The Lonely Lefty

A representative of a coalition of construction companies and anti-union contractors lobbied Premier Alison Redford by linking large political donations to Redford and to the provincial Conservative party with political promises to revise Alberta’s labour code, according to documents obtained through Freedom of Information.

“In my opinion, they are essentially saying, ‘Our donations are given in return for government action on specific issues,’” said Duff Conacher, founder of Democracy Watch, an Ottawa-based watchdog group.

“They are saying their donations are connected to those actions, and dependent on those actions,” said Conacher, who is also an adjunct law professor at the University of Toronto. “And that, I think, in my opinion, crosses the line in the Criminal Code bribery provisions.” […]

(Source: fycanadianpolitics)

fycanadianpolitics:

Note that former Reform leader Preston Manning’s “Manning Centre for Promoting Democracy” is also involved.

[…] “Dimitri asked me the question a little earlier on, ‘Can anyone beat Nenshi?’ And I said ‘no, likely not’. I am not sure what he’s hoping for – I don’t think he can and I had in my notes here, ‘I don’t think he is beatable. But you know when I talked to [former mayor] Dave Bronconnier, Dave is sitting there saying, ‘it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the mayor on your side or not. You need eight votes. As long as you have eight votes you can control whatever happens.’

“So for whatever and however, we have to ensure that we end up with the eight votes.”

Wenzel runs through a list of councillors he approves of and says he is supporting with campaign donations including Ward 12 Councillor Shane Keating, Ward 13 Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart, and Ward 14 Councillor Peter Demong. He also names those he does not support or is unsure of.

“One time where [Ward 6 councillor Richard] Pootmans was kind of guided as to maybe vote for us, when it comes up he forgot to ask any questions and forgot to vote the right way.” [….]

“…in order to bring Preston on board, 11 of us put up $100 thousand, so a million-one, so it’s not like we haven’t put up our money and we are going to be there to put up again, and we are also supporting candidates.” […]