Link drawn between Tory donors, appointees
Group says that over 10 years, 356 public officials gave money to Conservatives
OTTAWA— What do the head of the CBC, a former BlackBerry executive and the president of the Asper Foundation have in common?
They can all find their names in a database compiled by left-leaning pressure group SumOfUs.org of political appointees who have donated to the Conservative party.
According to SumOfUs.org campaign director Rosa Kouri, the organization found 356 political appointees who have donated more than $760,000 to the Conservatives’ coffers between 2004 and 2014.
“I think that it’s clear that there is a pattern of rewarding money and loyalty with influential appointments,” said Kouri, program director with the left-wing pressure group.
“I think that it’s a pattern that needs more scrutiny for sure.”
According to the group’s data, the donations range from one-off contributions of $200 to almost $20,000 over 10 years. Some names on their list donated before their appointment, some after.
The data includes names such as: Hubert Lacroix, the CEO of the CBC; former BlackBerry executive turned Sustainable Technology Development Canada chair Jim Balsillie; and Gail Asper, a trustee at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.
A CBC spokesperson said Lacroix had made three political donations in his life, all to friends running for election for three different parties.
“On that basis, certain groups, for their own reasons, insist on labelling him a donor to and therefore operative of, the Conservative party in 2006,” Alexandra Fortier wrote in an email. “He has never been a member of nor a regular donor to any political party. He has no affiliation to, nor a particular affinity with, any political party.”
Neither Balsillie nor Asper could be reached through their organizations Thursday evening.
Kouri said her group does not believe donating to a political party invalidates Canadians from serving the public. But she said she found it “shocking” that there were 356 donors out of 1,384 current appointees.
SumofUs.org pulled the names and donation amounts from the government’s appointments website and checked them against Elections Canada records. The Star has independently verified that a number of names in the database match Elections Canada records, including Lacroix, Balsillie and Asper, but was not able to validate the entire database.
In response to an interview request, the Conservative campaign sent a one-sentence response.
“All government appointments are based on merit, professional excellence, and regional representation,” spokeswoman Megan Murdoch wrote in an email.
SumOfUs.org launched a website Thursday morning, jobsfordonations.ca, to draw attention to the appointments.
The organization, which characterizes itself as an accountability-promoting consumer protection group, said it did not conduct the same analysis on Liberal or NDP donors ap- pointed to public appointees.
“We prioritized looking at Conservatives, and fine-tuned our analysis to their data and spent significant time refining the information, as they’ve been in power since 2006 and have had the most opportunity to place appointments,” Kouri wrote in an email Thursday morning. “The NDP haven’t had the ability to place those kinds of appointments, and the Liberals haven’t been able to since 2006.”
Cabinet controls political appointments, with ministers largely responsible for recommending within their respective portfolios. The Privy Council Office, the bureaucrats who support the prime minister, oversees the process for more high-profile positions.
In July, the Ottawa Citizen reported the Conservative cabinet appointed more than 70 people to various federal boards, agencies and tribunals, including the CBC and the Immigration and Refugee Board. The appointments came in a flurry over two days, on June 18 and 19.
Between June and the launch of the ongoing federal election campaign, there appears to have been roughly 40 appointments and reappointments to various bureaucratic, judicial, and diplomatic roles, according to government records.