Why did the Conservative Party have a problem with HarperPAC?
Well, that was fast.
HarperPAC came and went in less than a week, but the third party political action committee's arrival on the scene — in response to Engage Canada, an ad group launched earlier this month by former Liberal and NDP strategists — marked a shake-up in Canadian politics.
Are PACs a dangerous new development for Canada's electoral laws?
Michael Pal, an elections law professor at the University of Ottawa, thinks so.
"People hold up Canada around the world as an amazing regime for creating a level playing field — we limit spending, we limit donations, but that's only during the campaign period," Pal tells The House.
"These PACs show there are no limits on how much money these interest groups can spend, and more importantly, how much someone can donate. You can have a huge influence on Canadian politics."
And that potential influence is exactly what the Conservative Party didn't like about HarperPAC and its use of the prime minister's name.
"Our issue is one of brand confusion," Conservative Party spokesperson Kory Teneycke tells host Chris Hall.
"What we were concerned with in this particular case is that to a reasonable person, it appeared to be us. It appeared to be the Conservative Party, it appeared to be the prime minister."
Teneycke says HarperPAC's name was misleading to Canadians, suggesting a link between Harper and the third-party group, and that's why the Conservative Party moved to distance itself from the PAC.
But this is just the beginning of a brand new world of campaigning in Canada, thanks to the new fixed election date, says Pal.
"When you have a fixed election date, [PACs] can plan their advertising in the lead-up to the election," he says. "It lets your skirt the spending limits that will be applied once the writ is dropped."
Pal wants to see a spending limit placed for outside the writ period, as well as disclosure laws, saying such a contribution limit would ensure PACs aren't dominated by wealthy individuals or corporations and that Canadians would know exactly where the money's coming from.
"These are loopholes that need to be closed," he says.