Harper says law on his side, experts & old Tories say no
Canadiansis @ Fri Jun 30, 2006 8:04 pm
$1:
Harper insists law in on party's side, experts and old Tories differ
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Fri, 2006-06-30 18:44
National News
By: JOAN BRYDEN AND JENNIFER DITCHBURN
OTTAWA (CP) - While Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party continued to insist they're on the right side of financing laws, former party officials and experts said they have a completely different understanding of the rules.
Harper told reporters Friday that his party followed financing rules when it didn't publicly disclose fees paid to attend a March 2005 convention - an amount that could represent as much as $1.7 million.
snip
"All the laws have been obeyed and the Liberals will have to obey them as well - that's the tough part," Harper said as he left an event to promote the lowering of the GST.
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"If there is a portion that is a contribution, in other words that exceeds the cost of the event, that portion constitutes a political contribution for which a receipt should be issued," he told The Canadian Press earlier this week.
"That's longstanding practice that everyone follows, including the Conservative party.
snip
Mike Donison, the Conservative party's executive director, claimed in a letter to the Canada Revenue Agency that Liberal convention goers receive "significant personal benefits - for meals, drink, entertainment and the like . . . ."
"We would therefore ask you to investigate the legitimacy of tax receipting practices by the Liberal Party of Canada."
Yet former officials from both the Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance, the parties that created the Conservative party, said the common practice they followed was to disclose convention fees paid by their members as political donations.
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Doing what everyone else does - or common practice - is an important part of the party financing system, points out Leslie Seidle, a former executive at Elections Canada.
He said there's an elaborate set of common practices and legal opinions the parties agree to over the decades.
Seidle, who is now with the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said the Conservative argument that they didn't need to disclose the fees because the convention didn't make a profit doesn't hold water.
Home
Fri, 2006-06-30 18:44
National News
By: JOAN BRYDEN AND JENNIFER DITCHBURN
OTTAWA (CP) - While Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party continued to insist they're on the right side of financing laws, former party officials and experts said they have a completely different understanding of the rules.
Harper told reporters Friday that his party followed financing rules when it didn't publicly disclose fees paid to attend a March 2005 convention - an amount that could represent as much as $1.7 million.
snip
"All the laws have been obeyed and the Liberals will have to obey them as well - that's the tough part," Harper said as he left an event to promote the lowering of the GST.
snip
"If there is a portion that is a contribution, in other words that exceeds the cost of the event, that portion constitutes a political contribution for which a receipt should be issued," he told The Canadian Press earlier this week.
"That's longstanding practice that everyone follows, including the Conservative party.
snip
Mike Donison, the Conservative party's executive director, claimed in a letter to the Canada Revenue Agency that Liberal convention goers receive "significant personal benefits - for meals, drink, entertainment and the like . . . ."
"We would therefore ask you to investigate the legitimacy of tax receipting practices by the Liberal Party of Canada."
Yet former officials from both the Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance, the parties that created the Conservative party, said the common practice they followed was to disclose convention fees paid by their members as political donations.
snip
Doing what everyone else does - or common practice - is an important part of the party financing system, points out Leslie Seidle, a former executive at Elections Canada.
He said there's an elaborate set of common practices and legal opinions the parties agree to over the decades.
Seidle, who is now with the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said the Conservative argument that they didn't need to disclose the fees because the convention didn't make a profit doesn't hold water.
http://www.cjad.com/node/376243
It's too bad they messed up.
It's awful that they're denying it.
It's worse that they're trying to smear the Liberals over it. What the h@ll do the liberals have to do with the CPC convention? God, it makes them look like babies pointing a finger at the Libs.
And now everyone is saying Harpers excuse is BS. What a mess. They should have just taken a fast lump and moved on, now they've turned it into a circus.
Arctic_Menace @ Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:12 pm
Is it just me, or is Harper living in his own world?
Tman1 @ Fri Jun 30, 2006 10:35 pm
Probably but no more than any other Liberal leader.
djakeydd @ Sat Jul 01, 2006 4:03 pm
Of course the law is on Harpers side, he has taken every page he has from bushs playbook and bush makes up the law as he goes along! It is all so transparent - enough to make a person puke.
Scape @ Sat Jul 01, 2006 4:15 pm
Tman1 Tman1:
Probably but no more than any other Liberal leader.
My take on it as well. Must admit that thus far Harper has been running a good show but that may just because it is a minority he has and has to behave. Give him full reign and he will be the same as the rest no doubt. His mark Canada will be the shift from centralized federalism for education and health and downloading it fully on the provinces so they can P3.
PluggyRug @ Sat Jul 01, 2006 4:27 pm
Which experts?
Canadiansis @ Sun Jul 02, 2006 1:05 am
PluggyRug PluggyRug:
Which experts?
Read the article.