Billionaire Oilers owner Katz gave $430,000 to Alberta PCs

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Muta

Not that you actually care, but at the moment, I don't support either the WRA or the PC's. Or anyone at the moment, for that matter. I have no political leanings at the moment - I'm deciding my options. If you're so butt hurt about my political preferences, I'll for sure let you know what I decide shortly before the next election.

I just want to know what your political agenda is, especially considering that you seem so concerned about everyone else's.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Muta

Yes sir. If she admits it eventually, that's good enough for me, I won't judge whatsoever. There's nothing wrong with admitting you have an agenda.

I've always just wanted to hear it from the horses mouth directly. The whole 'who, me?' schitck she uses to when creating threads with these types of topics is getting comical. Also, not sure why she can't just create an 'All-Encompassing Wildrose Alliance Thread' or 'All-Encompassing Anti-PC Thread' and then post topics like these in there... you know, just to have one thread for all of them.

I'm still perplexed with your problem with FL. Everyone knows she works for the Wildrose and doesn't hide anything. So therefore when she starts a thread about something newsworthy that the PC's did, everyone knows where it's coming from. In my mind that's better than other random collections of posters with 'agendas' not revealing that fact and posting threads in precisely the same manor (Which happens pretty much in every political thread on CP).

I sense that maybe you're disappointed that she restrains herself a little and doesn't go off the deep end and get all partisan inflammitory in her posts like her blogging husband. This entirely makes sense since she works for a political party and as such treads carefully with inflammatory remarks. There's nothing wrong with this.

Personally I appreciate the political discussion and don't mind talking about the issues raised head on without arguing the legitimacy of the OP who brought up the thread. It's not like she invented a story or dug up something and used CP to plant it. It was front page news in newspapers in Calgary and Edmonton. If it wasn't her who started a thread about this it would have been another CPer (Especially since the Oilers owner is involved). It doesn't need to get dismissed as partisan hackery when it actually is legitimate news.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

I haven't got a clue, honestly. I am not for a second suggesting that there is any impropriety here by the Wildrose. I just think that parties receiving donations from one person/family of this magnitude show everything is wrong with the electoral finance laws in the province today though.

Absolutely, if the WR are guilty of the same sort of thing then they should answer for it. As soon as we have any evidence of that I'm with you.

Originally Posted by Slava

For the most part these are organizations that are volunteer dominated and not as well planned as might be believed by the general public. Most campaigns on the local level are literally a group of say 6-12 really dedicated people banging the whole thing out; yes there are people knocking on doors, delivering flyers, making phone calls, etc. but the heart of these campaigns is really small and not glorious.

So when you see that a party ended up with a donation they ought not to have and think "don't the PCs know better?" The answer is yes....the party probably does. The guy on the front-line taking that cheque though might honestly not. Its not underhanded and its not strategically malicious at all, but just a simple case of them not knowing any better.

Come on now Slava. "If" Katz wrote a single cheque for $430,000 I doubt that he walked into a local campaign office, stood in line and gave it to the flunky working behind a folding table. It most certainly would have went to someone a little higher up in the party and they would certainly know that $430,000 is vastly more than the $30,000 limit for an individual or even $60,000 split between a married couple. Also I read in a paper yesterday that Redford was personally phoning donors at the $30,000 level, hard for her to play stupid now.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I just want to know what your political agenda is, especially considering that you seem so concerned about everyone else's.

I don't care about yours. Does that count?

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by Muta

I don't care about yours. Does that count?

I don't believe you. I think you won't be satisfied until you know what everyone's agenda is and for them to come out a admit it in black and white.... even if its as plain as the nose on your face.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I don't believe you. I think you won't be satisfied until you know what everyone's agenda is and for them to come out a admit it in black and white.... even if its as plain as the nose on your face.

Okay, keep believing that if it makes you feel better.

[Canada 02]

Originally Posted by Slava

Right this $422k is completely different from that $430k because....well why exactly? If people think that Katz giving that money and putting there through his family then we have to at least acknowledge that this might be a concern.

The Edm Journal link is just a list of numbers; without some context there is no way to know if there are any issues with the $422K, or any of the donations listed. It may be $422K over the last several years; I would speculate this is the most likely situation

Regarding the $430K, based on the facts currently on hand, that is an imaginary number. Hopefully, a CEO investigation will reveal the truth, one way or another

[GP_Matt]

Does anyone else feel like this thread is devolving to a similar vein as Donald Trump's ridiculous call out of President Obama?
If you would just do this to my satisfaction, I will be happy. Now that you have done that I also need you to do this and then I will be happy.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

"If" Katz wrote a single cheque for $430,000 I doubt that he walked into a local campaign office, stood in line and gave it to the flunky working behind a folding table. It most certainly would have went to someone a little higher up in the party and they would certainly know that $430,000 is vastly more than the $30,000 limit for an individual or even $60,000 split between a married couple. Also I read in a paper yesterday that Redford was personally phoning donors at the $30,000 level, hard for her to play stupid now.

