NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.), chair of the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee where NDP and Liberal MPs are attempting to force a review into the government’s management of emails related to Wright-Duffy affair that temporarily disappeared, said the drop in Conservative donations is “the best and most graphic illustration that their base really, really hates this … stuff.”
“These are the very things the Conservatives promised their supporters they would fix, and now they’ve come to resemble the very things they most strongly condemned,” Mr. Martin said in an email.
The number of Conservative contributors dropped steadily as the Senate affair escalated in May when news that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) former chief of staff Nigel Wright gave P.E.I. Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to cover the repayment of ineligible expenses broke. In the first three months of 2013, the Conservative Party received donations from 38,610 contributors, according to quarterly returns filed with Elections Canada. In the second quarter, April to June, the contributors dropped to 30,437 and in the last quarter for which records are available, July to September, the party received contributions from 28,968 people.
It was the biggest successive decline in contributors to the Conservative Party since 2007. For the first time since the Conservative Party was founded in 2003, the Liberal Party had more financial contributors than the Conservatives did from the beginning of April through to the end of September this year. In that period, the Liberals had a total of 68,122 contributors while the Conservatives had 59,405.
The NDP trails the other two main national parties in numbers of donors as well as the amount of contributions, despite its vault into Official Opposition under former leader Jack Layton in 2011.
Although the number of contributors to the federal Conservatives began dropping last April, the party still raised more money through the first nine months of 2013 than it did during the same period in 2012, and still outfundraises all of the other parties.
The Conservatives raised $12.7-million from January through to the end of September. In the first nine months of 2013 compared to $12.2-million during the same period in 2012, more than the opposition parties combined.
During the six-month period when the number of its contributors dropped, the Conservative Party raised $8.3-million, compared to $5.1-million raised by the Liberal Party during the same period and $2.9 million raised by the NDP.
All three parties are now pressing supporters for year-end donations to drive up 2013 contributions, with the Liberal Party this week featuring former prime minister Jean Chrétien and former finance minister Paul Martin in its email blitzes.
Liberal and NDP MPs argued the decline in the number of Conservative contributors is a direct result of the furor over Mr. Wright’s payment to Sen. Duffy, who are now being investigated by the RCMP for breach of trust and bribery.
Liberal MP Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Sask.) said the scandal has severely damaged the Conservative Party as well as Mr. Harper.
“With respect to Conservative financial results over the past two quarters, they have taken an unprecedented tumble in terms of both donors and dollars,” Mr. Goodale (Wascana, Sask.) told The Hill Times.
“This decline corresponds exactly with the deepening ethics scandal that has engulfed the Prime Minister and his government,” Mr. Goodale said in a written response to questions. “His Reform Party ‘base’ is obviously not amused.’”
Mr. Goodale said Mr. Harper’s Conservative Party base is likely alienated by a range of elements to the expense affair, including an erosion of Mr. Harper’s claims to moral superiority, a string of revelations that put into question several of Mr. Harper’s earlier statements, and the more recent revelation that Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein, the chair of the Conservative Fund Canada, approved a $13,000 payment from the party for Sen. Duffy’s legal costs.
Sen. Gerstein also came under fire after Cpl. Horton’s affidavit revealed that, at the instructions of Mr. Wright, Sen. Gerstein at one point attempted to use a party connection to the accounting firm Deloitte to obtain secret information from Deloitte auditors as they were conducting a forensic examination of the Senate expenses.
“It's no wonder cheque books are slamming shut, especially if the appeal comes from Senator Gerstein himself,” Mr. Martin said.
“The stench of scandal around his office erodes Mr. Harper’s repeated claims of moral superiority, and it doesn’t help that his only response is to deny, deflect and obfuscate in a way that further damages his credibility,” Mr. Goodale said.
Conservative pundit Tim Powers, chair of Summa Strategies, told The Hill Times in the summer that the fundraising numbers are nothing to be worried about. “The Liberals have had a good spring. They elected a new leader and he has had an extended honeymoon. If they can't raise more money in those sorts of times they never will,” he told said.
When asked on Thursday whether the Senate scandals distracted from the government’s agenda, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) told reporters: “Whatever distractions may be out there I think there’s a deep recognition that the priority for this government has been the economy, continues to be the economy and while the media may be distracted by sensational events elsewhere we have stayed on track. We’re on track to get the budget balanced on schedule in 2105. We continue to post the strongest economic growth and job creation growth among the major developed economies,” he said. “I think Canadians recognize that is what is happening here in Ottawa regardless of what may be on the entertainment television.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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