No transparency and massive over spending and they aren't even in office...
Senior Conservatives seething over Conservative Fund’s refusal to share Scheer’s $700,000 over-budget expense details with national council
'If you're a donor, why would you want to give money if you can't get straight answers on what the hell's going on?’ says veteran Conservative political insider Tim Powers.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, pictured Dec. 4, 2019, is under the microscope as his office had a budget of $200,000 last year but filed expenses worth $900,000. Conservative MPs and the national council members want to know the specifics, but so far say they're not getting straight answers from the Conservative Fund. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Some senior Conservatives are seething with anger over the powerful and unelected Conservative Fund’s refusal to share details with the national council of Andrew Scheer’s $700,000-over-budget office expenses last year, saying the lack of transparency is resulting in gossip affecting the leader’s credibility and the party’s ability to raise funds.
“This is a strange situation,” said one Conservative MP of the Conservative Fund’s response to the national council’s request. “Something doesn’t add up here, and it appears someone is trying to protect someone. This is not good for the party.”
At issue are $925,000 in expenses that the OLO filed to the Conservative Party last year. The party had set an expense budget of $200,000 for Mr. Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) for the first 10 months of the year, but the claimed expenses turned out to be $925,000, leaving the party’s national councillors wondering why they were almost five times over budget. The 20-member governing body of the Conservative Party, who are elected by the Conservative Party members, learned about it at their in-person December meeting in Ottawa, after the Conservative Fund provided an income statement to the national council.
According to sources, the fund only provides general income statements to the council during their quarterly in-person meetings but not the specific details of expenses, and the councillors were given only a few minutes to go through the documents while they discussed the financial situation of the party. After the discussion, the councillors had to return the statements and were not allowed to make copies. When the council members noticed the expenses were $700,000 over budget amount, they raised questions, but a party staffer explained to them that it was because of the pre-writ campaign work and did not provide any specifics.
Unsatisfied by the explanation, the council passed a motion asking the Conservative Fund to conduct a forensic audit of the expenses and to share the findings with them. But at the council’s following meeting in January, Louis Leger, one of the directors of the fund, informed the council that they could not provide the details of the expenses or the findings of the audit and did not offer any compelling rationale considering “the seriousness of the controversy.”
Mr. Leger, chief of staff to New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs, represents the fund at the national council meetings. Every year, the council holds four in-person quarterly meetings; three in Ottawa and one outside of it. These two-day meetings happen on the weekends. Other than in-person meetings, the national council also holds teleconference meetings, if and when required.
The national council represents the party membership and is responsible for all governance issues except for party finances, and all members are elected at party policy conventions. The Conservative Fund is the fundraising arm of the party responsible for overseeing the fundraising and the spending of donor money. The fund directors are unelected, for-life appointments, unless the anyone chooses to resign on their own. Both the national councillors and directors of the fund are unpaid positions.
Some of the most powerful party stalwarts are members of the board, including veteran party bagman and former Senator Irving Gerstein, and former prime minister Stephen Harper, who stepped down last month.
“He [Mr. Leger] attended the January meeting and in his report to national council, he advised that [the] Conservative Fund Canada would not be responding to the national council’s motion to audit the leader’s expenses and [would not] advise the national council [about the audit report],” according to one veteran Conservative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and is familiar with the back-and-forth between the fund and the council.
Scott Lamb is the Conservative Party president and the head of the party’s national council, the elected governing body of the party. The Hill Times photograph by Samantha Wright Allen
The controversy received more oxygen in December after it became public that the party had been partly subsidizing the private school tuition costs for four of Mr. Scheer’s children. A significant number of Conservatives, in both on-the-record and not-for-attribution-based interviews, expressed concern and raised questions as to why the party was paying for the leader’s children’s tuition fee. Dustin van Vugt, then-executive director of the Conservative Party, defended the decision, saying in a statement after the story broke that, “all proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people.”
However, Mr. van Vugt was subsequently let go for reportedly making the arrangement without consulting the directors of the Conservative Fund.
Conservative sources then told The Hill Times that Mr. Harper—who was one of the directors of the Conservative Fund at the time—was furious that the party headquarters never shared this arrangement with the fund, and demanded that Mr. van Vugt be let go. However, some sources disputed this claim. They say that the party does not need the fund’s sign-off on any expense under $25,000, and the amount of money in question was below that threshold. These sources said that the fund’s directors receive binders full of information on party expenses, but directors are volunteers and may not have seen all the information, though this specific piece of information had been included in the binders.
