Don’t be so hard on him…
Recent releases show the Liberals raised less funds than the Conservatives in 2008. A lot less! So perhaps Michael Ignatieff can explain why he donated a grand sum of $0 in 2008, a year the Liberals under Stephane Dion were trying to topple the Harper government.
I don’t think foreigners are permitted to make political contributions under Canadian law.
Besides, if you’ve been paying attention to Canadian media lately, it’s only a matter of time before the Natural Governing Party will be back in a position to get everything they need through Public Works. Iggy’s so confident, he’s got the memo boy on stand by!
h/t Bourque.
Update – trusty commentor Ted shares this intriguing rumour… Michael Ignatieff’s contributions are not in the Elections Canada database as they have been funneled through an organization known to party insiders only as “the Laurier Club” … developing…
(PS.. would someone down there help Ted get the fishhook out of his mouth?)
Yeah, Hugger, flick off!! We all get caught in the filter at some time or other. Don’t take it personally — or do you have thin skin?
Hey, don’t forget the $2 billion Liberal Millionaire Gun Registry Lottery.
A new Liberal Millionaire every day.
“known only to party insiders”, Kate?
Now I don’t expect you to read or remember everything written on your own website, but it has been referred to here at SDA at least a couple of times:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/004099.html#c80880
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/002930.html#c34080
or to read that dreadful MSM: http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ACAW_enCA310CA310&q=%22laurier+club%22
But, in your own words (and many others), Google is your friend.
The Laurier Club has been around a long time and is well known and the membership fee counts as a donation to the party. For some reason, the totals shown for individual contributions at Electins Canada is showing about $2-3 million less than the total amount reported as donated to the Liberals for 2008. So it is not just the Laurier Club donors who are missing from the individual contributors list.
Iggy is cheap. I managed to scrounge up $100 for the CPC last year and his paycheque is likely quite a bit sweeter than mine.
Oh, Iggy, boyyyy, the blinkssss, the blinkssss are cawwwling.
Recall Dionky; STOPIGGY.
…-
“Ignatieff orders Nfld Liberals to support budget implementation”
“Some Liberals are privately grumbling that he “blinked” in a showdown with Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, who had called on Liberals to vote against the budget. And they worry he may have set a dangerous precedent, encouraging other MPs to break ranks over bills that offend their provincial governments.”
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/582483
DOH!.
I would call that ‘flame war on’… if not quite over.
Ted is bullshitting everyone. The reason the individual contributions don’t add up to the total is that you do not have to report the details of donors under $200.
So to be fair to Iggy, the Count could have given his party a whopping $199.
If I was a Liberal that would make me feel better.
[snort]
If Ted is correct and Laurier club donors ($1100) are underreported than the Lieberals broke the law.
Either way Ted, they are the proverbial creek and no paddle…
From WK…..
PUTTING NO MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTHS ARE
Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 06:40 PM
The Harper government is pushing a story around that Michael Ignatieff doesn’t donate to his own party. Their simpleton payola guy at Dork Newsbought had that headlined today. So did a lot of the conservative bloggers.
The facts are as follows.
Michael Ignatieff has donated through the Laurier Club in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Both Michael and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, have donated the maximum amount to the Michael Ignatieff campaign in 2009. And, in 2007, Zsuzsanna donated $1,000 to Michael’s riding and $1,000 to the Liberal Party. Our leader and his wife are doing their part to donate to the Liberal cause.
But how about those big-mouthed Conservative bloggers, many of whom are covertly paid by the CPC to spread crap around the Web? What did they donate to the Conservative Party last year?
Here, too, are the facts:
Pierre Bourque – $0
Stephen Taylor – $0
Kate McMillan – $0
Ezra Levant – $0
Steve Janke – $0
Craig Smith (Blogging Tories co-founder) – $0
Jarrett Plonka (KerPlonka) – $0
Damian Penny (Daimnation) – $0
Gerry Nicholls – $0
Victor Wong (Phantom Observer) – $0
At least two of those people receives monies from the Conservative Party; more than one of them get material/research sent to them straight from the Prime Minister’s Office and/or CPC.
You’d think, for all that, they’d be putting their money where their mouths are, wouldn’t you?
Heh.
I added nothing to the above except for ‘From WK’.
“many of whom are covertly paid by the CPC to spread crap around the Web”
He just doesn’t know when to quit. Still not as funny as the Youtube apology…….
uh, not quite, ITK.
