The executive director of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta saying perhaps the most tone deaf and arrogant statements I have ever heard from a political party. "We're of the mind, as a party, not to repay the voluntary amounts," & "Repaying the money does us no good in the court of public opinion" (You can listen to the words yourself at this link at approx the 2 min mark) All in regards to Alberta's Chief Electoral Officers recent disclosure that the PC party was found to have accepted 45 illegal donations. ( The tip of the iceberg)
Think about that for a minute. The Alberta PC Party does not want to pay back the money that was given to them illegally, as determined by the CEO of Alberta, and they believe that the Alberta public does not care if they do pay back their ill gotten gains.
I am almost speechless as it seems that the PCs have not learned any lessons at all from their handling of the no-meet committee fiasco of last year where the Premier was forced into multiple flip flops due to very obvious public outrage on the matter.
Of course it matters; only a fool would believe that it didn't.
Updated: The PC spin that they were unaware of the donations takes a nose dive.
(Metro) Leaders of the two municipalities named in a new report as having made
the largest amount of illegal, “indirect” contributions to the
Progressive Conservative party say party officials advised them at the
time they were doing nothing wrong.
Mayor Bill Robertson of the Town of Okotoks: “They knew what was going and they were saying, ‘Oh yeah, you can do
it that way, because it’s legal,’” he said. “And it turns out it wasn’t
legal.”
Foothills Reeve Larry Spilak told a similar story: “Absolutely, it was from the party,” he said. “The message that was sent to our council and our administration was that this was allowed and consequently we went ahead with it.”
More here from the National Post on how municipalities felt pressure to donate to the PC party.
Calgary Herald: "the PCs are ready to fight an election with illegal contributions."
Business as usual in Alberta. At least until 2016 when we get another chance to show the Alberta PC's that in the court of public opinion, ethics do indeed matter.
From the archives: Many more examples of illegal PC donations can be found here.
From the CBC: How the PC party not only accepted an illegal donation but also orchestrated it from the inside! Tell me again how 'they didn't know'?
Friday, February 01, 2013
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3 comments:
These conservatives are spectacularly corrupt.
The Progrexall Katzervatives are getting some bad ink lately for accepting illegal party donations, doubling their taxpayer-funded RRSP allowances, and trashing the Alberta Advantage with perennial multi-billion dollar deficits. But our perpetual governing party can rest assured that the ‘sheeple’ who voted for them last April figure it’s a small price to pay to save all those gay ghosts from the Lake of Fire.
They must be pretty hard-up for money if Kelly Charlebois thinks $40,000 is too much to pay back and will risk public opinion on that, after the party along spending $4.5 million in the election.
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