Angry in the Great White North

In my last post, I wrote about the fundraising tactic espoused by incoming Liberal Party president Alfred Apps in an email to high-powered Liberal donors:

Each donor/purchaser can donate up to $2,200, paying up to $1,100 by cheque or credit card to the Liberal Party of Canada and $1,100 to the "Liberal Party of Canada (Michael Ignatieff)".  The Ignatieff Campaign account is in surplus and any surplus automatically reverts to LPC under the Elections Act. 

The emphasis was in the original email, not added by me.  The message is clear.  There is a moribund leadership campaign in which Michael Ignatieff is the only candidate.  There won't even be a vote at the convention, just an acclamation.

In effect, there is no campaign.  But the legal fiction of a campaign allows people to donate to the leadership fund.  Money will be parked there until the campaign is finished, and then the surplus will be moved to the Liberal Party.

Michael Igntatieff was asked about this fundraising technique in an interview with CFRB's Brian Lilley:

MI: I can, I can assure you categorically that the Liberal Party under...I can assure you that the Liberal Party under my leadership will be fully compliant with both the letter and the spirit of all election law and that, uh, uh, every Canadian who wants to will know where every single dime raised by this party...

BL: Do you still need to be raising money for a leadership you've already won?

MI: We're out of time.  We're out of time.  I've given you my answer.  We will be fully compliant and full transparent about everything we do.

<interview ends>

The entire scheme seems cynical, and Michael Ignatieff's answer evasive at best.  The Liberals are starting to feel the heat, and are working to change people's impressions:

Michael Ignatieff's office is distancing itself from an e-mail sent out by a Liberal insider that, critics say, suggested supporters could double their donations to the party by contributing to Ignatieff's leadership campaign at a fundraising dinner next week.

An e-mail from Toronto lawyer Alf Apps said donations to the party of up to $1,100, the legal limit, could be supplemented with $1,100 in contributions to Ignatieff's leadership fund. That would put Ignatieff's campaign in a surplus, meaning the campaign would have to funnel the money to the party.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said it looks as if the party was trying to exploit a loophole in the Elections Act to allow wealthier donors a chance to give more.

"The purpose of the law is to prevent donations over $1,100 to any political party, not to allow powerful insiders to flow an extra donation through a leadership campaign into the party," he said. "That's what they're doing."

But Apps said Tuesday he was merely informing potential donors what might happen to the money, in the interest of transparency, and never meant to suggest a way to double donations to the party.

"That's a complete misreading of it," he said. "I just felt we had a duty to make it clear to people -- who don't all know how to read the Elections Act -- that if, at the end of the day, there is a surplus, it doesn't go into Michael's hands."

If at the end of the day there is a surplus?

Seriously, look at the email again:

The Ignatieff Campaign account is in surplus and any surplus automatically reverts to LPC under the Elections Act. 

And then this line: "meant to suggest a way to double donations to the party".  But if he didn't mean to suggest double donations, why did he write that people ought to donate double the legal amount?

Each donor/purchaser can donate up to $2,200...

The campaign fund is already in surplus, and yet Alfred Apps is encouraging people to donate the maximum allowed by law to a campaign that is fighting no battles.  In his email, he combines the two donations into one amount of $2,200.

Alfred Apps makes no statement in his email that the current surplus in the leadership fund is temporary, and that there are more costs on the horizon, and what those costs will be.  He makes mention of a surplus, and the desire to have people donate to the maximum to a fund in surplus for a total the combined is twice the legal limit, and that the surplus will go to the Liberal Party.  That's it.

Just what are people supposed to think?

Meanwhile, Michael Ignatieff's office is stating that there will be no surplus:

Ignatieff's office said Apps's comment in the e-mail was mistaken because the leadership campaign will not end up with any sizable surplus.

"Alf's e-mail was incorrect in its characterization," said Sachin Aggarwal, deputy campaign director of Ignatieff's leadership bid and his deputy chief of staff.

"Our objective is to break even. If there's a surplus, it will be minute, in the thousands, not the tens of thousands (of dollars)."

Even if there is a surplus?

But there is already a surplus!  Alfred Apps said so. 

On the other hand, Michael Ignatieff's people say that Alfred Apps is mistaken.  Quite the slap for Alfred Apps.  Mischaracterizing the state of Michael Ignatieff's leadership campaign fund to all those important Liberal donors.  And publicly saying that Apps is mistaken.  Ouch.

So are there going to be more costs?

Although Ignatieff will be acclaimed at the party convention in Vancouver in May, his campaign still needs to pay a $90,000 candidacy fee and will incur costs getting delegates to the convention and producing a video to accompany his acceptance speech.

Did I misread this?  Maybe there won't be a surplus after all.  Maybe I was being paranoid to think that this was a fundraising gimmick.

Perhaps, but then I contacted everyone on Alfred Apps original distribution to ask them what they thought about this request to donate the maximum to a campaign fund that seems to have more money than it needs, and I got some interesting responses.  Here is an excerpt from one of the more polite responses:

In the last election one of the reasons we lost my (held) riding was a lack of funds. We ran a pretty good campaign but didn't have the money to run a great one. The Conservative could put up 2 signs for every sign we put up.

Fundraising is essential if we are to take back Canada and keep it the country we all love.

The limits on personal contributions are (to my mind) waaaaaay too low. Here, with the leadership campaign, we are in a position ethically, legally and properly to supplement the funds. We must take that opportunity.

It's a good idea and I support it 110%.

Finally, and on a related point, buy a ticket to the Leaders Dinner -- and sell some tickets too.

This Liberal read Alfred Apps' email and got the same message I did.  The goal of donating to Michael Ignatieff's campaign fund is "to supplement the funds" for the Liberal Party.  Period.  Not to help Michael Ignatieff win a leadership campaign that has been over for months.  This is a scheme for getting around personal contribution limits that friends of the Liberal Party think are "waaaaaay too low".

He wasn't the only person who understood this to be the gist of the Alfred Apps email.

Alfred Apps can fix what Michael Ignatieff's people are calling a mistake.  He can send another email to the same people, emphasizing that his goal is not to use the campaign fund as a means of doubling up donations to the Liberal Party.  To that end, Alfred Apps could announce, Michael Ignatieff's campaign fund will not be taking any further donations until after the convention, when it is determined whether there is indeed a deficit.  If so, funds will be solicited to cover that shortfall, and no more.

A plan like that ought to satisfy Michael Ignatieff's people, since they don't expect that there would be a surplus anyway.

Otherwise it would seem that a lot of Canadians, both Liberal supporters and others, are labouring under the mistaken impressoin that Alfred Apps is purposely using a ghost campaign fund to build up a huge surplus that would then go to the Liberal Party. 

Will he stop it?  More questions will be asked...

Check out other stories from the Liberal Leadership Fund Donations archive.