EDMONTON - Top-dollar donations to Alberta’s two leading political parties appear to have shifted during the 2012 election, compared with the 2008 campaign.
It will be months before final reports of how much the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties raised during the 28-day election campaign are filed with, and released by, Elections Alberta. However, fundraising announcements on the weekend highlight companies and individuals who appear to have hedged their bets ahead of the Monday vote and donors who chose not to put money into what was seen as the most hotly contested provincial election in decades.
Although it was widely reported ahead of the vote that the Tories were bested on the fundraising front — the Wildrose reported receiving $2.4 million in donations over four weeks, while the Conservatives reported $1.8 million — Conservative campaign strategist Susan Elliott called fundraising the “canary in the coal mine” that paved the way to Premier Alison Redford’s win.
“Money started rolling in in a big way, and wallets vote,” Elliott said Wednesday.
Here is a spotlight on campaign contribution trends:
Among the Wildrose’s top 22 donors — individuals or companies that donated more than $10,000 — six donated to the Progressive Conservatives as well. They are Prairie Merchant Corporation, Cenovus Energy Inc., Cana Construction Co., Encana, TransAlta and Nova Chemicals.
The Progressive Conservatives had 26 donors who contributed more than $10,000. Among those, 11 also donated to the Wildrose, including liquor store entrepreneur Irving Kipnes, Marathon Oil Canada Corp., Liquor Stores GP Inc., Don Wheaton Ltd., Penn West Petroleum Ltd., Sherritt International Corp., and WAM Development Corp.
TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., the company behind the multibillion-dollar bitumen-transporting Keystone XL pipeline extension from Hardisty to Steele City, Neb., appears to have significantly ramped back its campaign-time political donations. In 2004, the company gave Ralph Klein’s Progressive Conservatives $17,500 and in 2008 it gave Ed Stelmach’s team $15,000. In the years since, provincial government members have made their support of the controversial border-crossing project quite clear in Canada and the U.S. For the 2012 campaign, however, TransCanada appears to have donated $5,000 each to the Tories and the Wildrose.
The provincial government has also championed a plan by Enbridge to move raw bitumen by pipeline from northern Alberta to tankers off the west coast at Kitimat, B.C. Through the early weeks of the election campaign, the pipeline company contributed between $5,000 and $10,000 to the Conservatives, $5,000 to the Wildrose and $3,000 to the Liberals. In 2008, Enbridge contributed $7,000 to Stelmach’s Tories and $5,000 to the Liberals.
Cenovus Energy Inc. was a top-tier donor on all three of the Progressive Conservative, Wildrose and Alberta Liberal parties’ lists of contributors: The oilsands producer donated between $10,000 and $30,000 to the Tories, $25,500 to the Wildrose and $10,000 to the Liberals.
Fourteen of the top 25 donors to the Progressive Conservatives’ 2008 election campaign donated again in 2012, including Penn West Petroleum Ltd., Encana, Stanley A. Milner and ATCO. Others, such as Rexall Drug Stores, Dow Chemical or Boardwalk Rental Communities, fell off the radar entirely, not contributing to either the Tories or the Wildrose.
The Wildrose’s lists of top campaign donors for the 2012 and 2008 elections have virtually no overlaps. Just six of the top contributors in 2008 donated again in 2012 — Encana, Edward McFeely, Paul Colborne, Richard Grafton, Ken McCagherty and James Wilson.
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