I am still processing this news and will have more to say soon. In the meantime, kudos to Globe & Mail reporters David Ebner and Dawn Walton for digging this up.
From The Globe & Mail:
Billionaire entrepreneur and Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz gave Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives nearly half a million dollars – almost one-third of the party’s total fundraising in a single donation – as Premier Alison Redford’s cash-strapped campaign was staring down defeat at the ballot box in the spring election.
Documents made public by Elections Alberta on Wednesday record $300,000 in donations from Mr. Katz, his company, his family and business associates.
But a source close to the campaign told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Katz provided a cheque for $430,000 to the PCs, a donation that was broken up into smaller pieces.
The maximum allowable donation to a political party in Alberta from an individual person or company during an election campaign is $30,000. Elections Alberta said splitting donations is allowed in some circumstances.
Mr. Katz declined requests for comment.
7 replies on “Pharmaceutical billionaire Daryl Katz gave $430,000 to PC Party, Globe & Mail reports.”
For that kind of money, he could have bought himself four Alberta Liberal or two Alberta NDP parties. Not a very thrifty shopper, is he?
This obviously stinks, especially with the arena negotiations going on, but I have to confess that I didn’t realize what a small amount of money there is in Canadian politics.
Alberta’s government will spend more than $200 Billion over the next 5 years ($41B in 2012). Did all the parties, together, collect $2 Million in this election cycle?
If that’s true, it would suggest that the spending of politicians on political campaigns is approximately one-one thousandth of one percent (0.001%) of government spending. I’m not eager to see more TV ads, but it seems that there could be an awfully good ROI for a variety of provincial stakeholders for whom a friendly government might mean a 1% change in how the public purse is distributed.
As if we don’t already have enough reasons to hate Katz.
BTW I’ve been hearing that Katz is bleeding money via his Vancouver real estate holdings (which is falling in value). Any truth to this?
If this is true it would explain a lot. In two years katz has gone from this cool, calm, collected billionaire to somebody who seems desperate.
If Katz does get his arena does this mean pretty much every dime in profits will be sucked out of Edmonton’s downtown to prop up his empire?
A new arena is a great idea. It WOULD generate all sorts of profits. Do we really need the Oil-ers here though? NO! Let them go. Its just a name. Edmonton is a great market for the league and we could easily get another team. Another great option would be for the AIG to buy back the team for 50 cents on the dollar and have other private investors partner up with AIG to build the arena as partners. In light of this donation scandal and the Citie’s frustration with changing terms of referen$e for more and more money, its clear the public has no faith for this kind of welfare hockey subsidy. This is NOT capitalism, it is welfare for Edmonton and the Province to subsidize this venture. The best financial investment for the city and the province is to educate and train its youth. That is the economic engine of our province. More educated folks, getting better paying jobs, buying houses, taking mortages, buying cars, buying up neighbour hoods. Other cities have done porkbarrel welfare arena handovers, but every situation is different. We don’t have any decent Gretzky or Lemiuex grade players and WE ARE a VERY lucrative market here. We dont need the Oil – ERS as bad as they need US.
For the record (and because credit where credit’s due, etc.), Derrick Jacobson http://thealbertaaltruist.blogspot.com/ AKA
@AlbertaAltruist on twitter broke this a day before the Globe did. I suppose intrepid reporters would eventually think of these things all on their own but I notice more and more of late that others think of them before they do.
[…] health authorities, accusations of a personal conflict-of-interest, and allegations that her party accepted up to $400,000 in illegal campaign donations from billionaire Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz have dogged her […]
[…] to the Liberal Party through his professional corporation, raising his limit to $30,000. And as the Daryl Katz-PC Party donation fiasco taught us in 2012, you can always depend on family members or employees to make donations as […]