If you're going to be a puritan, better to be pure

I meant to say something about this a few days ago. But, you know, it was Canada Day, and posting on campaign finance rules seemed really lame. As opposed to now, when it's just kinda lame.

Anyway, what needs to be said is that the Tories are almost certainly full of crap on this. Every party overcharges for convention delegate fees in order to fill their coffers, and it should have been plainly obvious to Conservative officials that those would count against their donation cap. So to now mock the Liberals for worrying about how they'll handle delegate fees is more than a bit rich.

The Liberals have a semi-legitimate case. Suppose you're some Grit who gave $200 to the party in February. Now you want to pay your $995 delegate fee to go to the December leadership convention. But you can't, because that'll put you past the contributions limit established by the Tories' Accountability Act - legislation that wasn't on the books when you made your first donation.

There are two obvious solutions here:

1.) The Tories should take the high road, acknowledge that it's only reasonable to have a transition period for the new rules, and agree to an amendment that boosts the limit for this year, or else exempts convention fees.

2.) More importantly, the Liberals - and any other party that's so inclined - should stop charging ridiculous amounts for delegate fees. $995? Who in their right mind is going to pay $995 - even if a lot of it can be written off - to go vote for Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Stéphane Dion or whoever else? Almost nobody, that's who…which is why these rules are a joke in the first place. If you honestly believe that most delegates are going to pay their own fees, I have some great odds on a Joe Volpe win that you really should lay some money on.