Barrhead County reeve Bill Lee and CAO Mark Oberg say there was nothing wrong with the county paying $720 to send seven councillors, their spouses and two staff members to a 2009 dinner recognizing MLA Ken Kowalski’s 30 years of public service.
On Nov. 21, 2009, the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock PC Association held a dinner in Westlock to commemorate the 30 years Kowalski has spent representing the area at the Alberta Legislature. The cost of the dinner was $45 per person.
“When you have somebody who’s representing you, no matter what party it is, for the length of time Ken has, … wouldn’t you want to be there?” asked Lee. “It would be very much noticed if none of council showed up to something like that.”
At issue is the fact that the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act states it is illegal for municipalities and other organizations to use public, taxpayer money as a contribution towards a partisan purpose.
According to the legislation, any amount under $50 is not automatically considered a contribution to a political party, unless so desired by the donor.
In this case, because the cost for each of the 16 people who attended the event was only $45, it was not considered a contribution, nor did the county request it to be one.
“According to the elections act, it’s not high enough to say it’s a contribution at all,” Oberg said.
In addition, while it is true that $720 did change hands, he said, that money was used to provide 16 dinners to the Barrhead County contingent. As such, the cost would ultimately have to be considered on a per person basis.
This was the only time the county has contributed money in any way to an event related to Kowalski, he said, adding that the money went directly to paying for the meal and covering the rental fees on the venue.
Lee echoed Oberg’s assertion that the county has not providing any direct fundraising of Kowalski’s political initiatives.
“There is no support of any of his fundraising events,” he said, adding that in the time he has been on county council, he cannot remember the county ever contributing directly to Kowalski’s constituency association.
He also stressed that the dinner was only a celebration of all Kowalski had done for the community.
“If it was a fundraiser, it would have been a $500 plate,” he said.
Kowalski himself also said the event was by no means a fundraiser. In fact, he said it actually lost money once the cost of the meal and renting the hall were taken into account.
Furthermore, Kowalski said the entire event was planned without his input.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I was overwhelmed by it.”
Lee said that if a similar event arose in the future, the council would not reject contributing out of hand.
“I guess we’d have to look at it again,” he said. “There’s nothing that we did wrong, so I don’t know where the problem would be for us to do it again.”
However, he did say that if the county is getting in trouble for doing something that was not wrong in the first place, maybe it would be hesitant to do it again.
Oberg also expressed the belief that the county would be open to participating in a future, similar event.
“I think they would lean strongly towards participating,” he said. “Not just participating as individual people, but participating as the county’s representation.”
Furthermore, he said from what he’s heard, no one has said it’s something the county should not have done.
“I have heard no regrets at all about them going,” he said.
The issue arises after the Alberta Liberal Party recently re-released the details of a Freedom of Information request they submitted looking into municipalities that may have contributed to partisan political events using taxpayer money.
They did so in response to the controversy involving St. Paul’s CAO Ron Boisvert, who used his position to solicit votes for MLA Ray Danyluk during the recent Progressive Conservative leadership race by sending e-mails from his town account to several stakeholders in the community.
He also played a role in organizing a golf tournament to raise funds for the MLA, at the town’s expense of $500. Both activities are against provincial law.
In those documents, it was found that Barrhead County had paid to attend the dinner.
With files from Ryan Tumilty and Megan Sarrazin.
