Month: September 2008

Ottawa West-Nepean fight gets heated

A couple of days ago, I attended the all-candidates debate at the Nepean Sportsplex where incumbent John Baird faced former Liberal minister David Pratt, Marlene Rivier from the NDP and Green party candidate Frances Coates. Despite their politics, I was quite impressed by the debating ability of Rivier and Coates. Pratt came off as a bit of a curmudgeon as he took almost opportunity to attack Stephen Harper and John Baird. It’s understandable from his perspective as he hopes to be the giant killer, but in a campaign many have labeled as negative, Pratt just fueled people’s perceptions of the same.

I’m not convinced that too many undecided voters attend all-candidates meetings. In fact, I’m certain that there were only a handful there. The theatrical display in that hall a few nights ago was put on in front of political partisans who tried to out-cheer or out-boo the other side’s cheerers and booers. A long train of people rushed to the microphone when it was time for questions from the audience; there was no chance that everyone would be heard as this section was alloted approximately one hour and each question would take the panel about four minutes to answer. Predictably, the moderator kept to time and a shorter but still extensive line of people behind the lucky last person to ask a question seemed disappointed and returned to their seats. After the panel had answered the last question, a woman grabbed the microphone and realizing she wouldn’t be recognized by the moderator, started yelling in the mic at John Baird which was followed by a shower of boos from the audience towards the woman that disrespected Baird but more importantly the room which patiently respected the process. She kept yelling and was largely inaudible with the surrounding boos and cameramen present rushed to capture a story in progress. The timekeeper, sitting next to the microphone grabbed the mic and pulled the micstand down. Then the woman tried wrestling the microphone away from the timekeeper bending down to shout into the mic now clasped in his hands. Flustered, she turned around and turned around and quickly paced to the door leaving the room.

Outside, a reporter wanted to get her story. Apparently, she was upset about the Conservative government’s record on science, technology and innovation. The reporter asked for her name to which she replied “Christine”. “And your last name?”, the reporter asked. After hesitation she responded “Pratt”. “Is that a coincidence,” asked the reporter.

“No, I’m his sister”


Pratt’s sister yells at John Baird


She tried to wrestle the microphone from the man who holds the stopwatch and the yellow and red cards to indicate time to the candidates.

Here’s the perspective of another blogger that was there,

I attended my riding all candidates debate last night. Stupid politics. It made the news this morning to. I am now more mixed up than ever. David Pratt did not handle himself at all well. He did nothing but attack Baird and the conservatives (ok….to an extent, rightly so, but there is a time and place, and a way to balance it), and spent very little time on talking about what he would do, even when asked directly “What would you do for X, Y, or Z”. He also frequently ran over his time, and powered through to the end of his statement with the moderator trying to talk over him saying his time was up. John Baird is actually a pretty clever man despite my abhorrence of his policies. He came off looking like he had a clear moral high ground, stayed polite, stayed in time, played some very clever political theatre for the crowd, and kept attacks on Stephane Dion to a minimum. Baird’s supporters on the other hand were a disgrace. Yelling, heckling, drowning out Pratt and making him use up his time, shouting down people asking questions critical of Baird, they were quite frankly an embarassment. Pratt had his own embarassment however, after the moderator declared we were out of time except closing statements, a woman muscled her way to the microphone and start yelling at Baird (only to be outright verbally abused by Baird’s supporters for her efforts). I learned this morning, she was David Pratt’s sister, and it was a very stupid move to do when the moderator had already closed down questions from the audience, and David made no attempt to dissuade her.

…

I am seriously questioning my volunteer contribution to Pratt’s campaign office. I still want to see Baird out of a job, and Pratt has the only real chance to pull that off, but right now, I’d have trouble being sincere doing door to door canvassing. “Please sir or madam, I’d like to ask if David can count on your vote, even though his performance at the debate probably didn’t earn it”

Complaint of Garth Turner’s trust fund forwarded to Elections Canada

About a year ago, I wrote of Liberal MP Garth Turner collecting money in a unconventional way. Garth Turner was asking contributers via his website to donate to “Garth Turner Campaign, in trust”. We learned then that this may run afoul of the Elections Act because of a recent Federal Accountability Act amendment.

