Many of the 2006 Liberal leadership contenders still have not paid back their campaign debt that they spent losing to Stephane Dion, and now Justin Trudeau and Jane Taber are trying to help raise the money. Both Dryden and Kennedy still owe many thousands of dollars, and Trudeau is asking his fans to give money. Forget Haiti or the food bank, what Canadians really need to do to help make this a joyous holiday, don't help the needy, help wealthy failed leadership contenders pay off their debt. Bring Christmas to a community near you buy giving your hard earned money to Ken Dryden. Please? Pretty please?
Hopefully Iggy's 2008 leadership campaign debt is not an issue, which it shouldn't be because he was anointed rather than elected by the rank and file. Curious, if you are able to win the Liberal leadership, are you able to use money donated to the party to pay off campaign debt? I know that the Liberals are hurting for money in general, I'm just curious to know if Iggy has repaid all his debts. Raising money seems to be a big problem for the Liberals.
Sadly, this Christmas season the cash-rich Conservatives are doing much the same thing. See Senator Gerstein's letter of 10 December to the party faithful.
ReplyDeleteYeah Brian...that's EXACTLY the same...
ReplyDeleteLet's see - a party asking for donations vs shilling for those who ran for the leadership of a party to pay off their debts.
Yeah...the same....
Hey Brian....so much the same that it appears that these "leadership" candidates are being allowed to flaunt elections Canada's rules.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=bkg&document=ec90531&lang=e
"The loan must be repaid within 18 months after the end of a leadership contest (or later with the approval of the Chief Electoral Officer or a judge, or following a legal proceeding to recover payment) and must be repaid out of funds in the campaign account.
Where necessary, fundraising for additional contributions can continue to be done after the leadership contest to secure funds to repay any outstanding debt. Those contributions continue to be subject to the eligibility, caps and disclosure rules of the Canada Elections Act.
Where a campaign cannot repay a loan within the 18 months following the contest, it may apply to the Chief Electoral Officer for authorization to make late payments. This is a discretionary decision of the Chief Electoral Officer, and borrowers and lenders should not assume that such approval will be granted."
Funny, I haven't heard anything about elections Canada and these leadership candidates who continue to hold outstanding debt.
Yet they continually beat down the doors to the Conservative offices over every little supposed infraction only to find out later that....whoops....they were wrong.
Like I said, Brian....EXACTLY THE SAME!!!
They should be on the hook for the loans themselves.
ReplyDeleteWill the take cdn tire money, I have .15 I could send, but wont.
ReplyDeleteBrian does not appreciate the problem.
ReplyDeleteLoans were taken out in 2005-2006? A campaign in 2008 has already taken place. Did these loans give the leadership an unfair advantage during the General election campaign?
How many of those failed leadership candidates were saved by Elections Canada in giving out another extension?
It would have been fairer to apply the loans against the spending limits of the Liberals in the General Elections until debts are paid off.
Fundraising by political parties is different than personal loans.
"Brian doesn't appreciate the problem"? Well, I don't see that I so much as addressed the problem - after all, it wasn't part of the post. What I did was make the observation that both Liberals and Conservatives are asking for donations during the Christmas season. Simple, really... and to these eyes, wrong-headed.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? They're STILL unpaid? I thought this issue would have died long ago, I had no idea that these debts were STILL outstanding. Why hasn't the media pounced on this yet? If I'm correct, these are now legally considered "illegal donations", correct?
ReplyDeleteBrian,
ReplyDeleteYou still don't get it. A plea to help repay a personal loan is not equivalent asking for money for the party for "x".
Political parties regularly ask for donations.
Asking for donations to fight for keeping or scrapping the the long gun registry or keeping fines and mandatory long form census is an example.
We have Liberals using a raffle to win some "art" from Kennedy and a skate-date with Ken to help them settle their "personal" loans.
If Conservatives asked for donations for a MPs personal hospital bill it would be the same.
Clearly it is not the same. I can't speak to Iceman's motivation for his post.
Asking for donations is not "wrong", it may appear to be crass and bad form to ask for help for personal loans during the Christmas holidays. (That's what I picked up from Iceman)
Brian btw Merry Christmas.
CS, I do get it, believe me. I just think that it is not appropriate for politicians to be asking for donations at this time of year.
ReplyDeleteA Merry Christmas to you, too... and to Iceman and his readers. Cheers!
Christian Conservative don't be shocked that some of the liberals had not repaid their loans nor, will you ever hear a peep of this in the msm since they are forbitten to do so.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you write on your blog about the EC atititude towards the liberals and how much the liberals still own EC.
If the media are afraid to do the job, then you have to do it.
Merry Christmas Brian. I rarely agree with you, I think you are misguided, but I don't have a beef with you. You enjoy debating semantics, which I seldom have the time to do. It is what it is, but Merry Kwanzaa none the less.
ReplyDelete