Just The Facts, Chum

Witchhunting?  Looking for another exciting way to cast suspicion and blame on the Conservatives?  Kind of thin gruel when unsubstantiated denials and casual narratives are taken as solid enough evidence to go forth with a headline, first page, first section, above the fold: "Tory 'donors' deny giving party money'.  Somehow, the top-listed scandal of the day inferred, substantial donations appearing on the 2009 Elections Canada filing of the Conservative riding association of a downtown Montreal district stank to high heaven.

The puzzling thing here is that the Conservative candidate came in a distant fifth in the riding in 2008, fourth in 2011.  The riding is currently held by an NDP Member of Parliament.  So what's the purpose in purporting digging up dirt that, if true, would cast the light of illegal activities and possibly criminal action to be taken as a result.  And nothing was gained for the effort? What might have spurred the reporter to have dug in deep, intending to find scandal?

The Conservative riding association is held to have collected over $593,000 from donations received, many from law firms and engineering companies. It also distributed a good portion of that total, over $376,000 to other ridings around Quebec.  Since such transfers between riding associations are anything but rare and they are legal conventions used by other political parties, what might be the point in high-lighting these transactions? 

Yet Postmedia News claims to have uncovered eleven unexplained donations totalling $99,999, $32,999, and $14,333 whose provenance seems to intrigue them no end.  Never know when some sleuthing can turn up a good scandal.  "I gave money to the party?  I never gave no money to no party", insisted the owner of an asbestos-removal business, informed he was listed as a donor to the Conservative riding association. 

And another man, owner of a banquet hall in Montreal's Little Italy denied being a Conservative, doesn't even know where the riding is located. "I have nothing to do with the Conservatives.  I want to find out who the guy was doing the fundraising because I have a few words to say to him." Furthermore two of his relatives whose names are also listed as donors most definitely did not donate, said he. 

"If I ever donated it might have been $50, $100, but nowhere near that amount ($666.66).  Are you kidding me?  I had just started a business.  I had no money".  He was struggling, he explained to get his new catering business off and running.  "There's no way it could be me."  This from yet another name listed, incredulous when he was approached.  Asked to verify that he had written a cheque for the odd amount of $666.66.

The odd figure of $666.66 was related to a $1,000 fundraising dinner held at the Queen Elizabeth hotel, explained the riding's financial officer. A pair of tickets to the fundraiser sold for $1,000 but when the cost of the event was subtracted donations of $666.66 resulted.  The initial expose appeared in the Friday issue of the Ottawa Citizen.  The reporter obviously felt he had covered all stops, asking a forensic accountant to examine a spreadsheet of donors and donations he had put together.  

"I would want to see, if I were to be conducting an investigation, can you confirm that a cheque was written to the party from every person on that list?  If it was, OK then I guess it was.  But why for that amount?  It's an odd amount.  If you're going to pay $666, odds are you'd pay $500 or $750."

 The following day, Saturday, additional digging brought some predictable results, and the headline, front page, first section top of the fold read "Tories produce copies of donor cheques".  And oh my, those who denied having written cheques to the riding association have changed their minds.  As for the investigative reporter, he may now appreciate that old adage: "Act in haste, repent at leisure".

They learned that they had, after all written those cheques; their initial denials were a result of a lapse in memory.  "This morning I was informed that we did make cheques to the Conservatives.  I have a friend who was a volunteer fundraiser for them, and he asked me for a favour and I said yes" said one of eleven people who informed Postmedia they hadn't made the donations attributed to them on the riding association's 2009 Elections Canada report filings.

The individual who had scoffed at the very idea of his having been so generous with a donation when he was initiating a new business was reminded by a colleague that they did indeed make larger donations: "I was talking to a colleague of mine and we did do it", said he one day later.  The day the story first aired a Conservative party spokesman distributed copies of seven cheques to reporters for their edification.

The original, unamended story was good news on Friday for the opposition parties.  They took huge pleasure in roasting the feet of their Conservative colleagues for imputed wrong-doing, accusing the government of funnelling funds to their party through people who had no knowledge of their names being listed as donors.  The Conservatives responded that the accounts had been audited years ago, and not found wanting.

What appears to be found wanting is the unseemly haste of a newspaper's investigative reporter to dig up dirt where none exists, leaving himself and his newspaper explicably with ample muck on their noses to offer a mea culpa.