Former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador Ches Crosby donated $ 300,000 to the party in 2021. Crosby’s money represents more than 40 percent of the party’s donations. (CBC)
Documents show that Ches Crosby, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, donated $ 300,000 to the party last year – more than 40 percent of its total income – as it ran a protracted and controversial election campaign that was thrown into chaos from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite this large injection of money from their leader, the personal computers of Newfoundland and Labrador fell from 15 to 13 seats in the House of Assembly, and the Liberals under Prime Minister Andrew Fury won a small majority of 22 seats.
Crosby lost his place in the Lake Windsor area and left politics a few days after the results were announced.
When asked why he gave so much of his own money, Crosby said he wanted to level the playing field with current liberals and strongly believed in his party’s strategy to secure jobs and prosperity in the countryside.
You could say I put my money where my mouth is. – Ches Crosby
“There was nothing I could learn from the financial contribution I made other than to give PC Party a chance to take office and implement this program,” he said.
“You could say I put my money where my mouth is.”
‘very worried’
However, a political scientist says that this is another proof that the election rules of Newfoundland and Labrador need major repairs.
“I think this is extremely worrying and unprecedented,” Russell Williams, a professor at Memorial University, said of Crosby’s donation.
Williams thinks it would be difficult to find such a large donation from an individual political party in modern Canadian history.
Russell Williams is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University. He said the fact that former PC leader Ches Crosby could donate $ 300,000 to the party was “highly worrying and unprecedented”. (Terry Roberts / CBC)
That’s because the federal government and most other provinces have limits on the amount of donations individuals, corporations and unions can make, he said.
Not so in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Essentially, their election campaign was funded by one donor as a whole, and it’s really worrying about the state of our democratic institutions and a really sad comment about the state of our campaign finance laws here in Newfoundland and Labrador that it’s allowed.” said Williams.
The audited financial statements of PC Party for 2021, available on the Elections NL website, show that the contributions amount to just over $ 721,000.
The party spent about $ 670,000 during the campaign.
The documents also include a list of those who have donated $ 100 or more to the party.
Two donations stand out: one for $ 50,000 and a second for $ 250,000. Both were from Crosby, a retired lawyer and a member of one of the most famous business and political families in the province.
CBC News spoke with a handful of longtime political insiders who say they have never heard of such large donations from a person in a year.
The next largest single donation, $ 15,000, was from Fortis Inc., while there were eight different donations of $ 10,000.
No rules were broken
Williams said the political optics of Crosby’s donations could be mitigated by the fact that he was the party leader. He also did not break any rules.
However, Williams said, “I still think it’s very problematic because he says that people who have large sums of money essentially have extra power or extra influence on how our democratic institutions work.”
David Brazil is the interim leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador. (Terry Roberts / CBC)
Voting was scheduled for February 13, 2021, but the election was shaken after the rise in COVID-19 cases in the week before election day, and new austerity measures were applied the night before the scheduled vote.
The personal vote was canceled, the ballots were distributed by mail and the results were not known until March 27, making it the longest campaign in history.
The aftermath of the controversial election continues, with three legal disputes against the results still pending in court and speculation about a secret report alleging harassment and harassment of Elections NL.
At the beginning of the campaign, personal computers announced that they would limit their efforts to raise funds to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
Crosby said it was already difficult for opposition parties to attract donations, “because they prefer to give their money to the party in power in the hope of receiving some favor or preference.”
So Crosby said he felt the need to open his own wallet.
“We probably wouldn’t do well,” Crosby said when asked if his money made a difference.
“You do not run a political party of vapors. So if I had not made this personal contribution, we would have had much less opportunity to deliver our message. “
Crosbie’s successor, interim PC leader David Brazil, said he was aware that Crosbie had made a significant contribution to the party last year. But he did not know the details until Elections NL published the audited statements.
“We were lucky enough to have a leader who was committed to this party, but more importantly, committed to the people of this province, that he was able to invest his own money to ensure that there was an alternative to the Liberal Party and that we can go through this province and pass on our message to the people and hear from them [voters] about what kind of government they want, “Brazil said.
After the provincial elections, there were strong cries for electoral reform, and the Liberals set up a party-wide committee with a mandate to modernize the Electoral Code.
Crosby agrees that changes are needed and believes the process is taking too long.
As for his own future, the 69-year-old Crosby does not rule out his return to politics, despite two unsuccessful provincial elections.
“I’ll just say I like to see the work I’ve started,” he said.
Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
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