Dwight Ball is the leader of the Liberal Party.
He now has a chance to lead by example when it comes to donations for his leadership campaign.
Ball told CBC News that he spent somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 on his leadership campaign. Even though the party executive failed to provide any rules for campaign financing – as SRBP told you in July – Ball should set an example and publish a list of all donors over $100 and the amounts they gave.
Liberal leadership candidate Danny Dumaresque wants to reform the provincial election laws to ban corporate donations, as the Telegram reported on Thursday.
“I think in Newfoundland and Labrador, we’ve got to update the program,” he said. “(We’re) not living up to the expectations of the voting public, and it’s time for us to go forward and get current and have the respect for the voting public that they deserve.”
He said he wants to see a system in which the law would prevent “any possibility that big business can have access to elected officials — especially people in the government.”
So far Dumaresque is the only Liberal candidate to offer this kind of progressive reform ideas.
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According to the St. John’s Board of Trade, “Newfoundland and Labrador’s considerable assets include …[a] captive consumer market worth over $10 billion annually.”
Interesting choice of words that.
“Captive”.
Prisoner.
Hostage.
As in can’t go anywhere else or do anything else.
At the mercy of others.
Take a look at a survey the Board did of a four member panel that they included with that news release. Now bear in mind the panel is four members of the Board of Trade and only four. But still, if you look at the responses, you get another curious bit of information.
Top federal/provincial priorities: “Building the Lower Churchill” got a vote from one of the four as the top priority. But two others put “Building the Lower Churchill” as their second choice.
Not surprising really, that the Lower Churchill would be the favourite in this question and in another one later on about what the federal government needs to do for the province.
Many members of the Board of Trade have done very well as a result of the enormous increase in public spending over the past four years. it may be fiscally unsound for the province, but for the Board of Trade members it’s been boom times. The Lower Churchill would guarantee those booms for another decade.
Makes sense.
Makes sense too that the party currently in power is pushing something that means they can trumpet the jobs and the growth that will flow. There’s a wonderful meeting of mutual interest, political and commercial.
This alignment of interests is easily seen in the pattern of political giving in the province last year. 80% of donations come from corporations. Most of that is focused on the northeast Avalon. Individual contributions make up a mere 20% and in some districts nobody - other than the local member of the legislature - contributed anything at all to any political party.
Not surprisingly, either, the companies who have been doing perhaps the most phenomenally well from capital works spending have given in huge gobs to the Conservatives.
Nothing sinister or criminal. Just a matter of common interests.
Meanwhile, the average ratepayer, err consumer, err taxpayer in the province isn’t quite so positive about Muskrat Falls and the Lower Churchill. In polls done by Corporate Research Associates for the provincial government over the past year, Muskrat is the top priority of a mere four percent of the population.
Consistently four percent.
Health care and jobs are way out in front as the major concern of 20-odd and 30-odd percent of the people surveyed.
Huge difference.
Now look at that word “captive” again.
Interesting choice.
Almost Freudian in its implications when you consider that having a captive market is the entire basis for Muskrat Falls.
The local consumers will be forced to pay for it all, carry the whole debt load and make sure that the companies directly involved don’t lose a copper.
They have no choice.
They are captive.
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ya know that something is going on when the traffic at ye olde e-scribbles starts jumping up by 25% from the previous month.
And that’s a real 25%, not an hyper-torqued NDP 25% that is actually just one percent.
If you want to see more on the story of the NDP’s deceptive news release on small business taxes, it hit the Number 8 slot on the top 10 Bond posts for last week, as chosen by the readers themselves.
Lots of “D”s in the Top 10 last week, including Danny, Desperation, Donations, Duff and Doyle, as in Republic of. Even without putting the words in the headline lots of people found it and likely had a little chuckle as they went.
The week after Labour Day turned out to be highly charged politically and if the trend holds this will be one of the more interesting fall seasons in recent times.
So in case you missed these posts during the week, settle in and enjoy what caught everyone’s attention here at SRBP last week.
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MQO, the market research company that released an opinion poll on the second day of the provincial general election, is part of a group of marketing and advertising companies with ties to the provincial Conservatives and Nalcor, the provincial government’s energy company.
M5 is the agency of record for Nalcor, a spokesperson for Nalcor confirmed for SRBP on Tuesday.
Craig Tucker is listed as managing director of M5 on the company’s website.
In 2004, then premier Danny Williams announced Tucker’s appointment to the board of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Hydro was the predecessor of Nalcor. It appears Tucker left the board when Hydro became Nalcor.
