Alberta Premier Alison Redford speaks to the media on March 18, 2013.DAVE CHAN/The Globe and Mail
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Alberta Premier Alison Redford's Progressive Conservatives have dismissed renewed calls to tighten provincial fundraising legislation despite the continued controversy around Edmonton billionaire Daryl Katz's "bulk donation," but Elections Alberta is making one rule change her majority government cannot ignore.
No longer can the Tories choose how the party wants to account for certain fundraising activities.
The change comes after The Globe and Mail and the Wildrose Party raised the issue of PC ticket sales from leader's dinners held during the 2012 election period to the Chief Electoral Officer, earlier this year.
The Tories have always counted that revenue as part of its annual fundraising tally, not as campaign donations even when the events took place within an election campaign window as outlined in Election Finances and Contributions Disclosures Act.
At the time, PC party brass explained to The Globe that Elections Alberta never previously raised concerns about its audited accounting practices. Indeed, Brian Fjeldheim, the now-retired Chief Electoral Officer, wrote that the matter was chalked up to party whims in a two-page letter to The Globe dated April 16, but only received this week.
"Parties had the discretion to determine if the contribution related to an election," he noted.
But as Mr. Fjeldheim called in independent investigators earlier this year to handle the probe into the single $430,000 cheque delivered by Mr. Katz to the struggling Tories in the home stretch of last spring's provincial election, other accounting matters were also brought to his attention.
Those focused on Ms. Redford's leader's dinners in Calgary and Edmonton, which generated ticket sales of about $1-million in May, 2012, about a month after the April 23 election.
Wildrose, which was surging in the polls through most of the campaign but stumbled in the final days to become Official Opposition, argued that those proceeds should be declared as part of campaign fundraising under the legislation, which includes two months after polling day.
After all, that's the way all the other major parties conduct their accounting, Wildrose pointed out.
After consulting with his legal team, Mr. Fjeldeim said if money is received during a campaign period, then it's a campaign contribution, not part of annual fundraising activities.
"This time-driven interpretation we will be using in the future is expected to enhance transparency, accountability and consistency in reporting by all political entities," Mr. Fjeldheim wrote. "…Parties will be asked to adapt to this change in reporting practice for the next General Election."
Kelley Charlebois, the PC party's executive director, said the change is more "philosophical" than practical.
"To us, it really doesn't matter if it's including in elections expenses or not," he said.
But consider how different Tory finances would have looked if the rule applied for 2012: Debt levels would have been much worse, but optics may well have improved.
After all, the PCs' net assets at the end of last year were reported as a debt of $784,767, putting it in the worst position of the four main parties. The Wildrose had $403,361 in net assets and no debt. During the on-election period of 2012, Wildrose raised about $2.8-million, followed by the PCs at $2.3-million, the NDP at about $1.4-million and the Liberals at about $480,000.
And the $430,000 donation linked to one of Mr. Katz's companies and in turn several of his relatives, employees and their firms, which amounted to almost a third of the total $1.5-million that the PC Party raised during the campaign, wouldn't have looked quite as noticeable at a time when the Edmonton Oilers' owner was looking for $100-million from the province to help pay for his new arena.
Last week, Mr. Fjeldheim said by accepting one large cheque, which was first reported by The Globe, neither the party nor Mr. Katz contravened the $30,000 maximum campaign donation per individual rule, though one out-of-province donor did have to return his portion of the contribution.
Dawn Walton is a reporter in the Calgary bureau.