The provincial Conservative Party executive committee approved a motion to spend up to $180,000 of party funds on the Anything But Conservative campaign in 2008 according to minutes of an executive committee meeting filed with Elections Canada and released under federal access to information law.
At the start of the September 8, 2008 meeting, party president John Babb “made reference to a Provincial Executive Meeting in November 2006 on issues of confidentiality and asked that we keep all matters discussed at this meeting confidential between members of the Executive.”
The minutes show that party treasurer Jim Oxford - appointed by the Williams administration to the public utilities board in August 2009 - moved a motion to fund the ABC campaign “to the maximum amount of $180,000.00”.
According to the minutes, Oxford “felt it was incumbent on all of us [on the Executive] to lend the Premier full support in this campaign effort.’
The executive passed that motion unanimously along with another motion to register the provincial party as a third party under the “federal Government Elections Act.”
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