PC Fundraising Above Scrutiny?

I missed listening to the Alberta Question Period on Monday, but have since read the Hansard.

After this exchange:

Political Party Financial Contributions

Ms Smith: Turning to the business of the day, Mr. Speaker,
Alberta's reputation has been damaged. Our election financingprocess looks like it's been broken by abuse. We have asked theChief Electoral Officer to investigate the enormous and potentiallyillegal contribution from a single source to the government party.But even if the contribution is technically legal through a loopholein the existing law, it means the law is deeply flawed. When willthe government fix it?

The Speaker: Did you wish to direct that question to anyone in
particular?The hon. President of Treasury Board.

Mr. Horner: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, the Chief
Electoral Officer is an officer of this Legislative Assembly, andwe respect that on this side of the House a great deal. We believethat he is discharging his duties under the legislation that he has infront of him, and he's doing a good job doing that. Of course, theparty opposite doesn't really want to talk about its own history inthis regard in terms of that sort of thing. Perhaps in the 2004election campaign, when one individual bankrolled 75 per cent oftheir entire political contributions for that campaign, one mustwonder . . .

Mr. Anderson: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: A point of order has been noted from the Member
for Airdrie.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition for her first supplemental.

Ms Smith: I look forward to the hon. Member for Airdrie
correcting the record.Continuing on, Mr. Speaker, given that the government's vagueanswers and insistence that everything is okay have done nothingto restore the public's confidence, surely the Premier must agreethat the shell game that is damaging our public's trust has no placein our democracy.

278 Alberta Hansard October 29, 2012

Mr. Horner: Again, Mr. Speaker, one talks about shell games
across the way. This party has followed all of the rules that are inplace. We will co-operate with the Chief Electoral Officer on thismatter to a T. But, again, somewhat hypocritical of the partyacross the way when in the 2007 by-election the same individualwho bankrolled 75 per cent of their 2004 election campaign bankrolled 99.7 per cent of that party's contributions. Incredible.

It prompted a number of Wildrose supporters to tweet things like "the #wrp (Wildrose) didn't exist in 2004" or "Doug Horner needs to bone up on his Alberta political history #wrp not a party until Jan 2008"

And from Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson:

"#wrp is diff legal entity than Alliance" and "Katz can donate to whomever he wants but not if it is illegal. Nobody has donated 400G to the Wildrose Party-that is incorrect."

Unfortunately in this case I'm going to have to say the unthinkable - the PC's are correct.  The Wildrose and their predecessor the Alberta Alliance are indeed one and the same. Why that is so, is explained in full in Chapter 6, if I recall correctly. And yes there were very large donations from the Thorsteinson family.  (Mind you they were over several years)

The multiple donations of $30,000.00 from the Thorsteinson's (2004-2008) and the ones from Katz Group, family and business associates can be seen as very similar situations.

There is some key differences that everyone seems to overlooking:

One case the investigation was started based on a written request; the other, written requests seemed to either have been ignored or no action is being taken.

One case were several cheques from many individuals and businesses; the other is reportedly one cheque for up as many as 10 different individuals and business entities.

One case Elections Alberta requested (and got) RCMP involvement (via the Solicitor General) so they could compel donors (those who got the receipts) to provide PROOF it was in fact their money  they contributed.  (Section 34(1) of Election Finance Act.) ; the other appears will never even get that far.

It is absolutely appalling that the PC's of today won't open their books to the scrutiny that they expected, they asked for and they received from the Alberta Alliance. 

Update: Oct. 30, 10:30 PM

Chief electoral officer to probe Katz donations to PCs

Alberta's chief electoral officer is launching an investigation into donations made to the Progressive Conservative party by the owner of the Edmonton Oilers, Daryl Katz.
"The allegations are that the thresholds of $30,000 have been exceeded by one individual and the election filings that we've received in our office from the political parties indicate that those contributions were receipted for individuals associated with this one person," said Elections Alberta spokesman Drew Westwater.
"We've determined that there's enough issues and concerns around the source of the donations that have been made to the party that we will launch an investigation and look into the facts of the matter to see if the allegations are true or not."

Click on link to read entire article. 

Predictions on PC Leadership Race

I said it (Twitter ‘ed it actually) a couple of months ago and a few weeks ago; that I thought Alison Redford might pull off the win.  I had no basis for my prediction, it was a just a gut feeling.  Now that they are going into the second round I’m getting a clearer picture of how this might come about.

Despite umpteen current MLA’s lining up behind Gary Mar and his high percentage in the first go round, there seems to a lot of hatred out there working against him.  I think in order for Gary to win he has to achieve his 50% at the first count on October 1^st.  If it goes to the second count it will go to Alison.

Here’s why (in my opinion)

Gary Mar’s supporters likely won’t put a second choice on the ballot.  They will want to avoid a “Stelmach” or “Dion” third placer coming up the middle. Redford and Horner supporters are far less likely to be worried about this; their main beef is with Gary and keeping him out of office.  They will mark a second choice. Redford supporters for Horner and vice versa.

I think Horner will be in third. This is partly based on the showing after the first round and I believe Redford has a more organized campaign. (Granted, I could just be thinking this way because I know some of the people involved and I live in Calgary where she has a greater presence.) Either way, I think his supporters will be quite comfortable in putting a ‘2’ beside Alison’s name.  She is from their current cabinet, but still new enough and she is saying the right things to offer that glimmer of hope the PC’s so desperately need.

Conversely Mar, is so many things they are trying to distance themselves from. Bussing in “supporters”; rumors of leaking a members list to media; rumors of offering plum positions to those who back him; generally old-school distasteful politics.  

Should Redford pull it off… well she will have monumental, if not impossible task ahead of her.  As I understand it Alison has the backing of a handful of MLA’s: Doug Elniski, Kyle Fawcett, Art Johnston, David Xiao and Dave Rodney.  With the exception of Rodney they are all first term MLA’s and Johnston won’t even be running in the next general election, having lost his local nomination.  She will have to regroup the other MLA’s; mostly made up of long term members who now clearly stand behind Mar, and there are a LOT of them.

If I’m wrong though and Mar wins, there are two things I’m looking forward to.

      1)      The caucus funding to the PC’s to be cut since they no longer will have a Leader in an elected position. 

      2)      Their caucus putting out press releases, but not being able to name their “yet to be elected as an MLA, Leader”.

If you aren’t familiar with the background, one might say, “That’s absurd. Why would those things happen?’ You can read it for yourself, here and here. It’s exactly what the PC’s did to the Wildrose.

PS: I don't choose the ads that display on my blog and in no way support nor endorse any candidate who might happen to show up. :)