One big cheque from Daryl Katz, many bigger questions in Edmonton
By Colby Cosh - Sunday, November 11, 2012 - 0 Comments
The Oilers’ owner faces a probe over his gift to the Alberta Tories
Jeff McIntosh/CP
The public-relations problems continue to pile up for Daryl Katz, the drugstore magnate who wants a new downtown arena in Edmonton for his NHL Oilers to play in. It has been more than a year since Katz Group and the city’s council arrived at a “framework” for an arena funding deal, with Katz relenting on his insistence that the existing Rexall Place be pushed out of the concert business. That framework fell apart Oct. 18 after Katz made new demands and a previously sympathetic council ran out of patience, calling off negotiations and flinging the arena into limbo.
The city had made major concessions to get Katz to back off on the demand for a non-compete agreement with Northlands, the powerful non-profit that operates Rexall Place (i.e., the old Northlands Coliseum, which now bears the name of Katz’s main pharmaceutical brand). But the two sides remained $100 million short of the full amount for the new building—money that both insisted, despite an endless series of fairly strident refusals from the province and Ottawa, would eventually arrive courtesy of “another level of government.” Continue…
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Outstanding balance
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:32 AM - 2 Comments
Glen McGregor wonders if the Conservatives will refund the $187,298 they were reimbursed as a result of the In-and-Out scheme.
Elections Canada says none of the 17 have returned their reimbursements. Asked if it will take steps to recover the money, Elections Canada spokesperson Diane Benson said, “We would follow the normal administrative process for the recovery of any debt owed to the Crown.”
Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey responded in an email, ”The question of reimbursements will be dealt with in the ongoing civil proceedings.” By that, he means the case the Tories brought against Elections Canada, which will be heard in the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Conservatives agree to plea deal in “in-and-out” scandal
By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 3:42 PM - 8 Comments
The party and its fundraising wing agree to pay over $50,000 in fines
Charges against four senior members of the federal Conservatives, including two senators, were dropped on Thursday as part of a plea deal in the “in-and-out” election financing scandal. In exchange, the Conservative party and its fundraising arm have plead guilty to charges the party exceeded election spending limits and filed election records that didn’t include all of its expenses. The prosecutor and defence attorneys agreed the Conservative party and its fundraising arm would pay fines of $50,000 and $2,000, respectively, to settle the case. Senator Doug Finley, Senator Irving Gerstein, Michael Donison and Susan Kehoe had originally been charged under the Elections Act for their roles in a scheme to shift expenses between local campaigns and the national campaign during the 2006 election.
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The Big Mess of '08
By selley - Monday, December 1, 2008 at 1:23 PM - 13 Comments
MEGAPUNDIT WEEKEND ROUNDUP
Must-reads: Chantal Hébert, Jeffrey Simpson and John Ivison on the insanity.
Bravo, Mr. Harper
What Canada’s politicians did this weekend instead of thinking about the financial crisis.The Globe and Mail‘s Jeffrey Simpson believes the debacle over the government’s fiscal update finally reveals “the kind of Conservative Party that all but its core supporters suspected would eventually be outed: a group of ideologues, led by a Prime Minister who discarded his campaign sweater to reveal an economist with a tin heart and a politician who looks everywhere for political advantage.” The latter isn’t really ideological, is it? Mostly, this whole thing confirms to us that Stephen Harper sees Canadian governance primarily as a game more than it highlights any particular policy motivation. But either way, it is indeed “enormously revealing” that at a time of crisis, Harper “acted in this fashion. … And very sad.”
On the other hand, as the Toronto Star‘s Thomas Walkom notes, only one thing links cutting public funding for political parties, axing a pay equity program that doesn’t seem to be “either iniquitous or expensive” and suspending federal employees’ right to strike at a time when no strikes loom—i.e., the three most contentious measures in the fiscal update. The common factor is that the targets of the measures share a “place in the Conservative party pantheon of villains.” So perhaps it really is an ideology eruption. But whatever else it might mean, Walkom argues, it confirms that “the Conservatives are neither serious nor united about tackling the economy,” and it confirms Harper suffers from a very serious self-control deficit.