According to a 2005 CBC story, Tucker co-chaired the Conservative’s 2003 election campaign. That CBC story was about a $150,000 contract that M5 landed from the provincial government to promote the $2.0 billion transfer deal with Ottawa signed in January 2005.
M5 has also been an active contributor to the Progressive Conservative party in the province. From 2003 to 2010, the company gave $29,200 in political donations to the PC party according to information from the province’s chief electoral officer.
SRBP contacted Karen McCarthy, the media contact on the MQO news release, via Twitter and later e-mail. McCarthy is president of M5PR and is listed on the M5 website as senior vice-president, communications.
SRBP asked:
Is M5 doing any work currently for Nalcor, the prov gov and/or the PC party. If so, what is it doing?
McCarthy replied:
MQO Research conducted the poll on the NL election over the past weekend independent of any other organization. The company is a “research force” in the Atlantic Region and feels a responsibility to report on issues of interest to people in the four Atlantic provinces. The company has done work for many governments, corporations and others throughout the region since its inception. Whether or not the company currently has projects in play with the organizations you mentioned, I’m unaware. It’s not something that MQO’s researcher’s would confirm for me due to client confidentiality. In fact, the same is true for the entire group of m5 companies. I can speak for the company of which I am President. m5pr is not doing any work for the PC Party, Nalcor or the Province.
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The politicians in the province share a lot of common views and tend to agree on most things despite being organized into political parties that are – theoretically - supposed to have some sharp differences among them. The House of Assembly itself is organized to minimise the chances that the government won;t get its way, quickly.
Yvonne Jones was the first woman leader of the Liberal Party.
In the fourth instalment in this series on politics in Newfoundland and Labrador, SRBP looks how elections work.
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That’s the gist of documents found by CBC [ Globe’s got it too.], according to a story on the cbc.ca website: former premier turned lobbyist Frank Moores dealt with KarlHeinz Schreiber about Airbus and political donations as far back as 1983.
Expect to see the Gin and Tonic Biographer – whose biography of Moores has a few gaps and errors in it as it is – in the media sounding more like an old friend of the family than the person who wrote the book on Frank.
It’s not like this situation hasn’t arisen before.
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1. Does Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, keep referring to himself in the plural as in “we” received information or when “we” got into politics when he is referring to himself, singularly and personally?
The “we”, something he copied from his model’s speaking pattern along with referring to things as this “piece” or that “piece”, sounds pompous, arrogant or – worse – deranged. [word replaced; see note below]
And while we are at it, why…
2. would Ron Ellsworth, wannabe mayor, bring up optional blind trusts for city councillors when there are other ethics issues he’s clearly ignoring.
Like campaign finance reform.
Far better for people to know which monied interests in town are backing candidates than giving councillors the option of putting their interests at arms length.
But in the spirit of disclosure and accountability, maybe Ron could disclose publicly his own local business interests for starters and a complete accounting of his campaign donations and expenses for the past two elections.
We are not talking about the ones required by the laughable city election rules. We are talking about full and complete disclosure using – for example – the federal campaign spending and reporting rules.
Ellsworth has made a rod to beat his own back, but his rival for the mayor’s chair – Doc O’Keefe - isn’t likely politically swift enough to use it.
Others might not be.
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Change update: There are two parts of that post that require correction, elaboration and clarification.
The first is the use of the word “mentor” in reference to Ellsworth. That wasn’t the right word since it could suggest a conscious collaboration by both parties. The word “model” is better since it merely suggests what seems to be obvious, namely that Ellsworth is modelling himself on a certain well-known politician.
The second is to replace the words “but Doc is too stunned to use it, most likely”. Stunned is a common enough local word and while that phrase would come across to someone who got the point using dialect, the potential for misunderstanding is too great to leave it alone.
The phrase could be taken the wrong way so best to change it to one that more accurately reflects the meaning intended:
As it now reads, the sentence should convey the point that while Ellsworth has essentially handed his rival with a political rod to beat him about the head with, Ellsworth’s rival hasn’t displayed the sort of political savvy and moxie – the political swiftness – to capitalize on his opponent’s blunder.
Now for those who think your humble e-scribbler got calls, be assured that there were none. Also be assured that Doc’s crowd won’t like the revised version any better than the one before. Nor will Ellsworth and his crowd.
This just makes plain what was meant.
Seven companies in Newfoundland and Labrador have reached a deal with Elections Canada in the Penashue illegal contributions case.
According to Canadian Press, the companies have reached an agreement with Elections Canada in which the companies admit to making illegal contributions and promise not to do so again.