Here is what Turner asked of his website visitors:

Two days ago, I learned from Will Stewart, President of the Conservative Halton electoral district association, that a resident of Halton lodged an official complaint with Elections Canada via registered mail regarding Turner’s request for money to be donated in a trust fund.

Regarding the incident, here’s what I wrote on October 28, 2007,

From Elections Canada, we learn that:

…as of June 12, 2007, as a result of changes made by s. 44(2) of the Federal Accountability Act to s. 404.2 of the Canada Elections Act, transfers of trust funds to candidates from registered parties and registered associations will be prohibited.

It seems that when an election is called, the federal accountability act prohibits the transfer of money from an electoral district association’s or party’s trust fund to a candidate. If this is so, who holds this money in trust? Is it “Garth Turner campaign” (whatever that entity is) or “Garth Turner”? If the account is to be used to elect Garth Turner, it would be useless for the EDA to hold it because of the new changes governed by the FAA. But yet, outside of an election, all funds must be donated to the EDA.

furthermore (from Elections Canada),

A contribution made from a trust fund is treated as a contribution from the trustee.

When a registered party, registered association, candidate, leadership contestant or nomination contestant receives a contribution paid out of funds held in trust, the trustee is reported as the contributor and the contribution counts towards his or her contribution limit.

Therefore, only a trustee who is an individual may make a contribution from a trust fund.

So, Garth is encouraging people to write cheques to “Garth Turner campaign, in trust”. What does this mean? As is the general understanding, and confirmed by Elections Canada, funds held in trust become the property of the trustee. Contributions from trust funds are treated as contributions from the trustee. So, if a candidate were to able to transfer money out of a trust fund to fund their campaign, the maximum they could withdraw would be the maximum contribution amount allowable by an individual (ie. the trustee) per year, which is $1,100. If Garth collects $50,000 into a trust fund from donors, it becomes the property of that trust’s trustee and subsequently, that trustee can only give $1,100. But, can money even be transferred out of a trust (with many contributors) for the purpose of an election campaign?

Trusts are dubious because of the exchanging of money through an intermediary (the trust/trustee). For example, if I wanted to give a political party $100, I couldn’t give it to my friend to donate that money for me. My friend would have to do that in his name because he is the one handing over the money. Again, the nature of trusts is that the money held in trust becomes the property of the trustee and therefore contributing from that trust becomes a donation from the trustee and not the variety of individuals who gave money to put into that trust.

But, as we read on, this becomes clearer. Elections Canada states that indirect contributions are prohibited,

An individual may not collect funds from others in a trust for the purpose of making contributions to registered parties, their associations, candidates, leadership contestants or nomination contestants. (s. 405.3 Canada Elections Act)

This is because individuals cannot make contributions from funds given to them by others for the purpose of making contributions. This rule cannot be avoided by the individual collecting funds in a trust from which to make contributions.

The Liberals have been going on and on about money transfers from parties to candidates and from candidates to parties. Money transfers of this sort happen all of the time. However, according to section 404.2(2.2) of the Elections Act, this may not occur with respect to trusts.

A transfer of funds, other than trust funds, is permitted and is not a contribution for the purposes of this Act if it is

(a) from a registered party to a candidate endorsed by the party; or

(b) from a registered association to a candidate endorsed by the party with which the association is affiliated.

and according to Elections Canada,

A registered party, registered association, candidate, leadership contestant or nomination contestant may not avoid Canada Elections Act controls by collecting contributions directly in a trust fund.

Any such contributions remain contributions. They must be accepted by the relevant agent, put into the campaign account (*** ie. during a campaign, for a candidate as recognized by a returning officer during a writ period — Stephen ***) (if received by a candidate, leadership or nomination contestant) and reported as contributions.

Outside of a campaign, donations for the purpose of eventually electing somebody must be made to the Electoral District Association.

Why is Garth collecting money from his supporters into a trust?

Who owns (and therefore controls) the money in that trust since an EDA cannot transfer money from a trust to a candidate during a campaign?