Club membership fees are reported separately on a different basis. The aggregate number may be known but the value of any benefit in the membership must be deducted first from the fee and the balance is considered the donation. Election finance law 101. But of course, as the in-and-out scam shows, like your fellow Conservatives, you probably feel the election finance laws don’t apply to you so why learn them.
I don’t think that when a party member chooses to NOT donate directly to the party it makes them fair game for mockery.
Active members of all parties often donate a much greater value resource in time and effort than they are allowed to contribute in cash.
Iggy is probably already deep in personal debt and he will be DEEPer in it before long.
If he’s not then you need to go find out who broke the law by bailing him out.
Which reminds me …. anyone heard from Dion ?? You think we’ll have to extradite him from some France? Or hunt him down in some third world French protectorate?
Perhaps Count Iggula feels he doesn’t have to support the party and country of his covenience, and he will just be magically inserted into the PMO’s chair without the nuisance of an election, the same as he was inserted into the Liberal leadership role. Maybe Count Iggula feels he’s entightled to not pony up any of his own cash because he feels Canadians should be grateful that this arrogant, pompous ass has come back to the country of his convenience to save us all from the non elites. Perhaps Count Iggula is to busy coming up with more homo-eroticisms like: “keeping Harper on a leash” or “he’s gonna take the government down, take them down hard” Yuk. The MSM are going to have a terrible time selling the latest Liberal saviour to all us peasants. Vote for Count Iggula or he’ll feast on you’re intestines,or bore you to death with his outrageous pomposity.
Curious. I might be mistaken, but I thought only individuals could donate. If it’s not true, it should be. If donations are allowed to pass through middlemen, like say, oh, some “club,” how is it possible to know whether someone contributed just their own portion, or if they contributed a larger sum that was then fanned out through other individuals who either did not donate or were disinclined to donate? In order for donations to pass transparently through the hands of some club-types you’d first have to determine the value of any benefit in the club membership before deducting that iffy, contentiously-determined figure in order to determine the donation amount.
Pretty fudge-e-o, if you ask me.
Someone help Ted get the fishhook out of his mouth…
In order for donations to pass transparently through the hands of some club-types you’d first have to determine the value of any benefit in the club membership before deducting that … figure in order to determine the donation amount.
Exactly, EBD.
Which is why it is reported on and you get your tax receipt for it after the end of the year when this is calculated. No different than a dinner event except as a membership it has to take into account the “benefit” portion through the whole year.
And the individual donations are recorded. Just look at any prior year. It is just that they are reported on a little differently which would explain why they are not up yet.
But why, Ted, would individual donations go through a club?
I’m confused, and you know more about this than I do — are you saying that by joining the Laurier Club you’re agreed that a portion of your membership fee goes to the Liberals? If so, why wouldn’t someone just make the donation yourself? What possible merit or utility is there to passing your individual donation — apparently, to some extent, based on what you’ve said, off-the-record — through a middleman?
I don’t know the facts, Ted, but perhaps, en route to defending Ignatieff, you may have inadvertently uncovered another Liberal scam.
That’s got to be exciting, at least momentarily.
Now that cataquiddick is, in their minds, behind them, it’s call your war room time again…
http://tinyurl.com/baanht (Tor*)
Having cast their protest vote Tuesday, a spokesperson confirmed that Ignatieff now expects the Newfoundland MPs to support the budget on all subsequent votes, including the budget implementation bill.
Moreover, he’s told the MPs they can’t attempt to amend the bill, which is to be introduced this week…
From the Western Star (Gerry Byrne’s riding)earlier today from the comments…
Madhatter from AB writes: If the Liberals were serious about the damage the CPC budget is suppose to do to NL, as Iggy claims, why didn’t they ask for an amendment to remove it or else they weren’t going to vote for it?
It appears that what is important to the Iggy Libs is that the only amendment asked was for 3 confidence vote updates every quarter regarding implementation of the budget. This allows Iggy to follow polling data and when that data is in the margins whereby the possibility of Liberals regaining power strongly exists, only than will the government fall. It also means the LPC has to cheer on a recession so that it gets bad enough the natives get restless. Nice bunch eh.
Maybe the premier or NL Libs should begin asking Iggy to sign a contract stating that a LPC led federal govt. will revert the equalization payments to pre-2009 budget caps imposed by the CPC and voted for by the LPC. Otherwise this is just more grandstanding and feigned outrage.
http://tinyurl.com/bq6z7w
The implementation bill is the actual bill that removes the 50% O’Brien formula which is the most lucrative of all 3 options for all the have-not provinces and the one that has Danny and Charest upset.
Ted Quote:
“you probably feel the election finance laws don’t apply to you so why learn them.”
