Global News has learned that Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer will, in fact, be launching an investigation into donations made to the province’s PC party by Daryl Katz, along with his employees and family members.
Documents showed that the Edmonton Oilers owner, along with his wife, parents, executive team and their related companies donated a total of $300,000 to the Tories during the campaign. $30,000, the maximum any one person or group can contribute to any party, was personally donated by Katz.
The total sum represents about 20 per cent of the total donations to the party. There are also allegations, though, that Katz wrote a cheque to the party during the election for $430,000.
While Premier Alison Redford has denied that any donation from Katz would in any way sway the provincial government into subsidizing Edmonton’s proposed downtown arena project, both the Wildrose and NDP have asked Alberta Elections to investigate.
After it was announced that an investigation will, in fact, take place, Opposition expressed their support for it.
“I’m very glad that they are conducting an investigation,” said NDP MLA David Eggen. “I hope that all of the results are entirely transparent and available to the public to see. And I hope that the Electoral Officer may consider making some recommendations as to how we can fix this problem – if it falls under the law, then still there’s something wrong.”
“If there is wrongdoing, then it needs to be prosecuted, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith added. “If there is somehow a loophole in the law that allows that then the loophole needs to be closed and we have an opportunity to do that in the fall session.”
Liberal MLA Kent Hehr agreed.
“We have loopholes that you can drive a mac truck through,” he said. “And simply put, it’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not what progressive jurisdictions across Canada are doing to ensure that elections are not for sale.”
“I would like the Elections Finances Act relooked at, reworked, to make it more fair and reasonable,” he continued, “so that democracy cannot be bought.”
While Premier Redford did not comment on the decision Tuesday, she addressed the issue on October 25th, saying her party has followed rules and stayed within all the contribution limits.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the NDP also demanded to know why the Tories doubled the amount pharmacies can charge taxpayers to give flu shots at around the same time the party accepted the large campaign contribution from the pharmacy billionaire Katz.
Health Minister Fred Horne defended the move, though, claiming the change had been in the pipeline for a long time as part of a broader attempt to use pharmacist to lighten the workload of doctors.
Officials with Alberta Elections will investigate whether the donations broke campaign laws by looking into whether “the source of political donations reported to Elections Alberta by a political party are, in fact, received from individual donors, or as alleged by a number of complaints received in our office to be the funds of one individual, which would be in violation of the $30,000 limit contained in the EFCDA.”
With files from Vassy Kapelos, Global News and The Canadian Press
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