I was wondering how this post might be updated in light of Elizabeth’s “landslide” – who writes this stuff? – in her SGI nomination meeting?

Like many unpolled Canadians I haven’t been all that interested in the parties’ politics lately when the only issue seemed to be who might trigger an election and when.

“I have experienced a change of heart about how critical it is that I personally get into Parliament. I felt before the election that Greens, being a grassroots party, we had strong campaigns across the country. And my campaign did not receive any particular priority over others. It will surprise people to hear that, but I’ve now put it to the party that I want to know if electing me is a top priority.”

Certiainly will surprise people- in her own party no less.

Which leads to todays story by the same reporter:

Some Greens see red

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1110681.html

EXCERPT:

“Her statement that her campaign was not unduly favoured is an insult to many hard-working campaigns across the country that did not get any resources,” the Ottawa software engineer said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Ms. May said Mr. Taylor and Mr. Ogilvie are longtime critics and their facts are wrong. The party didn’t give her campaign $80,000, she said.

“That’s false,” she said. “You can check the Elections Canada website.”

The site does show $80,000 in transfers from the central party but Ms. May said that’s deceptive, as $40,000 was “repayment from London North Centre,” where she ran in a byelection in 2006, and the other $40,000 was a loan that will be paid back.

———-

For my comments on Mays convoluted attempt to explain away the $80,000 transfered into her campaign:

http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/elizabeth-may-campaign-files-expenses-central-nova-interesting

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1110369.html

Mark Taylor picked it up before I did, and makes some good comments:

http://reportongreens.blogspot.com/2009/03/countering-spin.html

Also on his blog, comments on whether she will run in a by-election in Dawn Blacks riding… including my comments on how entrenched May is in Central Nova, no matter what she says otherwise:

http://reportongreens.blogspot.com/2009/03/go-west-ms-may.html

At a minimum, this shows a lot of resistance to Central Nova residents warming to Elizabeth May. And despite being all over the media, she has had NO spillover effect in the rest of Nova Scotia… which is an indication of what a hard row she has chosen for all Greens to be plowing.

Not only was this predictable, it was predicted. I didn’t join the chorus of Dippers saying May is going to finish behind Louise Lorifice. And I said then that IF they had a very good ground campaign, she could do pretty well, but she’d still end up far behind MacKay. Which is exactly what happened. As well as saying then that because NS is such difficult ground for the Greens, May is not going to have any spillover effect on surrounding ridings, when she could have expected to have a substantial amount of that had she run in Ontario or BC.

May saying she will still run in Central Nova is a statement that the Green Party will be doing whatever it takes to win the seat.

Lord Farquar in Shrek, turning solemn:

“Some of you will die in this quest…

[hand moves to heart. voice turning yet more solemn]…

…but I am prepared for you to make this sacrifice.”

And before the election the Elizabeth May brain trust already had in place for after the election the cash for “keep spending whatever it takes.”

Growing the Central Nova vote share further is going to cost even more than that $12.70 per voter. The May machine has a very long way to go, with no assurance whatsoever they will get there. And that is stating it the positive way: comparable to me trying to help Louise Lorifice win, despite the odds. The outside observer view is that no matter how much is thrown into it, the Elizabeth May Central Nova windmill tilt is doomed.

At the rate of what the Green Party is putting into Central Nova now, they will have put another $180,000 into it by next Fall. And barring an unexpected catastrophe befalling the government, that is the soonest the Liberals might bring down the government.

So that is $180,000 plus $80,000 for another election…. $260,000 on top of the approximately $160,000 spent by October 2008 [with a further $15,000 per month if we are still waiting for an election in October].

Substantially over $400,00 if we have an election in the Fall, headed for half a million and beyond if the election is later, that the Green Party will have invested in Elizabeth May’s choice of where she runs to get a seat.

Hell of a way to grow a party.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090305.WBSteele20090305120412/WBStory/WBSteele#comment

http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/elizabeth-may-campaign-files-expenses-central-nova-interesting

“Not just to throw her weight in the national party, but increasingly to not need it. For example, to render irrelevant whether the national party likes that even without an election, $15,000 or more per month is poured into a riding where she will never win.”

The 2008 filing of the Central Nova EDA will be interesting material. Not sure what the deadline is [and if a Council meeting is coming up shortly after, I predict the filing will be late].