Liberals think all laws don’t apply to them, including criminal law.
No, EBD. The Laurier Club is the Liberal Party, part of it at any rate, not something outside or separate. It is just a way to organize the party. You pay an annual membership fee to be a part of it and you get articles sent to you, events to attend, etc. It has been around a long time and as Kate points out (yes, Kate, I got the joke but clearly some readers didn’t) it is known so nothing new is being revealed here. At the end of the year, the party calculates what what portion of the membership fee is attributable to the benefits through the year (i.e. what you “bought”) and what portion is straight donation.
Like donating to the “Women’s Wing” of a party or paying a fee to a convention. If you pay a convention fee of $1000 and the party pays $100 worth of meals for you, then your donation is $900 and you bought $100 of benefits. Elections Canada and Revenue Canada recognize the $900 as a direct donations to the party (and not the $1000 on your taxes), it is just reported on a little differently because it has to be calculated whereas just giving them a cheque for $1000 doesn’t.
Oh gosh and you also receive a Laurier lapel pin. Yes indeed.
By the way, I think a rather more important financial issue is WHEN is the Liberal Party going to repay the more than 40 million that they stole from the taxpayers which they used to finance their election campaigns in Quebec? Well?
Now the funding system has changed; the system now takes money from the taxpayers..legally..and hands it over to the political parties. But the taxpayers didn’t approve this Motion which was put through by Chretien in 2003.
However, the Liberal Party stole from the taxpayers. When is it going to return this money?
Thanks Ted, that’s helpful. In light of recent history, though, do you see a problem with donations being made to the Liberal party that are — apparently — not attached to individual names, as required for the Elections Canada database?
Okay, one joins a club and a portion of one’s fees go to the LPC. But shouldn’t there be a name clearly attached to such a re-routed donation?
Surely the rules of the Laurier Club don’t obviate Elections Canada rules.
I don’t know, though; you know more than I do. it’s the sort of thing I’d have to check up on.
That’s what I’m trying to say, EBD. The individual’s name IS attached to the donation. But because it is not a straight “here’s the cheque” donation, just like with a dinner fundraiser or convention, the party is required to calculate the cost of any benefit you paid for (like a meal) since you will not get to deduct that portion as a political donation. So the reporting process for these sorts of things is a bit different.
Trust your instincts: given that this has been going on for so long, don’t you think someone in the CPC would have raised the issue long ago?
“Both Michael and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, have donated the maximum amount to the Michael Ignatieff campaign in 2009. And, in 2007, Zsuzsanna donated $1,000 to Michael’s riding…”
So The Count and The Countess donated money to … themselves. Well, that’s generous. I think the last time I saw this kind of generosity on display was back when Al Gore bought some carbon credits from himself.
Ted:
The laurier club is either a wholly-owned subsidairy of the LP or it is not. If it is then ALL funds sent its way are donations and a part of the 1000 max – including meals etc..
If it is not then it is a type of money-laundering scheme that eliminates the tracing of the donation attributed to someone as actually having been paid by that person. Perhaps a bigwig (first letter whose last name starts with “D” perhaps) has written a massive cheque to the club and the rest of the members put in a pittance. Then the club somehow generates contribution rcts to the members as it sees fit thus enabling the big wig to go way over the contribution limit.
If the elections canada act permits this latter option the loophole should be closed forthwith (maybe someone in the CPC caucus could table it as a friendly amendment to the budget bill). And the only way for the RCMP to investigate is to check the suspect’s rects and bank statements for money given to the club. If what has been posted above is true something north of 2 million this past year may be involved or at least is not accurately reported as who made the individual donation.
And the only way Iggy can prove that he was indeed the source of his attributed donation is to produce a receipt from the laurier club for the same or more amount.
But Ted, if the individual’s name is attached to the donation, why doesn’t it (apparently) show up on Election Canada’s database? I understand that the party is required to calculate the cost of any benefit you paid for; this is a familiar gambit to those who’ve followed LPC funding procedures.
Are you saying that the reporting process for these sorts of Laurier Club things is a bit different from what’s required by Elections Canada?
Thanks for your continuing explanations, and please bear in mind that my questions are entirely and exclusively spurred by information you’ve provided here in this thread.
Gord, you are barking up the wrong tree. The maximum cap is still the maximum cap. No one can donate more than $1,100 whether that is a straight up donation, a convention fee, a fundraising dinner or a party club fee. Period.