Was this a single cheque for $430k?

That's the bottom line really.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I don't believe you. I think you won't be satisfied until you know what everyone's agenda is and for them to come out a admit it in black and white.... even if its as plain as the nose on your face.

There's no mystery to FL agenda, so I'm not sure why you keep going on about a desire to have everyone declare their allegiances. I think Muta's issue is much like mine, the whole "who me? No, I didn't say that at all, the real story is this little thing over here not the massive headline and thread title" game gets to be obnoxious.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

Was this a single cheque for $430k?

That's the bottom line really.

That "appears" to be the case. If Katz gave all of those people $30K and then they turned around and donated to the PC's they wouldn't technically be violating the law even though people would roll their eyes at it. In this case the allegation is that Katz wrote a cheque for all of it and then specified who would get the receipt for each portion, that clearly goes against the act. And of course the PC's are trying to play innocent like they didn't know.

[East Coast Flame]

Agenda

[Kjesse]

I'm not sure why this is devolving into a debate about who has which agenda. The troubling aspect of this is that Katz, whom doesn't seem to have been politically involved before, has provided or directed enough funding to the PC's that he appears to be trying to buy influence. That these donations come at a time he is looking for handouts from all three levels of government to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars can't be written off as merely a coincidence.

The amount of money donated is staggering by any measure. It doesn't matter if someone else donated as much to another party.

The irony is that this revelation should put the nail in the coffin for any provincial money to Katz' arena. It doesn't matter if the money comes directly or "indirectly", as the Premier puts it. If it is money coming from Alberta taxpayers, to fund Katz' arena, it will look like the money was bought via a massive donation to the governing party. There would be a massive backlash from which I don't think the PC's could recover by next election.

I like both the PC's and the Wildrose. This kind of thing RGMG however.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by valo403

There's no mystery to FL agenda, so I'm not sure why you keep going on about a desire to have everyone declare their allegiances. I think Muta's issue is much like mine, the whole "who me? No, I didn't say that at all, the real story is this little thing over here not the massive headline and thread title" game gets to be obnoxious.

If there's no mystery to FL's agenda, why does he keep going on and on about it? Its very plain to see that he has some kind of anal obsession with it and FL in general.

As to Muta's issue, its obvious that he wants FL to preface every thread she creates with some kind of disclaimer that she's a member of the WR party and reader beware.... and he probably won't be happy til she does.

As to the real story.... The real story is what has been printed in numerous newspapers... which is exactly what she copied and posted here. FL may have an opinion on other aspects of the story.. but her opinion is not the story thats in all the newspapers.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I wonder what the timeline is? Perhaps FL can weigh in, but it looks like Randy Thorsteinson was a founder and early president of the Alberta Alliance Party. It said that when the party merged with the Wildrose party he did not join the Wildrose and has had nothing to do with the party since. Is he being accused of donating money in the past to a party that no longer exists. That accusation being used to shine a negative light on a party that he no longer has anything to do with.

According to that list, of the 70 largest donors to Alberta political parties only 6 of them gave more money to the Wildrose than any other party. 59 of the donors on that list gave more to the PC's than any other party.

The "top 70" come from this database

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/...archAgain=true

The Journal created it from all the Election Alberta files covering 2004-2010.

The Alliance (at the time) was fully investigated after another party requested it; the circumstances were / are virtually identical to the Katz case.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by First Lady

The Alliance (at the time) was fully investigated after another party requested it; the circumstances were / are virtually identical to the Katz case.

Was there any punishment?

There should have been.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Was there any punishment?

There should have been.

If there was any don't you think the media would already be dragging it out as an example of what could happen?

[Jacks]

Tough to say since the results of these investigaions are never made public under the law.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Rerun

If there's no mystery to FL's agenda, why does he keep going on and on about it? Its very plain to see that he has some kind of anal obsession with it and FL in general.

Anal obsession? Dude, it's not a Saturday night yet, stop planning ahead.

As for any agenda, move on from it. If she admits it great, if not, I won't be surprised. Rinse and repeat. Life carries on.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Tough to say since the results of these investigaions are never made public under the law.

Investigations (and sometimes charges) aren't, but convictions would be.

Convictions will appear in public court house records.