The Conservative party’s top officials are furious about the newcomer to the pre-election campaign, said Kory Teneycke, a former executive with Sun News and past aide to Harper, who is handling much of the party’s advertising and campaign messaging. He said they are looking at possible “legal remedies” to ensure there is no confusion between the two.
In an interview, Teneycke said HarperPAC — a “political action committee” and advertising vehicle created by a group of former federal and provincial Conservative aides — is far from helpful. It’s politically damaging, in part because it may be seen as raising “very questionable donations” and as a way of attempting to skirt the Elections Act, Teneycke said.
“We have no connection with that at all,” he said. “It’s not something we’re pleased about.”
Asked why Harper would not be pleased, given he once championed unlimited third-party spending during elections, to the point of unsuccessfully challenging the elections law up to the Supreme Court of Canada, Teneycke said Harper has moved to tighten up political financing laws in government, to eliminate corporate and union donations.
If the Conservative party were co-ordinating with the HarperPAC group on political advertising, such an effort could be seen as “against the law which we wrote.”
The problem as Teneycke sees it is that the HarperPAC effort looks like “basically someone pretending to be the Conservative Party of Canada.” It is named and marketed in such a way that it’s “what we think is false advertising and deliberately confusing to people.”
“We’re not looking to confuse people or unnecessarily court a controversy,” he added.
Stephen Taylor, a founding member HarperPAC that launched online three days ago, said he was unaware of the Conservative party’s concerns or issues over the group’s name or efforts. He said it chose the name without the permission from the prime minister or the Conservative Party and deliberately did not co-ordinate its launch or its message with either Harper’s office or the Conservative Party of Canada because he believes “it’s not allowed.”
“I took zero steps because there is no co-ordination either with Stephen Harper’s office or the Conservative party’s office.”
Taylor said the group is a non-profit organization that federally incorporated just last week. He called back later to clarify that its proper name is ConservativePAC Foundation, and it chose HarperPAC as the name for its first project, to create a “buzz” around the online ad campaign launch.
The acronym PAC — which refers to “political action committee” — a mainstay of American political culture, was also to get people’s attention.
“It’s just a matter of branding,” he said.
HarperPAC bills itself as “a group of concerned Canadians looking to fight back against the flood of big union money that has been earmarked to take down the Harper government.” It appeals to supporters to “Join us and help fight back” and offers an online donation button.
Taylor said HarperPAC needs to catch up to other left-wing groups, which he said have raised “millions” to spend on their political messages in advance of the election.
HarperPAC lists as its advisory council many prominent Conservative supporters at the federal and provincial level. But Taylor said their goal is to advocate for “small-c conservative” policies, not big-C Conservative issues. “Our campaign has nothing to do with their campaign,” said Taylor.
Teneycke said it is the right of third-party groups to participate in public debate but “we have an issue with the HarperPAC because I think it’s confusing for people, they’ll think it’s us. I think people might donate to it thinking it’s us, might be confused that somehow we’ve endorsed the message they’re sending and we haven’t.”
Political action committees are groups established and administered in the U.S. by corporations, labour unions, membership organizations or trade associations. They can solicit contributions and run political ads. There are rules in the U.S. governing their operation, but third-party groups are not a fixture of the political culture in Canada in the same way.
Yet three have cropped up on the federal scene in advance of the October election.
HarperPAC is the latest entry after former New Democrat and Liberal staffers created a similar vehicle called Engage Canada to push a left-of-centre message against the Harper government.
Another pro-Harper effort has been undertaken by a business-backed group calling itself Working Canadians.
A provincial union-backed group, the Working Families coalition, was an influential player in the Ontario election campaign last year.
The HarperPAC advisory council includes Taylor, a former director of the National Citizens Coalition – the organization Harper led when he challenged the Election Act’s limits on third-party spending during election campaigns. It includes Kas Nejatian and Jamie Ellerton, former aides to Jason Kenney, Michele Austin, former top aide to Rona Ambrose and Maxime Bernier, Chris Froggatt, former top aide to John Baird, and Alberta conservatives from both the PC and Wildrose camps, including former justice minister Jonathan Denis.
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Tonda MacCharles
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