The facts are simple.
The now extinct Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the euthanised Canadian Alliance Party-considered the fees paid by party members to attend party conventions and conferences as donations to the party; eligible for income tax credits and subject to donation limits. This procedure complied with Elections Canada’s interpretation of party financing law and was consistent with the practices of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) and the New Democratic Party.
In 2005, the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), created by a coerced merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance, held a national policy conference to prepare for its first election. In financial reports filed with Elections Canada, after the 2006 election, conference fees and conference expenses were not included.
The 2006 federal election campaign was dominated by questions of ethics and legality in political party fund-raising. The CPC portrayed the Liberals as lacking in ethics and guilty of a string of illegal and criminal offences with regards to its finances. The CPC won the election.
When the CPC took office in 2006 it immediately introduced the Accountability Act which would stringently regulate donations to political parties and reduce the donation limit to $1000 (from $5000. Soon thereafter, when the CPC filed its financial reports for 2005, it was revealed that the CPC had illegally failed to report its 2005 convention fees and expenses.
While Elections Canada, along with the LPC and other opposition parties called on the CPC to admit its “error“ and re-file its 2005 statements, the CPC, including the Prime Minister and his ministers, proclaimed convention fees and expenses were not subject to party financing law.
The dispute dragged on throughout most of 2006 and served to have a destabilising affect on the LPC as it prepared for its December leadership convention. The LPC was deeply in debt and covering the costs of the convention was a serious problem. The LPC proceeded on the basis that convention fees would be governed by donation limits and that the limit would be $5000, while recognising that its plans would be disrupted seriously if the Accountability Act was passed by Parliament and the limit reduced to $1000 (the convention fee was $995 meaning anyone who had donated more than $5 to the party in 2006 would potentially have exceeded the limit).
In December 2006, after the Liberal Convention, the Accountability Act passed Parliament amid accusations from the CPC that the Liberals had delayed it so that their convention would not be subject to the reduced limit while still proclaiming that its 2005 convention financing was not subject to the former law.
On the second last working day before Christmas 2006, the CPC quietly re-filed its 2005 financial statements with Elections Canada, finally complying with federal law, and acknowledged that convention fees should have been included and that many party members, including the Prime Minister, had illegally donated more the the CPC than permitted. The PM and the others are to gut their money back and will presumably re-file their 2005 income tax return.
On or about the same day as the CPC admitted its error, Canada’s Chief Elections Officer resigned (The Globe and Mail) – just as the Conservatives were finally admitting their illegal accounting is troubling. While the Elections Officer could only be removed from office by a joint resolution of the House of Commons and Senate, with the consent of the Governor General, it’s a curiosity-raising coincidence that the man who has been at odds with the Prime Minister for years choose to resign just as the CPC’s illegal reporting is admitted.
The CPC admission of its wrongdoing, after a year of vociferous denials, helps show the party’s true colours and ethics. It’s good for Canada and Canadians that this is finally out in the open, before a possible spring election. Canadians now know, although it would be better is this hadn’t unfolded between Dec 25 and Jan 1 when most voters’ attention is on other things, that the CPC will enthusiastically put tactics before ethics and that the PM continues to put his desired interpretation of federal law ahead of expert legal opinion.
When the PM doesn’t like a law – be it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Criminal Code, the Elections Financing Act – he stubbornly marches ahead arguing all the courts and lawyers and experts are wrong until he is finally cornered and forced to admit Canada is a nation governed by its Constitution and legal framework. As he acquiesces, he proclaims that if only Canadians would see fit to give his government an majority of the seats in the House of Commons, he could right all these historic wrongs. If in the process, he can destabilise and weaken his opponents in preparation for the next battle, all the better.
To paraphrase something another more famous Conservative once said, ”some ethics, some agenda“.
The now extinct Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and the euthanised Canadian Alliance Party-considered the fees paid by party members to attend party conventions and conferences as donations to the party; eligible for income tax credits and subject to donation limits. This procedure complied with Elections Canada’s interpretation of party financing law and was consistent with the practices of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) and the New Democratic Party.
In 2005, the newly formed Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), created by a coerced merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance, held a national policy conference to prepare for its first election. In financial reports filed with Elections Canada, after the 2006 election, conference fees and conference expenses were not included.
The 2006 federal election campaign was dominated by questions of ethics and legality in political party fund-raising. The CPC portrayed the Liberals as lacking in ethics and guilty of a string of illegal and criminal offences with regards to its finances. The CPC won the election.
When the CPC took office in 2006 it immediately introduced the Accountability Act which would stringently regulate donations to political parties and reduce the donation limit to $1000 (from $5000. Soon thereafter, when the CPC filed its financial reports for 2005, it was revealed that the CPC had illegally failed to report its 2005 convention fees and expenses.
While Elections Canada, along with the LPC and other opposition parties called on the CPC to admit its “error“ and re-file its 2005 statements, the CPC, including the Prime Minister and his ministers, proclaimed convention fees and expenses were not subject to party financing law.
The dispute dragged on throughout most of 2006 and served to have a destabilising affect on the LPC as it prepared for its December leadership convention. The LPC was deeply in debt and covering the costs of the convention was a serious problem. The LPC proceeded on the basis that convention fees would be governed by donation limits and that the limit would be $5000, while recognising that its plans would be disrupted seriously if the Accountability Act was passed by Parliament and the limit reduced to $1000 (the convention fee was $995 meaning anyone who had donated more than $5 to the party in 2006 would potentially have exceeded the limit).
In December 2006, after the Liberal Convention, the Accountability Act passed Parliament amid accusations from the CPC that the Liberals had delayed it so that their convention would not be subject to the reduced limit while still proclaiming that its 2005 convention financing was not subject to the former law.
On the second last working day before Christmas 2006, the CPC quietly re-filed its 2005 financial statements with Elections Canada, finally complying with federal law, and acknowledged that convention fees should have been included and that many party members, including the Prime Minister, had illegally donated more the the CPC than permitted. The PM and the others are to gut their money back and will presumably re-file their 2005 income tax return.
On or about the same day as the CPC admitted its error, Canada’s Chief Elections Officer resigned (The Globe and Mail) – just as the Conservatives were finally admitting their illegal accounting is troubling. While the Elections Officer could only be removed from office by a joint resolution of the House of Commons and Senate, with the consent of the Governor General, it’s a curiosity-raising coincidence that the man who has been at odds with the Prime Minister for years choose to resign just as the CPC’s illegal reporting is admitted.
The CPC admission of its wrongdoing, after a year of vociferous denials, helps show the party’s true colours and ethics. It’s good for Canada and Canadians that this is finally out in the open, before a possible spring election. Canadians now know, although it would be better is this hadn’t unfolded between Dec 25 and Jan 1 when most voters’ attention is on other things, that the CPC will enthusiastically put tactics before ethics and that the PM continues to put his desired interpretation of federal law ahead of expert legal opinion.
When the PM doesn’t like a law – be it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Criminal Code, the Elections Financing Act – he stubbornly marches ahead arguing all the courts and lawyers and experts are wrong until he is finally cornered and forced to admit Canada is a nation governed by its Constitution and legal framework. As he acquiesces, he proclaims that if only Canadians would see fit to give his government an majority of the seats in the House of Commons, he could right all these historic wrongs. If in the process, he can destabilise and weaken his opponents in preparation for the next battle, all the better.
To paraphrase something another more famous Conservative once said, ”some ethics, some agenda“.
