PARLIAMENT HILL—Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s constituency office was acting simply as a “mail box” where municipalities sent applications for money from the $50-million G8 legacy fund and had no part in deciding which towns and villages would get cash to beautify streets and upgrade infrastructure for the summit last year, an aide to Mr. Clement says.But, The Hill Times confirmed Thursday that two local mayors who took part in closed-door planning for the projects donated to Mr. Clement’s 2008 election campaign and his riding association. The controversy over the legacy fund is now tinged with new allegations involving the election in October that year.
Mr. Clement’s spokesperson denied that Mr. Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka) contravened any election period guidelines for ministers or MPs when he chaired a private committee of local mayors in September 2008—in the midst of the federal election campaign that year—to begin plans that would eventually lead to the selection of municipalities that would get G8 build-up money as the 2010 summit neared.
But The Hill Times found that one of the mayors who sat on the committee donated financially to Mr. Clement’s election campaign and another donated to Mr. Clement’s riding association earlier in the summer, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) announced on June 19 that the government had selected a resort near Huntsville, Ont., where Mr. Clement’s riding office is located, as the site Canada had selected to host the summit.
The developments prompted the NDP to ramp up allegations that Mr. Clement used the G8 not only as an opportunity to splash federal money around his riding in 2009 and 2010, but also to curry favour with local civic leaders and voters as the Oct. 14, 2008, election neared.
NDP MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.) pointed out Mr. Clement won his first election in Parry-Sound Muskoka in 2006 by barely more than 20 votes. Following Mr. Harper’s summit location announcement, after a stormy Parliamentary session in the spring when bitter confrontations between the minority government and the opposition brought legislative progress and committee work to a near standstill, signs appeared as early as mid-August that a fall election was likely, with Mr. Harper describing Parliament as “dysfunctional.”
Mr. Harper asked then Governor General Michaëlle Jean to cancel a planned trip abroad in late August and subsequently asked her to dissolve Parliament for an election call on Sept. 7.
On Sept. 12, Mr. Clement chaired the founding meeting of a private committee of nine local mayors and reeves that would eventually play a central role coordinating and organizing projects that their municipalities would put forward to Mr. Clement’s office for funding approvals from the G8 fund.
Mr. Angus said Mr. Clement should have cancelled the meeting, which Mr. Clement scheduled in June after Mr. Harper announced the summit, as soon as the election writs were issued.
“The guy won by 20-some votes in a riding that easily could have switched back to the Liberals,” Mr. Angus told The Hill Times. “The feather in his cap was the G8.”
He added that as an election candidate, and with his role as Health Minister his principal job in Cabinet at the time, Mr. Clement should not have taken part in any planning with local officials that would eventually involve government money begin doled out in his riding.
“It would give him an extraordinary advantage over his opponents, who were not aware of the meeting and also not in a position to make similar boasts,” Mr. Angus said. “Looking at it, it stinks at every level, but the question is did the Canadian taxpayer end up having to pony up for a $50-million IOU for Tony? There are really clear delineations for MPs and Cabinet ministers when they become candidates, otherwise you can simply buy elections. So why was he allowed to hold this meeting? Why did a bureaucrat participate with him, and then we see mayors coming out and doing endorsements for him. How did this happen?”
Documents that the NDP unearthed through provincial freedom of information requests for records from Parry Sound-Muskoka municipalities show that the committee of mayors Mr. Clement chaired on Sept. 12—called the 2010 G8 Summit Local Area Leadership Group—would eventually forward 242 applications for project funding to Mr. Clement’s Huntsville riding office.
Minutes of a meeting the committee held on Dec. 5, 2008, contain a paragraph titled “Review of Project Summary Submissions to Date.”
“It was noted that all submissions are to be sent to Minister Clement’s Huntsville constituency Office and would there be distributed electronically to all committee members,” the minutes say.
A former reeve with one of the municipalities that eventually received government funding for G8 beautification projects—which ranged through the towns and villages from flower boxes, to sidewalk improvements, new lights, in one case a gazebo and in another a new bandshell with public toilets—told The Hill Times his township’s clerk believed it was Mr. Clement’s committee that screened the applications and either recommended rejection or acceptance. The administrator of another township told The Hill Times his municipality sent its applications to Mr. Clement’s office, which later advised the township which three of the 15 to 20 projects it had submitted were accepted.
Heather Hume, Mr. Clement’s press secretary, denied Mr. Clement or his office decided which projects would be accepted.
“All decisions were made by the Minister of Infrastructure [at the time John Baird] and his officials,” Ms. Hume told The Hill Times in an email. “The constituency office took no part in the decision-making process and merely performed a transactional role. They were essentially a ‘mail box.’”
“It’s quite the mail box,” said Mr. Angus. “He wasn’t writing the cheques there, but he was the one being seen distributing it.”
Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty confirmed to The Hill Times that he made a $212 donation to Mr. Clement’s riding association on Aug. 8, 2008, but denied either project funding or the election were discussed at the Sept. 12 meeting.
“The first meeting of the LALG [Local Area Leadership Group] was introductory in nature and clearly no specific capital projects were even contemplated at that time as confirmed in the minutes,” he said in an email.
Mr. Doughty said the federal official Mr. Angus referred to, who headed the Summits Management Office that had been established, “spent most of the meeting giving us an introduction to the nature of the G8 and what impacts our communities could expect. In addition, the minutes make no reference to the upcoming federal election and I do not recall any discussion on that topic during the meeting.”
As for his political contribution to Mr. Clement’s riding association, Mr. Doughty said: “I have no comment on any personal expenditures that I have made. I exercise my democratic rights as I see fit.”
Jim Walden, mayor of the Township of Georgian Bay at the time, confirmed he donated $250 to Mr. Clement’s election campaign, but also said politics did not play a role in either the committee’s deliberations or, as far as he knew, distribution of the project funding.
“I don’t recall any association like that,” he said in an interview. “The contribution that I made, I recall when I made it. It was at an all candidates meeting in Parry Sound. Following that I heard the submission from all the candidates, I made that donation to Tony Clement. He seemed head and shoulders above all the rest.”
Ms. Hume defended Mr. Clement’s decision to go ahead with the committee meeting, despite the fact an election campaign was underway.
“The minister attended in his capacity as the minister for FedNor [a federal economic development agency for northern Ontario],” she said. “You will note that during a writ period ministers of the Crown retain their said duties and are required to continue to carry those duties out. It is important to note that this meeting was scheduled in June 2008, prior to the election being called. The infrastructure fund did not even exist at this time.”
Minutes for the meeting, however, indicate that a plan involving eventual applications for local G8 infrastructure and beautification projects was discussed.
“A template will be provided to the group so that as activities and projects are identified they can be forwarded to the group for discussion at the committee table and review by the Summit Management Office,” the minutes say.
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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