EX- MP HAD CHANCES TO AVOID DISGRACE
But for Dean Del Mastro it was full speed ahead to a prison sentence
There were lots of exit ramps on the highway that led from the House of Commons to the big house, but Dean Del Mastro drove past them all.
In November, in his last speech in the House of Commons, he said: “I often tell people that I have a distinct design flaw. It is that I was not built with a reverse gear. I only know how to go forward, and I will press forward.”
He pressed forward all right, pedal to the metal, to the Central East Correctional Centre, where he was to sleep Thursday night.
If he had had a reverse gear, or even a steering wheel, he could have avoided the cell where he sits as I write this.
He whizzed past Exit No. 1 during the 2008 campaign, when he cheated just to pump up his margin of victory. He only won the Ontario riding of Peterborough by a few thousand votes in 2006, but he testified during the trial, believably, that he knew he would hold the seat in 2008.
He wanted, though, to increase his margin. He said a veteran strategist told him the Liberals would be less likely to see the riding as winnable in the future if he piled up votes.
The campaign had a $ 92,567 limit, but spending got out of hand because he spent $ 75,238.39 on ads.
The receipts on file at Elections Canada show he was blowing through money like a car dealer trying to clear out last year’s inventory. He even bought T- shirts with The Dean Team printed on them.
His campaign used vehicles with flashing blue lights on the roof.
“The slogan of the campaign was Go Nowhere Quietly,” he said.
But he quietly wrote a personal cheque for $ 21,000 to pay for political calls from Holinshed Research, then hid that payment by cancelling cheques and faking an invoice.
He told his riding association that the money was actually for a customized mapping program. He signed a contract for that program, but when Holinshed delivered it, he refused to pay.
That was Exit No. 2. If he had paid we’d likely have never learned of his overspending. But Del Mastro, by then a parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, may have thought he was too important to have to pay his bills.
Holinshed took him to small claims court. When the company’s owner, Frank Hall, learned that Del Mastro had not declared the expense, he informed Elections Canada, which began an investigation.
In 2012, when Glen McGregor and I reported on that investigation, Del Mastro feigned outrage that Elections Canada had not informed him of it, but investigators had called his campaign officials, who surely told him.
That was Exit No. 3. If he had ’ fessed up then, claimed that a member of the Dean Team had failed to fill out the paperwork properly, Elections Canada might have let him off with a compliance agreement.
Instead, Del Mastro, presumably with the prime minister’s blessing, repeatedly attacked Hall and Elections Canada.
He claimed that when Elections Canada prepared their case against him, they offered him a plea deal, which would have had him pay a fine and keep his seat. That’s likely a lie, but they did make him some kind of offer, which he rejected. That was Exit No. 4.
Then, when the trial began, he appeared to direct his own defence, giving a preposterous version of events, expecting to somehow buffalo Justice Lisa Cameron, which his lawyer must have told him was unwise.
When she found him guilty, he told reporters on the courthouse steps: “I know what the truth is. That’s her opinion. My opinion is quite different.”
On Thursday, Cameron ruled that Del Mastro will do a month in jail, four months’ house arrest and 18 months’ probation.
“He was prepared not only to break the rules but to be deceitful about it,” she said. “This type of cheating and lying will result in serious sanctions.”
Del Mastro needs to go to jail to deter politicians from this kind of cheating and lying in the future, she said.
That’s just her opinion, but it’s tough to argue with it.