Oda’s ongoing cheque troubles
p2pnet.net news:- Canadian heritage minister Bev Oda says a “clerical error” was to blame for reports that she’d returned, uncashed, a number of cheques for donations which had been called into question, when in fact she hadn’t done so.
She’s still receiving heavy fire following the cancellation, last year, of a fund-raiser organized by Charlotte Bell, head of regulatory affairs for broadcaster Canwest Global.
“We have an industry lobbyist picking up the cheques for the Minister,” said NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus at the time. “This lobbyist is also a key player pushing for major regulatory changes to television licenses.”
Days later, when Angus asked then treasury board president, and current environment minister, John Baird if the cheques for the fundraiser were actually cashed, “Baird assured the House of Commons that they were returned,” says Net law expert Michael Geist.
But, “One day after insisting that a series of $250 and $500 declared donations to her riding association were not related to the fundraiser, her office had a new story yesterday,” says the Globe & Mail.
“Some of the declared donations were not connected to the fundraiser, said the minister’s spokesman, Jean-Luc Benoit, but others were. When the fundraiser was cancelled, those cheques were returned uncashed.
“An Elections Canada official said yesterday that riding associations must declare returned donations, and Ms. Oda’s riding association report to Elections Canada does not declare any returned donations.”
Elections Canada, “has just posted the 2006 Annual Report for the Durham Conservative Riding Association (Oda’s riding),” said Geist, the Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, going on:
Leaving aside the additional contributions during the January 2006 election campaign from EMI Music Canada and two Sony BMG Music Canada executives (which is apparently par for the course) and $2500 from Canwest’s Leonard Asper just two days after the election, the return reveals several contributions made just weeks before the planned fundraiser.
The contributors include Astral Chair Andre Bureau, Standard Radio President & CEO Gary Slaight, CHUM President & CEO Jay Switzer, Rogers Radio CEO Gary Miles, TV Ontario CEO Lisa deWilde, Canadian Independent Film & Video Fund Executive Director Robin Jackson, and the Radio Marketing Bureau.
Were these contributions associated with the cancelled fundraiser and actually not returned as Minister Baird told the House of Commons? Part of a separate radio-oriented fundraiser? Separate contributions from senior broadcast executives coincidentally made weeks before the CRTC announced the results of its commercial radio policy review?
While the distinction matters with regard to accuracy of the Baird response, in the bigger picture it looks bad under any explanation. There was presumably nothing unlawful about accepting several thousand dollars from broadcast executives, yet surely the Minister of Canadian Heritage or her riding association, elected on a platform of political accountability, should not be cashing cheques from the very industry that she regulates.
Now, “In an opinion piece sent to news outlets, Ms. Oda moved to clear up any confusion and blamed a ‘clerical error’,” says the Globe & Mail.
“The riding association followed all the political financing rules,” she promised.
Oda has been immortalised in a song dealing with her use of limousines at last year’s Juno Awards in Halifax.
As Geist revealed, “It turns out that as Oda was moving between events (including her private lunch with CRIA and the foreign-owned record companies), Oda and her staff ran up $5,500 in limousine bills, ordering several cars each day with some idling for seven hours at a time,” posted Michael Geist.
“On the day of the Junos, Oda had three limos on stand-by at all times. All of this in a city where virtually everything is accessible on foot. Oda subsequently paid back $2,200 of the bill, but Canadian taxpayers are still left on the hook for thousands of dollars.”
Oh, Bev Oda – still available, surprisingly, on YouTube – is sung to the tune of The Kinks’ L-O-L-A Lola.
Also See:
NDP heritage critic – Fundraiser Comes on Eve of Crucial Regulatory Review for Television, July 11, 2006
assured the House – Bev Oda cheque troubles, May 2, 2007
Globe & Mail – Report missed donations, Oda says, May 2, 2007
Geist revealed – Bev Oda’s ride on the wild side, February 6, 2007
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