“Executives of Air Labrador Ltd., Dee-Max Innu Tautshuap Ltd., Innu-Chiasson Construction Ltd., Kakatshu Construction Ltd., Labrador Sales Ltd. and N.E. Parrot Surveys Ltd. admit they directed their companies to donate $1,000 each to Penashue’s campaign.
The CEO of Pennecon Ltd. [the seventh company] admits that six of his company’s officers were involved in sending Penashue’s campaign a $5,500 corporate cheque.”
Federal election finance laws prohibit corporations from making political donations.
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Cathy Bennett’s leadership launch event was organized as one would expect. Her speech was scripted and, hand gestures and all, well rehearsed.
From the start there was the flush of jargon that one expects these days from business people getting into politics. A “decision process’ had led her to this spot. The province must be “best in class”. Things must be “actioned”. We must “start a conversation.” Energy, passion and fire - especially passion – occurred in the speech with as much frequency as “strong voice” used to turn up with others.
She pledged to be “open and accountable” as well as honest and persuasive.”
Bennett didn’t offer much beyond stock phrases on anything, though, except on three points: increased immigration, full-day kindergarten, and Muskrat Falls.
If ever there was a shovel-ready project crying out for federal infrastructure spending in the midst of this global economic meltdown, it would be the international tourist attraction that could be built in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The attractions in this cross between Ripley’s, Believe or Not! and Madam Toussaud’s would surely be the raft of colourful characters who are the province’s public figures.
There is the politician who welcomed the Juno awards to Newfoundland and Labrador on a cold day in January by giving new meaning to the term rhinestone cowboy.
There is the former politician who, 30 years ago this year, was found by a judicial inquiry to have been one of two people responsible for leaking confidential police reports into a fire to some of the leading journalists and editors of the day rather than return the obviously illicit documents to the police.
This former cabinet minister, fittingly 30 years later the host of an afternoon yak-fest for the radio station known colloquially as voice of the cabinet minister, finds no problem, for example, in offering opinions on the appropriate sentence for another former politician even though the court case is not done. At the same time, he will chastise those who would call his afternoon radio show and mention the name of a prominent figure or well-known business or organization about which they may have an opinion.
We will not repeat in detail there number of times this fellow speaks of events when he was in cabinet as though he was not there at the time.
Then there is the other voice of the common, man, who now finds himself the host of another radio show at the same station. He long ago reached conclusions on the Churchill Falls deal long ago, most of them being based on commonly held but often-times unfounded ideas, yet recently gushed about the marvellous book he was reading on the subject.
Said book was written in the mid-1970s.
The centrepiece of this new Mecca would surely be the House of Assembly, the legislature of this place. Roger Fitzgerald, the speaker of the local parliament, answered questions this week about inappropriate payments made to local politicians. The questions came after the auditor general’s latest annual report provided an update on the whole business.
Fitzgerald straight-facedly told reporters that he had a legal opinion that the legislature could not recover money identified as spent inappropriately by province’s auditor general since the money was spent under the rules at the time.
"It was common practice for members to submit claims like donations and in some cases, maybe liquor purchases depending on what it was for," Fitzgerald said.
"I don't think members should have to repay those particular expenses. If they did, they should've been told at the beginning that it was not an acceptable practice."
Never mind the number of current politicians who insisted there were no rules at the time. Never mind, either, that, as Fitzgerald well knows, the people he thinks now should have been doing the telling were the ones who set the rules that said the inappropriate spending was okay in the first place.
The inappropriate spending included public money handed out as donations to all and sundry, as well as purchases of alcohol and double-billings of expenses.
Fitzgerald is one of the few current or former members of the legislature who is paying back some of cash. (He spent only 33 bucks on booze) The $17,942 in public he gave as donations isn’t part of the amount being repaid. Nor will virtually all the rest of them be required to repay the public for much beyond the double-billings even though in some cases they handed out as much as half the money in their expense allowances in a way labelled inappropriate by both the auditor general and the chief justice of the Supreme Court’s Trial Division.
It’s not like they don’t have the power to order a repayment of the whole shooting match or, in lieu of that, to seize property and other assets owned or controlled by the current and former members to satisfy the debt.
After all, only one day before the House closed last fall, the legislature seized assets of a host of Italian, Newfoundland, mainland-Canadian and American businesses. They quashed a court case and ordered no compensation for it. They did it based on no other foundation other than that - legally – they could do so by majority vote.
Such joys may only be found in the notion of parliamentary sovereignty: the members of the legislature set the rules.
How can it be that the all-powerful are struck suddenly impotent?
Surely it wasn’t a legal opinion that flies in the face of the legal opinion the members themselves rendered last December.