How would a candidate expect to get more than $1,100 a year out of such a trust?

If a trust is made up of pooled money from a number of people, how can money be transferred to a campaign since indirect contributions are prohibited?

If during a writ period, only a campaign can issue tax receipts and if outside of a campaign, only an EDA can issue tax receipts, how can “Garth Turner campaign” hope to give tax receipts to donors as his website claims?

How much money has Garth Turner collected in trust?

Here’s what Garth had to say about this:

Mr. Taylor has written a blog of copious length after looking at my fund-raising web site (www.garthturner.com). He saw that in addition to credit card donations, I was accepting cheques, made payable to “Garth Turner Campaign, in Trust.” From that he made the assumption (since he did not call me) that I had opened a trust account, and wondered then how the new election financing rules would allow donors to get a tax receipt. I won’t trouble you with all the grinding details, since you can read them on Mr. Taylor’s blogette for yourself (www.stephentaylor.ca). But you can see from his effort on this that he thinks it’s a big deal. Maybe it is. Beats me.

…

…I did not think to change the wording on my website from the Garth Turner campaign to the Halton Liberal Association, so cheque-writers would face no delays or hassles in getting tax receipts. Whoops. Screw up. Enter Stephen Taylor and his “clean government” buddies to shoot my butt off.

So, what have I learned in the last twelve hours?

First, the website wording was changed. I learned not to ignore that. Second, I spent lots of time talking to a flinty-eyed party regulatory guy about campaign financing. I learned I do not want to be a regulatory guy. Third, I learned that even if the Lib riding association was dysfunctional, I had to turn over the meager amount of money in my indie campaign account. Fourth, I learned this will take some days, weeks maybe, to sort out since every donation of five or ten bucks, made over PayPay, by credit card, or cheque, will have to be reviewed. After all, the guardians of Clean Government are out to bury me &emdash; once they dig themselves out. I have learned there’s a big controversy raging about whether or not political candidates can even raise money online through portals like PayPal. It’s the Internet thing, you know, the devil’s invention.

And I’ve learned I am apparently not dead yet.

For that, Mr. Taylor, I thank you.

Announcing Google Power Readers Canada

I pleased to announce today, the launch of a new way of connecting with Canada’s political party leaders and the journalists that are covering the election campaign.

I’ve been working with Google over the past couple of months on an innovative project that provides a peek into the reading material of those seeking the Prime Minister’s Office the articles that they’d like to share with you, the voter.

Late last night, our site went live and gained some very valuable real estate on the homepage of Google Canada at google.ca.

Google Power Readers Canada is the product of our work. I was able to gather Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May together to share articles that interest them and of course, articles they figure will interest (or should I say) entice you to vote for their candidates.

Also featured within the project are some of Canada’s top reporters that are covering the day-to-day action of the campaign. Perhaps, this will allow the “reporter’s notebook” to evolve in the way that reporters gather information and provide raw material for their readers to give them insight on the information gathering process.

You can check in what Jack Layton is reading and sharing with Google Reader, you can get a glimpse into Stephen Harper and Elizabeth May’s interests or find out what sites Peter Mansbridge frequents as he goes through his day. For example, we know that the Prime Minister is an avid hockey fan. From his shared items page we can see that the Mr. Harper is watching how the Leafs new and young talent may shape their upcoming season. The Prime Minister shares an article the Toronto Star about the Leaf’s training camp. Stephane Dion maintains his message and shows us more of his personality by linking to a Fishing Magazine in his profile. Elizabeth May has shared a Nova Scotia article from the Chronicle Herald on her platform release.

Check out Google Power Readers Canada and let me know what you think. Sign up for Google Reader yourself and share some articles with other Canadians and participate in the social media conversation for this 2008 general election. If you’re also posting your ideas, maybe Jack Layton or Stephen Harper or Kady O’Malley will share your blog post or article. I should thank the party leader’s and the journalists for taking a chance on my pitch for this project. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to offer to Google users. This election is showing the full integration of new media within political campaigns. Google is reflecting this with Google Power Readers.