OTTAWA (CP) - Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley repudiated Tuesday all the arguments Conservatives have used to justify their party's failure to disclose up to $1.7 million in donations.
The independent elections watchdog, who is still investigating the matter, would not say outright that the governing party broke the law.
But during testimony before the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee, Kingsley left little doubt that the Tories violated the Canada Elections Act when they failed to report delegate fees to the party's 2005 policy convention as political donations.
Some 2,900 delegates attended the convention, which charged a regular fee of $600 each. Treasury Board President John Baird, the Harper government's point man on ethics, and Conservative party brass have maintained that the fees did not constitute donations because they simply covered the costs of staging the convention, which did not turn a profit.
Kingsley bluntly demolished that argument.
"Profit's got nothing to do with it," he told the committee.
Under the Elections Act, Kingsley said: "A fee paid to attend a political event of a registered party amounts to a contribution to the party except where the attendee receives some tangible benefit having a commercial value."
If the fee includes a benefit such as meals and lodging, he said that portion of the fee would not count as a contribution.
However, Kingsley stressed that "the right to participate in the political life or decisions of a registered party . . . including the right to attend political conventions does not, under the act, constitute a tangible benefit to be excluded from the value of a contribution."
The issue boiled over late last June when Baird blurted out, during an appearance before the same Senate committee, that the Tories hadn't disclosed their 2005 convention fees as donations.
The admission sparked a furor, with Liberals and New Democrats demanding an investigation. Kingsley asked the Tories to turn over their convention books so that he could look into the matter.
Only two weeks ago, Conservative executive director Michael Donison explicitly told the same Senate committee that his party had complied with Kingsley's request.
"Yes, we have . . . We are dealing with Elections Canada on that matter and we will comply with whatever requirements they have," Donison said.
However, Kingsley told The Canadian Press that he has yet to receive the convention books. The Conservatives have handed over only "what is required by law," which is the party's annual financial statement for 2005. Such statements are vague, listing donors and outlining the party's expenses in broad brush strokes.
"That is not quite sufficient to allow us to do an audit because it is not the (convention) books," Kingsley said after the Senate hearing.
"If they've given me anything else it's caught up in some type of delivery system because I have not received it," he added, noting that the party has had two and a half months to comply.
Liberal Senator Joseph Day later said he wants to follow up on that with Kingsley to see if Donison misled the committee. Donison did not respond to a request for an interview Tuesday.
Liberal party national director Steven MacKinnon said Kingsley's testimony amounts to "complete vindication" for the Liberals' interpretation of the law.
"It's hard to draw any other conclusion that than (the Tories) have engaged in covering up millions of dollars in contributions."
MacKinnon noted that Ian Brodie, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, was the Tory party's executive director when the decision was made not to report the 2005 delegate fees as donations. He suggested Brodie may have to resign.
"The chief electoral officer has, in effect, said that the Conservative party has broken the law . . . and the prime minister must seek a clarification from his chief of staff or it will be pretty hard for him to continue in his job."
The issue arose because of the Tory government's Federal Accountability Act, aimed at cleaning up government in the wake of Liberal-era scandals.
Among other things, the act proposes to slash the limit for personal political donations to $1,000 per year from $5,400.
If the act goes into force this fall, as the Tories want, Liberals fear that anyone who has donated more than $5 to their party this year will not be able to pay the $995 fee to attend the Liberal leadership convention in December without exceeding the limit.
Kingsley confirmed the Liberals' fears are well founded. To avoid problems, he suggested potential delegates could pay their convention fees early, before the act goes into effect.
