{"id":1013,"date":"2006-07-21T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-21T17:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2006-07-21T13:10:00","modified_gmt":"2006-07-21T17:10:00","slug":"conconcon-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1013","title":{"rendered":"ConConCon Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The latest on what I like to call the Conservative Convention con. And, for the record, I&#8217;m really only dwelling on this because the Tories tried to screw the Liberals over on their convention this year and I think it&#8217;d be a beautiful example of karma if this wound up causing them some grief.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family:times new roman;\">Friday, July 21, 2006<\/p>\n<p>Raymond Landry<br \/>Commissioner of Canada Elections<br \/>Elections Canada<\/p>\n<p>Denis Meunier<br \/>Director General, Compliance Programs Branch<br \/>Investigations Directorate<br \/>Canada Revenue Agency<\/p>\n<p>Re: Improper Treatment of Delegate Fees for Conservative Party of Canada<br \/>Conventions<\/p>\n<p>Dear Sirs:<\/p>\n<p>We wish to bring to your attention that the Conservative Party of Canada may be<br \/>treating delegate registration fees to its functions improperly and in<br \/>contravention of the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act. We ask that<br \/>you investigate what, if true, would include millions of dollars of unreported<br \/>and undisclosed contributions to the Conservative Party of Canada.<\/p>\n<p><u>Delegate Registration Fees:<\/u><\/p>\n<p>We understand that the Conservative Party has not treated any portion of<br \/>delegate registration fees as a contribution to the Conservative Party and,<br \/>therefore, has not issued income tax receipts or receipts required under the<br \/>Canada Elections Act for any portion of such delegate registration fees. Hon.<br \/>John Baird, Treasury Board President, indicated publicly that this was the case<br \/>with regard to the 2005 Conservative Party annual convention. This was<br \/>confirmed in subsequent media reports which included statements by the<br \/>Conservative Party itself. They further stated that this practice had been<br \/>ongoing for some time, implying that this possible contravention has occurred<br \/>numerous times.<\/p>\n<p>We further understand that since the Conservative Party of Canada has not<br \/>recorded any portion of the delegate registration fees as a contribution, then<br \/>accordingly, they may have misstated contribution information of the<br \/>Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessor parties) in public filings as<br \/>required to be made by all registered political parties.<\/p>\n<p>While a delegate may receive some value in materials and services for his or her<br \/>registration fee, it is highly unlikely that such value amounts to the entire<br \/>delegate registration fee at the current levels of such a fee. Whether or not<br \/>the function involved results in a financial surplus is irrelevant as it is the<br \/>calculation of the value received by the delegate in exchange for his or her<br \/>registration fee that determines whether the person paying the delegate<br \/>registration fee has made a contribution to the Conservative Party of Canada<br \/>and, if so, the amount of such contribution. In not issuing a receipt for the<br \/>amount of the delegate registration fee that is a contribution to the<br \/>Conservative Party of Canada there may have been what I am certain you will<br \/>agree is an egregious violation of the Canada Elections Act.<\/p>\n<p><u>Possible Excess Contributions:<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Further, as the Conservative Party of Canada did not issue receipts for the<br \/>contribution portion of delegate or observer registration fees it could not<br \/>track the total contributions of an individual delegate or observer in the year<br \/>during which the function was held to ensure that total did not exceed the<br \/>maximum contribution allowed pursuant to the Canada Elections Act. Accordingly,<br \/>it is quite possible that a person who paid delegate or observer registration<br \/>fees exceeded the allowable contribution limits under the Canada Elections Act.<\/p>\n<p>We would, therefore, ask you to investigate the refusal of the Conservative<br \/>Party of Canada to recognize contributions by persons who paid delegate and<br \/>observer registration fees, issue receipts to such persons and treat such<br \/>payments as contributions.<\/p>\n<p>Yours very truly,<\/p>\n<p>Steven MacKinnon<br \/>National Director <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest on what I like to call the Conservative Convention con. And, for the record, I&#8217;m really only dwelling on this because the Tories tried to screw the Liberals over on their convention this year and I think it&#8217;d be a beautiful example of karma if this wound up causing them some grief. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}