Stettler County supported Tory riding association, documents show
A 2013 Elections Alberta investigation cleared Stettler County of allegations it used public resources to support the local Conservative riding association during the 2012 election.
The investigation followed a complaint from the Wildrose party. Both the county’s reeve and former Tory MLA Jack Hayden have publicly complained of an unfair smear against the county and the Drumheller-Stettler Progressive Conservative Association.
“This witch hunt has cost many thousands of dollars and found nothing,” Hayden said in a letter to a local newspaper, even before the chief electoral officer issued his report.
But a CBC News investigation has found that, between 2004 and 2010, Stettler County made illegal political donations to the Conservatives and supported the local riding association by providing access to their office equipment and services before and during some elections.
County reeve Wayne Nixon declined interview requests but in an email he said, “we do not appreciate being used to further or tarnish any political party’s ambitions three days prior to a provincial election.”
Nixon did not respond to direct questions about the unusually close relationship, which had existed for years, between Stettler County, the riding association and the Tory party.
Indivisible relationship
University of Alberta political scientist Jim Lightbody said the seemingly indivisible relationship between the county and the Tory party is common in a province where one party has ruled for nearly 44 years.
“It was just the normal price of doing business,” said Lightbody, who is an expert in municipal governance.
So close was the political relationship that after former county reeve turned Drumheller-Stettler Conservative candidate Jack Hayden lost the 2012 election, he found employment, in part, as a lobbyist for Stettler County.
Hayden is still registered as the county’s lobbyist, even as he again seeks election as the Conservative candidate in the riding he previously held from 2007 to 2012. He did not respond to interview requests.
Documents dating back to 2004, obtained by CBC News through freedom of information, show Stettler County councillors and staff attended Tory riding association fundraising golf tournaments and premier’s fundraising dinners for years, and expensed the county for it, sometimes also claiming per diems and mileage to attend.
Since 2004, publicly funded institutions such as municipalities, colleges, and school boards have been prohibited from making or soliciting political donations under the province’s Election Finances and Contributions Disclosures Act.
The internal county documents show councillors would even sometimes vote in open council to spend taxpayers’ money to attend Tory functions.
Former reeve Earl Marshall attended several such fundraisers. He was president of the Drumheller-Stettler PC riding association from 2008 to mid-2012.
Due to changes to the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act in 2012, the chief electoral officer can only release information about proven illegal political donations which occurred after Jan. 1, 2010. Most of the illegal donations made by Stettler County were before that date.
Stettler County chief administrative officer Tim Fox personally donated more than $2,200 to the party in 2007 and 2008. He also attended several Tory fundraisers at county expense.
Tory information distributed
During the 2012 election, Fox distributed Tory party information using the county’s email. It is not known to whom he distributed the information, because all names were redacted. Fox is the county’s freedom of information co-ordinator.
On April 23, 2012, the same day as the last provincial election, someone within the county’s office distributed an email which said: “We have a choice to make! Please forward this email to all your contacts, and encourage them to re-elect Jack Hayden.”
In that same election, the county’s communications director, Shawna Benson, not only set up Hayden’s Facebook, she also appeared to be managing his website and Twitter account.
On April 3, 2012, at 10:45 a.m. Benson sent an email from her county account to more than two dozen recipients, all blanked out save for Jack Hayden.
“Hi friends!” she wrote. “Our facebook page is now up and running within an event for the premier’s visit on Thursday going live shortly.
“If you are at an event with Jack and have video, photos or anything like that, please forward them to me at (redacted). I will be able to post them on the website, facebook and twitter all at once!”
The documents also reveal the county allowed the riding association to use its Visa machine, courier service and teleconferencing facility, the expenses for all of which the party repaid.
In June 2006, the county allowed the riding association to process through its VISA machine more than $5,200 in registration fees for a golf fundraiser.
In 2007 and 2008, the association used the county’s courier service four times and in 2008, during the election, the riding association used the county’s teleconferencing equipment to “hold telephone conferences with its members.”
Lightbody said all this shows there was no line between the county and the Tory riding association.
“This to me is the sort of thing that I would expect to see, perhaps, in rural Albania,” he said. “There is no separation of party and state.”