Meanwhile, Conservative sources told The Hill Times last week that national councillors want to know that if the tuition fees were less than $25,000, where the rest of the balance of the $700,000 was spent. They want to know the specifics, and in the absence of this information, the party is abuzz with all kinds of wild rumours which are not only affecting the leader’s reputation, but also the party’s ability to raise funds.
“With this variance of $700,000, there’s another $680,000 in there. What is it,” said the source. “You know, there’s all kind of gossip.”
Another Conservative insider familiar with the goings-on between the fund and the council raised similar questions.
Former Senator Irving Gerstein is the chairman of the powerful Conservative Fund which is responsible to oversee the fundraising and spending of the donor money. The Hill Times file photograph
“I don’t know a private school that would charge $100,000 in tuition in Canada,” said the second source.
“If the staff people are saying staff was travelling too much in the pre-writ and whatever, it [still] doesn’t add up to $700,000. … Whether it’s tuition, whether it’s misappropriated spending by staff, whatever, it doesn’t add up to $700,000.”
The Conservative Party’s headquarters did not respond to interview requests from The Hill Times last week, and Mr. Leger was also unavailable for an interview for this article.
As of last week, Mr. Scheer had not publicly addressed this issue and has described it only as “an internal party matter.”
“I’ll just say these are internal party matters and I don’t have anything to add to that story,” Mr. Scheer told reporters on Jan. 25. When he was asked again in the same scrum to offer any specific details on the matter, since the Conservative Party describes itself as the party of fiscal transparency and accountability, Mr. Scheer said: “As I said, this is a party with many checks and balances between different aspects of the party [and] it’s being handled that way. So, I don’t have anything to add on it.”
Conservative MPs interviewed for this article said last week that they have not been briefed about this behind-the-scenes tension between the fund and the council. They said they were under the impression that the fund was undertaking an audit and would share the findings with the national council. They said they were hoping that the findings of the audit would be shared with the Conservative caucus, and members of the party, so that malicious rumours and perceptions of misspending could be put to rest. They said they were never officially informed about the back and forth between the fund and the council, and it’s news to them upon learning from The Hill Times. One MP said his constituents have been asking questions about this controversy and predicted that this will affect party fundraising in the coming months.
“My constituents are asking questions and I don’t have a good answer,” the MP said. “I don’t know what to tell them. I think all MPs are going to have a hard time raising funds because people want transparency.”
A second MP told The Hill Times that the party and the leadership should explain the whole situation to the caucus as it’s in the best interest of the party and the leader to provide transparency. This MP said very few people knew that the party subsidized Mr. Scheer’s children’s private school tuition fees and the caucus members want to know who leaked that information.
“There are MPs who have the same feeling that there should be an audit, but I don’t know what the status of that is,” said the second MP. “I’m hearing it from you for the first time [Conservative Fund’s response to the national council]. We need to know what’s going on with the spending.”
Tim Powers, a former senior Hill staffer and a veteran Conservative pundit, said that Mr. Scheer should ask the Conservative Fund to share all the information with the national council, the caucus, and party members as the whole controversy is raising questions about Mr. Scheer’s own credibility, and how the party spends money. He said both the fund and the council need to find a way to work together on this.
“People will jump to conclusions and things don’t look right so the easiest way to do that is to provide the sunlight because it’s the greatest disinfectant. If you’re a donor, why would you want to give money if you can’t get straight answers on what the hell’s going on?” said Mr. Powers, vice-chairman of Summa Strategies. “It would be helpful if there was more public communication, transparency on why, and then ultimately, documentation is released because again, the party members who are the shareholders of the party would demand such a thing.”
For years, a number of Conservative insiders have internally raised questions about the lack of transparency and governance issues with the Conservative Fund, and have been asking for reforms, without success. But, because of this controversy, a number of MPs and senior Conservatives have now publicly expressed concern and it’s expected that this issue will be a “hot topic” of discussion at the party’s November policy convention.
Two Conservative MPs told The Hill Times recently that the rank-and-file members of the party are unhappy with the current situation and want reform in the governance and accountability of the Conservative Fund.
“People who are donors to the Conservative Fund have been asking questions about, ‘What happened with the funding of the private schools and the $900,000 expense that’s under investigation? Was there adequate governance,’ ” Conservative MP and leadership candidate Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia-Lambton, Ont.) told The Hill Times two weeks ago. She spent more than three decades in the private sector before getting elected to the House in 2015.
“In other associations and corporations, I’ve been involved with, you’re able to see the balance sheet, you can see what money comes in and where it goes. And I think that kind of transparency would certainly help people believe that the money is properly dispensed and properly governed,” Ms. Gladu said.
