Parties’ deficits not all bad news

Alberta’s three biggest provincial parties ran up red ink in 2015.

Party financial statements for 2015 released by Elections Alberta this week show the NDP posted a deficit of $497,129 in the period outside of the provincial election campaign while the Wildrose had a shortfall of $512,123 and the Tories posted a deficit of $549,471.

The Wildrose however is the only one of the three with net assets, amounting to $221,506, when the campaign period is added in.

In contrast, the NDP had net liabilities of $600,597 and the Tories’ debt topped $1 million.

The NDP’s provincial secretary Chris O’Halloran argued Friday the numbers are misleading in his party’s case, noting that almost all of the party’s shortfall stems from transfers issued to NDP constituency associations.

“The vast majority of that is money that we owe to ourselves through the constituencies,” he said.

“So we don’t have any concern over the deficit or anything, especially with the increase to the payroll and everything else that we saw last year.”

The NDP significantly scaled up its operations in 2015 as the party went from four seats in the legislature to capturing government in the May 5 election.

Parties are required to file separate financial statements for the election period, which have already been released.

The assets and liability figures on the statements released by Elections Alberta this week do reflect that the NDP and Wildrose both posted surpluses in the election period while the Tories ran up a $1.4 million deficit in the campaign.

PC party executive director Troy Wason said the party has reduced its debt to around $770,000 since the end of 2015.

He acknowledged the party is still making the adjustment from its years in power, where it raked in cash, but said the Tories are on the right track.

“When the money is flowing in like water, you can spend it like water,” said Wason.

“We’re looking at monthly expenditures. We’ve taken them down as close as we can to operate and we’re building from there.”

On taking office, the NDP government passed new legislation banning union and corporate donations to provincial political parties.

The financial statements show the NDP took in the most contributions outside the election period, at $1.3 million, followed by the PCs at $1.2 million and the Wildrose at $940,000.

Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt said Friday that his party was the most financially stable of any Alberta political entity.

We don’t have any concern over the deficit or anything, especially with the increase to the payroll and everything else.