Of obvious interest will be the total spent. Which will not tell you anything by itself. Because what the national party is paying has to be added, information you are dependent on asking for and for which I don’t think there is much chance to inferr from public filings.

You will be able to see all transfers from the federal party- and distinguish which of them are ‘flow through’ individual contributions made to the EDA through the party. [Since Central Nova has their own fundraising machine, and do their own national fundraising directly, the proportion of those flow through transfers will be FAR smaller than for any other EDA.]

And you’ll be able to see that big transfer from the May campaign to the EDA. The still intact $80,0000 plus the surplus generated by the campaign [looks to be about $8,000]. That is, unless talk about the $80,000 makes the brain trust decide its better to transfer it back to the party. Possible, but my hunch would be not, since that would not stop the talk anyway…. and they still need the $80K to feed that hungry machine.

You will also be able to compare names of contributors to the EDA with the party’s contributor lists. Easily done. I was looking for something different when I took a quick look at the lists for the May campaign and the party [which are in quarterly filings]… and I still noticed a lot of matches.

My hunch is you will see even more matches with the national party contributor list when comparing from the 2008 EDA contributor list.

A few such matches will occur randomly. But a high proportion of matching does not occur randomly- especially when the EDA is doing so much of its fundraising nationally.

It would be a very simple matter for Central Nova and the May campaign to hit the national party’s contributors. “Would you like to also donate to Elizabeth’s campaign in Central Nova?” If the EDA filings show each individual contribution the way the national party quarterly filings do, you’d even be able to see how many monthly PACs Central Nova has coming from across Canada.

It isn’t that time consuming to look. The Elections Canada website is VERY counter-intuitive and “unique”, so if you are not already familiar with it send me an email and I’ll guide you through it.

kenpat@ns.sympatico.ca

The brain trust preference would be that the riding get the rebate. But not reporting the salaries as a riding expense would give greater advantages in the longer term goal of obscuring how much this never ending Central Nova campaign costs.

First of all, the only thing I am quite sure of is that based on the evidence the only thing that makes sense is that there is a pattern of deliberate non-transparency and obfuscation in the financial reporting.

What the reason/motive is for any particular element in the reporting ‘regime’, I’m less sure of.

When it comes to not reporting any staff salaries for nearly two years of the Cental Nova and May campaigns, I know that is very anomalous, that it risks Elections Canada scrutiny that has significant consequences even if it does not result in penalties, and that these risks were known to the ‘hand’ behind the reporting.

As to why they would take that known risk, this is what makes sense and is consistent with everything else. The brain trust knew at least a year back that this permanent campaigning business is very expensive, and expensive enough that they did not want to have the full amounts see the light of day.

They also know that the needs of the May campaign during the election period are not controversial. So the idea is to use the campaign period to park as much money as possible in Central Nova, to be able to draw on it AFTER the election.

First and most obvious step: taking the I’m sure completely unprecedented step of NOT transferring the accumulated surplus of the Central Nova EDA to the May campaign. Who knows how much that is, and it is in no small part the product of ongoing transfers from the party to the Central Nova EDA [which one can see in the 2008 quarterly party filings with EC], plus the major expense of salaries paid for by the party [which among other things made possible all that successful fundraising by the Central Nova EDA].

Anyway, so they don’t touch the EDA surplus that anywhere else is accumulated for the election campaign. And they don’t stop there. They transfer $80,000 to the May campaign. Looks perfectly normal- supported by all. Except the May campaign didn’t need ANY of it.

Now, the normal thing when parties are going to cover some or all of the salaries of a riding campaign, in part because those salaries are required to be declared as riding campaign expense anyway… the straightforward thing is that the riding campaign pays the salaries, and the party transfers in the funds to pay them [and usually at or after the end of the campaign works fine for the cash flow].

But doing the staraightforward thing would eat up some of that $80,000 transfer that they want parked until AFTER the election to use in the never ending and hungry Central Nova May campaign. So they leave the $80K intact, and the party quietly pays the salaries. Since even counting the unreported salaries they are presumably within the spending limit, penalties and humiliation for the deliberate non-compliance are not going to happen… so they take the risk of the lesser consequences [wrist slap, some publicity, EC staff monitoring them far more closely in the future and giving them no slack].