Angry in the Great White North

Part of the reporting to Elections Canada covers donations returned by the parties to contributors.  Looking over the Liberal Party returns, three returns immediately caught my eye.

Two of them I'll clump together.  Edward Kennedy and Emmanuel De Medeiros had their contributions returned on December 8 and November 25, respectively.  What caught my eye was that in both cases, the donation was made on January 1.  It took the Liberal Party all year to get around to returning the money.  Why should the delay matter?  Because in both cases, the donation was wildly over the limit allowed.  Emmanuel De Medeiros donated $1,839.96, and Edward Kennedy $2,820.05.

I mean, cheques that big would have automatically been seen as over the contribution limit of $1,100.  Yet it seems that the Liberals held on to the money until after the election.

It's possible that the "contributions" weren't contributions at all, but loans or perhaps the value of a service rendered in 2007.  If it wasn't paid off in the time allotted, then the value of the loan or service would be considered a donation, and the donation limit rule would have kicked in.  It's hard to tell, of course.  On the other hand, I don't see that pattern (large over-limit contribution on January 1, returned much later) for either the Conservatives or the NDP.  Indeed, for the other parties, the returns in Q4 were for donations made in Q4 (except for one Conservative donation that was made on January 1, but for $50).

The third return that struck me as interesting was that of the $100 donation made by Marla Waltman Daschko.  You might remember the name.  Marla Waltman Daschko was one of the people whose vehicles were vandalized during the fall election.  Indeed, Marla Waltman Daschko was the focus of the New York Times version of the story:

The seemingly benign decision to stick a Liberal Party lawn sign in her front yard has brought a new ritual to Marla Waltman Daschko's morning routine. Ms. Waltman Daschko walks around her Volkswagen Passat station wagon and peers underneath the chassis, searching for potentially deadly sabotage.

Ms. Waltman Daschko briefly removed her lawn sign on Oct. 4 at the suggestion of the police after the first attacks, which occurred overnight on Oct. 3. But she put it back up before going to bed, she said, partly after considering the history of her Jewish ancestors.

What a weird coincidence.  On Friday, October 3, Marla Waltman Daschko made a $100 donation to the Liberal Party.  Immediately, that very night, her car was vandalized. 

Almost like someone knew Marla Waltman Daschko had done more than just put a Liberal Party sign on her lawn, but that she had actually handed over money.  Did that make her a target?  But then who could have known, especially so quickly, outside of the Liberal Party?  I suppose one question to ask is whether anyone knew she made that donation.

After all, it could be one big coincidence.  It probably is.  But it's a spooky coincidence - the best kind of coincidence there is.

I'm also struck by the fact that this didn't make it into the news story.  My car was vandalized, and just after I donated a hundred bucks to keep Stephen Harper from winning!  See how terrible things are with the Conservatives in charge?  I can't believe it didn't come up in the conversation. Why didn't it make it into the story?  it's a great hook.

Anyway, after the big splash in the news, things quieted down.  The Conservatives won the election on October 14.  Two weeks later, on October 31, the Liberals returned the money to Marla Waltman Daschko.

I have no idea what all that means.  It's just interesting.

Going to the source:  I just finished corresponding with Ian Austen of the New York Times, and this is what he recalls:

Marla Waltman Daschko certainly made no secret of the fact that she was a longtime supporter of both the Liberal party and its candidate in her riding. She probably said that she was a donor. I asked everyone that question as well as asking them if they were active in any political campaigns, beyond having a sign. But without picking through my notes I can't confirm if that was the case.

Just for the record, I was not sent referred to her by the Liberals or anyone else. Like all the people quoted in the story, and many who weren't, I found her simply by walking around neighborhoods in the riding (during a terrible rainstorm) and knocking on the doors of houses with Liberal and, in a few cases, Conservative and NDP lawn signs.

A coincidence, it seems, and Ian Austen remembers her to have been completely forthcoming.  The question of the $100 is news to him (and doesn't strike him as significant). 

Still, what bad luck for the Liberals to lose the $100 donation from Marla Waltman Daschko that she made on the day she paid such a price for being a longtime supporter of the Liberals.  According to Elections Canada, this former Chief of the Culture Statistics Program at StatsCan never donated to the Liberals in 2007 or 2008, except for that single $100 donation.

Maybe it wasn't a coincidence after all.  Perhaps the Liberals gave her back the money so she could fix her car.