Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Voters unfazed by illegal contributions

Alberta political scandals usually explode in public with a pop rather than a bang. Not a single one has caused the PCs more than passing discomfort for more than 40 years.

The latest, over illegal donations to the governing party, is genuinely serious in principle, but may turn out to be no more damaging. A new poll by Leger Marketing shows that 62 per cent of Albertans aren't even aware of the revelations, even though Wild rose now produces new ones almost daily.

Thirty-seven per cent of people who know about the issue say they don't care; they'll still vote PC.

Among people who've already turned against the government, though, 32 per cent said this strengthens their resolve.

Wildrose had ridden this issue tenaciously, producing a string of revelations about public bodies donating to the PCs, although that has been illegal since 2004.

On Monday, Wildrose came up with two clear new cases; line items in PC party disclosures that show Calgary Lab Services gave $850 to the party in both 2010 and 2011. The testing outfit where we give blood (more than once, it turns out) is wholly owned by Alberta Health Services. That surely bans it from donating under the law. Yet Calgary Lab twice handed funds to the party whose government runs AHS.

We've now seen similar behaviour from municipal councils, the University of Lethbridge, and the Medicine Hat Catholic school board. The U of L case was striking because it involved $15,000, almost enough public money to pay a year's tuition for three students. The university stopped in 2005, after learning that the practice had become illegal.

The Medicine Hat board, admitting its "ignorance of the law," has now stopped coughing up for premier's dinners after doing it for the past seven years.

What's remarkable is that all these bodies, in their quest for government favour and money, believed such donations were fine before the law changed.

They were not. There's no clearer misuse of government funding than simply handing it back to the government party.

Elections Alberta is investigating. So far, this looks like a bad joke. The mystery is why this sleepy outfit didn't catch such obvious violations before.

Every year, it receives financial information from registered parties. It would be simple - almost mandatory, you'd think - to have staff people comb those do-nor lists for signs of trouble.

And why did the PC party take the money, when the government it keeps electing banned the practice nearly a decade ago?

Venality surely can't be the reason; the party has no trouble collecting millions above the table. The more likely reason is that these donations just seem like business as usual in the big Tory family, where the connections stretch from the very top to every Alberta map dot with a council, school or clinic.

Leger Marketing pollster Ian Large figures this issue hasn't sparked much out-rage because the amounts of money are relatively small.

Also, no individual is making off with the loot. The huge MLA pay raises of 2008 were far more explosive, even though they were also far more legal.

At least the illegal contributions have become an embarrassment, if not a full-blown scandal. Alberta's public and party officials, if they're actually conscious, might even catch up with Alberta law.

Original Article
Source: calgary herald 
Author: Don Braid 

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