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The federal Conservatives say a report by former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley validates a controversial “in-and-out” campaign advertising scheme the party allegedly used during the last election, despite a different opinion held by the current electoral officer.

Elections Canada has accused the Conservatives of exceeding the $18-million spending limit in the 2006 campaign by more than $1-million by transferring money to local candidates who still had some personal spending room, then immediately taking it back to buy national ads. The candidates could then claim the amounts as reimbursable expenses from the elections agency.

Tory MP Pierre Poilievre said Mr. Kingsley's 1997 “judgment,” which the MP promised to table in the House of Commons Monday, states that an election campaign ad is deemed to be local or national based on its tagline, not its content.

Mr. Poilievre appears to be referring to the Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 36th General Elections (1997), in which Mr. Kingsley notes that a ban on national advertising the day before and on the day of polling was “somewhat ineffectual” because, due to a court ruling, it did not apply to candidates. Mr. Kingsley reported that a number of candidates ran national ads on those days with a local tag line.

The Conservatives add that between 1988 and 2007, the advertising guidelines for candidates issued by Elections Canada explicitly permitted local campaigns to promote the candidate or the national party.

“We have legal backing from the former chief electoral officer. He may have changed his mind since then, and so may have Elections Canada, but that is not the fault of the Conservative Party,” Mr. Poilievre said during Question Period.

“Conservative candidates spent Conservative money on Conservative ads,” he added, parroting a defence he first used last September when the Elections Canada probe of the scheme first made headlines.

Mr. Kingsley, who served as Canada's chief electoral officer from 1990 to 2006, has not returned calls made since last week by globeandmail.com. He is CEO of IFES, a Washington-based non-profit organization that helps fledgling democracies run elections.

The Conservatives were also grilled Monday on allegations certain invoices submitted to Elections Canada for reimbursement were altered.

The allegations stem from an affidavit and search warrants made public last week that were used to justify a recent search on Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa. In one case, an invoice on the letterhead of Retail Media, the Toronto-based firm that made the ad buys for the national party, was filed on behalf of an Ontario candidate.

When executives with the ad firm were shown the invoice, one said it must have been “altered or created by someone,” the affidavit states.

Mr. Poilievre dismissed the allegations, saying the documents in question “are merely bundled invoices which were separated and sent out to the ridings who were asked to pay for them.

“The GST was added and that is the only change that was made to the documents,” he said.

With the help of a media-search company and through requests of Elections Canada, the Liberal Party obtained about 30 of the ads in question last week. They say they were unable to find the names of 29 Conservative candidates whose returns are under scrutiny.

For their part, the Conservatives say ads were purchased on behalf of all candidates who took part in the program.

And they point out that it is the Liberal Party, and not Elections Canada, that is alleging that there were candidates among the 67 who contributed money to the ad purchase but received no tag lines.

With a report from Gloria Galloway