Perhaps we could hand out shovels to the visitors at our new attraction and let them dig about until they come up with the answer themselves.
We won’t need to give Roger and the rest of his political friends a spade.
Nope.
He’s already been shovelling it enough this week for the lot of them.
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New Democrat candidate George Murphy is being accused of breaking the province’s election finance laws
Murphy’s chief financial officer sent out an e-mail soliciting donations for Murphy’s campaign in the upcoming election.
But that goes against section 282(3) that says only a registered party or a candidate can ask for donations. The problem is that as far as the Elections Act is concerned, Murphy isn’t a candidate because the election hasn’t been called.
People can vote for him, or his party and have been able to do so for weeks even though there is no election called.
But they cannot contribute to Murphy’s campaign.
Frigged up or what?
The election finance laws haven’t been updated since 1998.
The ridiculous bit about advance voting came along with fixed election dates under the Williams' Conservatives in 2004. But Williams and his gang had no interest in modernising the elections finance laws even though Williams promised to do just that as part of his election campaign in 2003.
There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept some famous politician used to say.
Anyway, if the CBC story on this is accurate the provincial elections office says it will insist that Murphy refund any money he raised.
Since a registered political party can legally fund-raise under the same section, the New Democrats need only change the organization doing the solicitation and everyone can happily reconcile the mess by fixed election date laws in an election finance section designed for a different situation.
No harm intended.
No real foul committed, especially when the provincial election laws are so woefully antiquated or - as in the special ballot provisions - are such an obvious mess.
What’s more, there are a bunch of ways people could contribute to Murphy’s campaign without triggering that section of the Act. it’s right there in black and white, if someone at the electoral office actually read the law they are supposed to enforce.
Instead, the same office that refused to investigate political work paid for by money obtained from the public purse through fraud when it involved the ruling Tories is going to punish a New Democrat for what could be – arguably – a misreading of the Elections Act by both the elections office and the candidate?
Something is very wrong in that.
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Liberal leader Dwight Ball and Conservative leader-designate Frank Coleman delivered speeches in St. John’s last week and you couldn’t have scripted more startling contrasts.
Ball delivered a speech at an event that reflected his party’s standing in the polls: more than 500 people who paid $500 a head to attend.
Coleman spoke to a small meeting of the St. John’s Rotary Club where the audience paid a few dollars to the Club.
Thanks to the Telegram’s James McLeod, you can compare the two speeches. Since James posted the speeches and Coleman’s scrum to youtube, we’ll also give you those links.
Take the time to listen to the speeches yourself, but here are some observations about the pair of them.
Last winter we took a look at the idea of cost per vote. Basically, you compare the amount of money a campaign spent with the number of votes it got.
It’s a way of measuring the efficiency of a political campaign. The lower the number, the more efficient the campaign is.
Here’s a chart showing the cost per vote for the three major parties in Newfoundland and Labrador in the four general election years 1996, 1999, 2003, and 2007. The calculations added the annual contributions for each party and the specific contributions for each general election during the year of the general election and divided the sum by the number of votes cast for each party.
The chart doesn’t include 2011 since Elections NL hasn’t released the annual contribution figures for that year yet.
The new chair of the board of governors at College of the North Atlantic – headquarters in Stephenville – just happens to be the top contributor to the past two election campaigns of Joan Burke, education minister and member of the provincial legislature for Stephenville.
There’s a story on the front page of the Saturday Telegram.
Appalachia Distributing – the company listed as making the donations - has a record of political giving:
| Year | Party | Candidate | Annual/ Election | Amount |
| 1998 | Liberal |
| Annual | 450.00 |
| 1999 | Liberal |
| Annual | 450.00 |
|
| PC | Leonard Muise | Election | 150.00 |
| 2000 | Liberal |
| Annual | 450.00 |
| 2001 | Liberal |
| Annual | 450.00 |
| 2003 | Liberal | Gerald Smith | Election | 170.00 |
| PC | Joan Burke | Election | 1,000.00 | |
| PC | Joan Burke | Election | 192.50 | |
| PC | Jim Hodder | Election | 200.00 | |
| 2004 | PC |
| Annual | 375.00 |
The Telegram also reports election contributions for 2007 - $1,000 to Joan Burke’s campaign - but those still aren’t available on the provincial elections office website.
Government corporate registry records show the company was dissolved in 2005 and revived a year later. The corporate registry lists Appalachia Distributing Limited with two directors, Terrence Styles and Darlene Styles.
That makes the political giving totals (including the grand listed by the Telly for 2007) as follows:
Liberal (ended 2003) : $1,560.00
PC (1999, 2003-current) $2,577.50
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