07 Jun Union tries end run around election rules — feedback (cont.)

Halifax arts and culture activist and New Democrat Andrew Terris weighs in on the union donation flap:

As I understand it, there are two critical factors:

1. Are the members of the [Building and] Construction Trades Council separately incorporated bodies?  If they are, their donations are not illegal. The [Members and Public Employees] Disclosure Act says “a trade union and all its members and affiliates are considered to be one organization.” But it looks to me like the Council is an association of unions rather than a single, inclusive entity under the act.

2. Given #1, the NDP could well have accepted the donations in good faith. The real problem was the offer of the Council to reimburse the unions, an offer about which the NDP might well have known nothing until it was leaked to you and other media bloodhounds…

Prior intent to reimburse would make the donations illegal. However, the NDP in not implicated unless they knew that this was the intent when they accepted the donations, and that will be very hard to prove. I suspect (card carrying member that I am) that they accepted the individual donations in good faith and dutifully returned them when they found out they might be illegal.  I find it hard to believe they would be stupid enough to risk accepting questionable contributions. Why blow an election over $45,000?…

Apart from all that, I found the “improper” statement by CEO Christine McCulloch to be entirely improper, since she based her comments on media reports. Her role is to be objective and impartial, and she thoroughly compromised herself, in the middle of an election campaign, by passing judgment before all the evidence was in. She should resign.