The Hill Times
Senior Conservatives seething over Conservative Fund’s refusal to share Scheer’s $700,000 over-budget expense details with national council
'If you're a donor, why would you want to give money if you can't get straight answers on what the hell's going on?’ says veteran Conservative political insider Tim Powers.
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, pictured Dec. 4, 2019, is under the microscope as his office had a budget of $200,000 last year but filed expenses worth $900,000. Conservative MPs and the national council members want to know the specifics, but so far say they're not getting straight answers from the Conservative Fund. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Some senior Conservatives are seething with anger over the powerful and unelected Conservative Fund’s refusal to share details with the national council of Andrew Scheer’s $700,000-over-budget office expenses last year, saying the lack of transparency is resulting in gossip affecting the leader’s credibility and the party’s ability to raise funds.
“This is a strange situation,” said one Conservative MP of the Conservative Fund’s response to the national council’s request. “Something doesn’t add up here, and it appears someone is trying to protect someone. This is not good for the party.”
At issue are $925,000 in expenses that the OLO filed to the Conservative Party last year. The party had set an expense budget of $200,000 for Mr. Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) for the first 10 months of the year, but the claimed expenses turned out to be $925,000, leaving the party’s national councillors wondering why they were almost five times over budget. The 20-member governing body of the Conservative Party, who are elected by the Conservative Party members, learned about it at their in-person December meeting in Ottawa, after the Conservative Fund provided an income statement to the national council.
According to sources, the fund only provides general income statements to the council during their quarterly in-person meetings but not the specific details of expenses, and the councillors were given only a few minutes to go through the documents while they discussed the financial situation of the party. After the discussion, the councillors had to return the statements and were not allowed to make copies. When the council members noticed the expenses were $700,000 over budget amount, they raised questions, but a party staffer explained to them that it was because of the pre-writ campaign work and did not provide any specifics.
Unsatisfied by the explanation, the council passed a motion asking the Conservative Fund to conduct a forensic audit of the expenses and to share the findings with them. But at the council’s following meeting in January, Louis Leger, one of the directors of the fund, informed the council that they could not provide the details of the expenses or the findings of the audit and did not offer any compelling rationale considering “the seriousness of the controversy.”
Mr. Leger, chief of staff to New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs, represents the fund at the national council meetings. Every year, the council holds four in-person quarterly meetings; three in Ottawa and one outside of it. These two-day meetings happen on the weekends. Other than in-person meetings, the national council also holds teleconference meetings, if and when required.
The national council represents the party membership and is responsible for all governance issues except for party finances, and all members are elected at party policy conventions. The Conservative Fund is the fundraising arm of the party responsible for overseeing the fundraising and the spending of donor money. The fund directors are unelected, for-life appointments, unless the anyone chooses to resign on their own. Both the national councillors and directors of the fund are unpaid positions.
Some of the most powerful party stalwarts are members of the board, including veteran party bagman and former Senator Irving Gerstein, and former prime minister Stephen Harper, who stepped down last month.
“He [Mr. Leger] attended the January meeting and in his report to national council, he advised that [the] Conservative Fund Canada would not be responding to the national council’s motion to audit the leader’s expenses and [would not] advise the national council [about the audit report],” according to one veteran Conservative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and is familiar with the back-and-forth between the fund and the council.
Scott Lamb is the Conservative Party president and the head of the party’s national council, the elected governing body of the party. The Hill Times photograph by Samantha Wright Allen
The controversy received more oxygen in December after it became public that the party had been partly subsidizing the private school tuition costs for four of Mr. Scheer’s children. A significant number of Conservatives, in both on-the-record and not-for-attribution-based interviews, expressed concern and raised questions as to why the party was paying for the leader’s children’s tuition fee. Dustin van Vugt, then-executive director of the Conservative Party, defended the decision, saying in a statement after the story broke that, “all proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people.”
However, Mr. van Vugt was subsequently let go for reportedly making the arrangement without consulting the directors of the Conservative Fund.
Conservative sources then told The Hill Times that Mr. Harper—who was one of the directors of the Conservative Fund at the time—was furious that the party headquarters never shared this arrangement with the fund, and demanded that Mr. van Vugt be let go. However, some sources disputed this claim. They say that the party does not need the fund’s sign-off on any expense under $25,000, and the amount of money in question was below that threshold. These sources said that the fund’s directors receive binders full of information on party expenses, but directors are volunteers and may not have seen all the information, though this specific piece of information had been included in the binders.
