NDP asks for investigation into donations to support UCP

Concerns over donations to support UCP Alberta car dealerships have donated thousands to a PAC that supports the UCP. CTV Edmonton’s Dan Grummett explains.

The NDP asked the Elections Commissioner of Alberta to investigate a third-party Political Action Committee (PAC) that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Motor Dealers’ Association of Alberta (MDA) to support the United Conservative Party.

The PAC, Shaping Alberta’s Future, had paid for anti-NDP ads with money that came from the MDA.

In a letter last month, MDA Chair Andrew Robinson encouraged members to donate “to assist in the UCP 3^rd party advertising campaign.”

Shaping Alberta’s Future has raised $375,000 in the third quarter of 2018.

That same letter mentions an MDA meeting with UCP Leader Jason Kenney to respond to concerns “to the automotive industry due to budgetary and legislative changes imposed by the Alberta NDP government over the past three years.”

The NDP believes the UCP are skirting rules that prohibit large individual and corporate donations to political parties, but Kenney said he is playing by their rules.

“The NDP created the law that allowed Political Action Committees to operate.”

Last month, the NDP filed a complaint against Kenney and two UCP MLAs about their trip to India, but it was dismissed by the ethics commissioner on Tuesday.

With files from Dan Grummett