Even More Thoughts On "In and Out" Part 2... The Peterborough Example

Okay, my mind is just full of all kinds of thoughts tonight. I was going to make this an update on the Part 2 blogpost, but I decided that this deserved it's own full post. In reading Accidental Deliberations post on this matter a bit more closely, I believe that he has really hit on something big here. It looks like the Conservatives may very have double dipped when it came to these polling expenses. Yes, it stands to reasons that if the national party did any polling, they would have claimed it nationally. So if the Conservatives charged their own candidates for that same polling, polling that they would have already claimed, and the candidates claimed that same polling for their local costs, that would be double dipping. They would basically get $1.10 on the dollar. Disgusting.

Also to this point, when you look at the names on the list mentioned in the last post, you'll notice that they all ran in ridings where the Conservatives either won or did well, so guaranteed to get over that 10% threshold that they would need to be eligible for the 60% local rebate.

Finally, I would repeat how odd it is that any candidate would spent $20,000, exactly $20,000 on polling. For example, I pulled up the campaign return for Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro (attached below in picture form). I choose his because a) he is my form MP and b) I worked on an opposing campaign during that election and was very curious to see what his return might have looked like, especially give how his name ended up on that list. If you look at the return, you'll notice the $15,000 that Mr. Del Mastro's campaign claimed for "Election surveys or other surveys or research". But at the same time, Mr. Del Mastro's claim stated that he only spent $932 on office space, while both the Liberal and NDP campaigns spent about $3,500. Doesn't that seem more than a bit off to anyone??? Well, Mr. Del Mastro had is office set up in a building adjacent to his automobile dealership, but the law states that all "donations in kind" must be assess market value. What office space anywhere, let alone in Peterborough, would cost you $932 dollars, while both of your opponents had to spend over $3,500. Odd, huh? You'll notice the same problem with office expenses, as Mr. Del Mastro spent only $2,300, while the Liberals spent almost $19,000 and the NDP spent almost $6,100. Again, odd, isn't it? But while Mr. Del Mastro claimed $15,000, exactly $15,000 for polling, how much did every single other campaign in Peterborough claim??? Zero, nothing, nada. Why is that??? Because most local campaigns cannot afford local polling, nor find it feasible to do. Also, it's interesting to notice how the Conservative campaign claimed not to have a single paid worker on their campaign, not even their campaign manager, while both the Liberals and NDP had over $10,000 in wages. Once again, something seems to be more than a bit off.

Basically, on Mr. Del Mastro's claim, he claimed as much on polling as much as he claimed for TV and Radio Ads, Office Rent, Phones/Internet and "Miscellaneous expenses", all combined together. Doesn't that strike anyone else as odd??? Now i'm not trying to insinuate anything here, but just by looking at this claim, when compared to the other claims, it looks more than a bit odd, or at least would leave people to believe that the Conservatives campaign priorities in Peterborough were completely different than everyone elses. Something tells me that if we looked at the claims of everyone else who is on that list that we would see a similar pattern. Maybe these are some of the things that Elections Canada was so interested in and why the Conservatives were so worried about that warrant being served on their HQ. Interesting and odd stuff, that's for sure.





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