The Conservatives campaigned hard on bringing improved accountability to Ottawa. They are about to face there first test.

It was reported today that the Conservatives may have illegally accepted up to 1.7 million dollars in donations last year because they "didn't understand political financing laws". This amount includes corporate donations, which have been illegal since 2004.

Aside from the obvious point that its pretty tough to be an upright member of any community if you do not understand the laws that apply to it, this is also the latest in a series of issues that this government apparently has little understanding of.

Yesterday, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose scrapped two popular climate change programs, the One-Tonne Challenge and the Energuide program, despite strong warnings from her own department that these programs were fundamental to addressing climate change.

I am not saying that these programs were offering all the answers to Canada's climate change commitments, but if you are going to scrap two initiatives that are successfully addressing the nations greatest problem, then at the very least you should be introducing new programs to pick up the slack.

My prediction is that we can look forward to a great deal more of this type of decision making. The Conservatives are proceeding according to their own agenda accross a host of issues, regardless of the opinion of Canadians and the advice of experts. It will be left to ordinary Canadians during the next election to provide real accountability at the ballot box.