By 30 September 2013 he sat as an independent.

The cheque was no secret by then. On 13 June 2012 the Liberal MP Bob Rae put it to the Prime Minister in the House. Stephen Harper answered: "as we all know, the hon. member for Peterborough has submitted all of his information to Elections Canada." Pierre Poilievre, answering for the government later in the sitting: "The hon. member for Peterborough has followed all of the rules."

Exhibit 9

On 25 May 2013 he was reappointed the Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary. On 19 September 2013 an order in council, on the Prime Minister's recommendation, replaced the slate. It moved him to the ministers for the regional development agencies, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, the federal development agency for Southern Ontario and the initiative for Northern Ontario, and gave the Prime Minister's post to Paul Calandra. The order gives no reason. On 26 September the Commissioner of Canada Elections charged him with paying $21,000 of election expenses out of his own funds, over the $2,100 cap, and charged him and his official agent, Richard McCarthy, with overspending the limit and with a return that reported $1,575 in place of the cheque. Those were charges; the findings came at trial. The next day an order in council ended his appointment.

The trial judge was "led to reject Mr. Del Mastro's evidence on key issues." "At times, the way in which he testified led me to believe that he was avoiding the truth," the judge wrote, and "He frequently obfuscated the evidence." On 31 October 2014 the court found him guilty of incurring election expenses over the limit. He was also convicted of wilfully exceeding his personal contribution limit and, as a party, of "filing a false or misleading electoral campaign return", the Court of Appeal recorded.

Five days later, on 5 November 2014, he spoke in the House. "I did not donate too much money to myself. I did not, and I stand by my filings in 2008." Then he resigned his seat.

He resigned with a motion to suspend him before the House. The day before, 4 November, the Commons procedure committee had taken up a bill to withdraw the pension of an MP convicted of certain offences. The government's amendment limited it to a list of Criminal Code offences, and to convictions "on or after" the day it came into force. Under those words, the NDP's Craig Scott told the committee, "you could resign and be safe under this." His change to add Canada Elections Act offences was voted down, and the government's amendment carried. Tom Lukiwski, for the government: "I can assure you that this does not have anything to do with the Dean Del Mastro case." That afternoon the Speaker found a prima facie case of privilege, and the NDP moved to suspend him. The government's House Leader called for "suspension pending the completion of all appeals."

Exhibit 10

The pension bill passed the House in February 2015 and was still in the Senate when the session ended in August. It never became law. Writs for a Peterborough by-election were withdrawn on 2 August 2015, and the seat stayed empty to the end of that Parliament.

The sentence was 30 days in jail, a 4-month conditional sentence and 18 months' probation. The first appeal judge upheld the convictions; the offences, that judge wrote, "struck at the heart of the democratic electoral process." A $10,000 restitution order to his riding association was set aside, because there was no evidence the association lost anything.

At the Court of Appeal he no longer fought the facts. "The appellant does not challenge the underlying findings of fact made by the trial judge," the court wrote on 13 September 2017. He dropped his sentence appeal in oral argument. The court dismissed the appeal. On 5 April 2018 the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear him.

A trial court convicted him, and two appeal courts upheld the convictions.

Exhibit 11

He told the House on 5 November 2014 that the case was still before the courts, that he "did not donate too much money" to himself, and that what he had heard the day before, "that somehow this was a means of stealing an election", was "absolutely false". At trial his defence was that the supplier's invoice did not reflect his discussions with the supplier and was signed in error. The trial judge had reservations about the supplier's evidence, and said gaps in the investigation "may not reflect well on the quality of the investigation". The first appeal judge found the trial judge erred in drawing an adverse inference from the failure to call one witness, John McNutt. On the pension bill, the government's case is in its own words. Tom Lukiwski told the committee the amendment "does not have anything to do with the Dean Del Mastro case", that it was put in before the verdict, and that it "expands the list of offences" and drops the test by sentence. The Prime Minister said a member suspended from the House already stops taking part in the pension plan, and that "we expect the member will be suspended without pay." The NDP's Craig Scott said the bill as first written "might not catch him at all anyway". On his post, the record is the government's best case. On 19 September 2013, before the charges of 26 September, an order replaced the whole slate of parliamentary secretaries for a new term, moved him off the Prime Minister's post to the regional development agencies, and gave the Prime Minister's post to Paul Calandra. He was removed from the new post the day after the charges. The order gives no reason for the move.

Exhibit 12

Our read: no court found the calls changed who won Peterborough, and this story does not say they did. The law caps the spending whatever the result. On everything else, the courts heard his case and rejected it. The trial judge rejected his evidence on key issues. The first appeal judge found the trial judge erred in drawing an adverse inference from one witness not being called, and applied the curative proviso: there was "no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice." At the Court of Appeal he stopped contesting the facts, and the Supreme Court would not hear him. The defence account does not explain a cheque back-dated to before the writ, or a false invoice.

Exhibit 13

On the pension bill, the government may well have drafted its amendment before the verdict, as it said. What the amendment did is in its words: Criminal Code offences only, and convictions on or after the day it came into force. Our read: on its face it could not reach him, and the committee voted down the change that would have brought the Elections Act back in. No document shows why that text was chosen.