And the tax rules are the same for each too. If the Conservative Party sells you a t-shirt saying, oh, I don’t know, maybe “Harper is God’s Arrow” and they charge you $200 for this historic collectible but the market cost is $10, then you have donated $190 and cannot deduct the extra $10 from your taxes. But it is the party that must make that calculation and factor it in to the tax receipt it issues to you. The full $200 is a donation that the CPC must record, but you only get a tax receipt for $190 because you paid value for a good/benefit.
A club within a party is no different except you have to calculate all of the $10 goods/benefits throughout the whole year. Which is why it is no different than anything else except the returns can’t be done and the tax receipts can’t be issued until the end of the year.
EBD, I’m not sure about the exact process and forms and returns that need to be submitted, but convention fees, party club fees etc. all have to comply with Elections Canada requirements. So it may be that EC has a different form, additional supporting materials you have to provide, or takes more time to look at these things which would explain why the aggregate number is shown on its website but not the individual donations, yet. Donations to the party through the Laurier Club in prior years are fully reported on an individual basis, but they are up in any database that I can find at EC for 2008 yet.
Given how quick some in the CPC clearly are to accuse the Liberals of wrongdoing, whether or not they have a shred of evidence to back it up or rely simply on blog posts for support, you can rest assured that the CPC would have raised a stink if these weren’t flowing through.
I think the only issue is a delay in putting up the numbers on the EC’s own database.
Ted, with respect, you’re missing the point: if a name isn’t attached to a “straight up donation, a convention fee, a fundraising dinner or a party club fee,” how does it follow that “no one can donate more than $1,100”?
In other words, if Elections Canada doesn’t have a *name* connected to a given donation, i.e. if the donation is “attached to” some other fundraising mechanism that you, through a description of the process, describe as legitimate, how then could anyone know how much any given individual has donated? Surely if Michael Ignatieff, to pick a name out of a hat, donated through a “club,” there must be some way of writing out the letters in his name and attaching it, on the record, to the donation.
“Laurier Club”??? LOL!!
SO. WHAT?
Ted:
If my riding association puts on a BBQ I cannot pay for it. It comes out of the ridings funds that are registered donations.
If each and every item is recorded and paid for then that’s okay. But if the club members just kick in money and the get some kind of reconciliation back at the end of the year – that is either illegal or a loop hole because fat cats can then throw a wad of cash into the club and get back a political receipt for a 1000 and the rest attributed to club expenses (Or not at all?). T-shirt purchases and specific events (dinners) can be profit-making obviously, but at the ones i have been to you usually get a partial donation receipt if the meal was worth far less than the ticket. At least that’s what i have seen.
Check that, on my last comment. The rule is that all of the meal is a donation.
So let me get this Laurier Club thing straight:
– Count Iggy is a member of the club
– the club membership is considered a personal political donation
– the amount of this personal political donation doesn’t show up in Elections Canada database against Count Iggy
Do I have this right? So, although (heaven forfend) Count Iggy hasn’t doubled-up on his maximum donation amount, apparently others could.
This doesn’t seem to be honest and above-board.
“Someone help Ted get the fishhook out of his mouth…
Posted by: Kate at February 4, 2009 9:48 PM ”
I would,Kate,but I am not into catch and release when it comes to Liebranos.
I belonged to a church once that had a “club” similar to the Laurier Club. The members insisted that their contributions to the “club,” stacked with like-minded and rather nasty individuals, were to furnish “emergency funds” if the church ever needed them.
Sure. When the church did need them, they kicked and screamed that they were being asked to dip into their slush fund. In the meantime, they all got income tax receipts.
Eeyore: “This doesn’t seem to be honest and above-board.”
It wasn’t. And their little cabal was eventually broken up, again with the “club” members kicking and screaming.
A pox on all the secret agenda/slush fund houses …
How many members of this club made the maximum donation ( personally ) ? If they did , what happens to their …. cough , cough ….. membership fees at the laundry club ?
He’s been gaffed out of the hole and is flopping on the ice.
Hand me the Laurier club.
Its not a Fishhook. Ted has a teeny weeny umbrella perched above his head because the Acme catapault for launching big rocks at the PC Roadrunner is crashing down on to his head.
Now would be a good time for that little white sign that says:
“help.”
set you free:
When you play the role of the wise elder, does that make you superior … or does is just make you FEEL superior?
Just asking.
an easy addendum to the budget bill that even the dippers could support
“that the Liberal Party of Canada pay back in full all funds stolen from the taxpayers of Canada in Adscam immediately and forthwith”
and Warren Kinsella could deliver the cheque to the GG while making his chinese food delivery as penance.