Meanwhile, Conservative sources told The Hill Times last week that national councillors want to know that if the tuition fees were less than $25,000, where the rest of the balance of the $700,000 was spent. They want to know the specifics, and in the absence of this information, the party is abuzz with all kinds of wild rumours which are not only affecting the leader’s reputation, but also the party’s ability to raise funds.
“With this variance of $700,000, there’s another $680,000 in there. What is it,” said the source. “You know, there’s all kind of gossip.”
Another Conservative insider familiar with the goings-on between the fund and the council raised similar questions.
Former Senator Irving Gerstein is the chairman of the powerful Conservative Fund which is responsible to oversee the fundraising and spending of the donor money. The Hill Times file photograph
“I don’t know a private school that would charge $100,000 in tuition in Canada,” said the second source.
“If the staff people are saying staff was travelling too much in the pre-writ and whatever, it [still] doesn’t add up to $700,000. … Whether it’s tuition, whether it’s misappropriated spending by staff, whatever, it doesn’t add up to $700,000.”
The Conservative Party’s headquarters did not respond to interview requests from The Hill Times last week, and Mr. Leger was also unavailable for an interview for this article.
As of last week, Mr. Scheer had not publicly addressed this issue and has described it only as “an internal party matter.”
“I’ll just say these are internal party matters and I don’t have anything to add to that story,” Mr. Scheer told reporters on Jan. 25. When he was asked again in the same scrum to offer any specific details on the matter, since the Conservative Party describes itself as the party of fiscal transparency and accountability, Mr. Scheer said: “As I said, this is a party with many checks and balances between different aspects of the party [and] it’s being handled that way. So, I don’t have anything to add on it.”
Conservative MPs interviewed for this article said last week that they have not been briefed about this behind-the-scenes tension between the fund and the council. They said they were under the impression that the fund was undertaking an audit and would share the findings with the national council. They said they were hoping that the findings of the audit would be shared with the Conservative caucus, and members of the party, so that malicious rumours and perceptions of misspending could be put to rest. They said they were never officially informed about the back and forth between the fund and the council, and it’s news to them upon learning from The Hill Times. One MP said his constituents have been asking questions about this controversy and predicted that this will affect party fundraising in the coming months.
“My constituents are asking questions and I don’t have a good answer,” the MP said. “I don’t know what to tell them. I think all MPs are going to have a hard time raising funds because people want transparency.”
A second MP told The Hill Times that the party and the leadership should explain the whole situation to the caucus as it’s in the best interest of the party and the leader to provide transparency. This MP said very few people knew that the party subsidized Mr. Scheer’s children’s private school tuition fees and the caucus members want to know who leaked that information.
“There are MPs who have the same feeling that there should be an audit, but I don’t know what the status of that is,” said the second MP. “I’m hearing it from you for the first time [Conservative Fund’s response to the national council]. We need to know what’s going on with the spending.”
Tim Powers, a former senior Hill staffer and a veteran Conservative pundit, said that Mr. Scheer should ask the Conservative Fund to share all the information with the national council, the caucus, and party members as the whole controversy is raising questions about Mr. Scheer’s own credibility, and how the party spends money. He said both the fund and the council need to find a way to work together on this.
“People will jump to conclusions and things don’t look right so the easiest way to do that is to provide the sunlight because it’s the greatest disinfectant. If you’re a donor, why would you want to give money if you can’t get straight answers on what the hell’s going on?” said Mr. Powers, vice-chairman of Summa Strategies. “It would be helpful if there was more public communication, transparency on why, and then ultimately, documentation is released because again, the party members who are the shareholders of the party would demand such a thing.”
For years, a number of Conservative insiders have internally raised questions about the lack of transparency and governance issues with the Conservative Fund, and have been asking for reforms, without success. But, because of this controversy, a number of MPs and senior Conservatives have now publicly expressed concern and it’s expected that this issue will be a “hot topic” of discussion at the party’s November policy convention.
Two Conservative MPs told The Hill Times recently that the rank-and-file members of the party are unhappy with the current situation and want reform in the governance and accountability of the Conservative Fund.
“People who are donors to the Conservative Fund have been asking questions about, ‘What happened with the funding of the private schools and the $900,000 expense that’s under investigation? Was there adequate governance,’ ” Conservative MP and leadership candidate Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia-Lambton, Ont.) told The Hill Times two weeks ago. She spent more than three decades in the private sector before getting elected to the House in 2015.
“In other associations and corporations, I’ve been involved with, you’re able to see the balance sheet, you can see what money comes in and where it goes. And I think that kind of transparency would certainly help people believe that the money is properly dispensed and properly governed,” Ms. Gladu said.
The Hill Times
