OTTAWA — Toronto-area donors who last year made $1,000 contributions to Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney’s Calgary riding association had also given the same amounts to another Conservative MP’s association, in apparent breach of the legal limits on political contributions.
Six donors who contributed at a private fundraiser held for Kenney in Scarborough, Ont., last fall had earlier made $1,000 donations to the Conservative riding association in Oak Ridges-Markham in Ontario, the riding held by the prime minister’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra.
The Elections Act limits individual contributions to electoral district associations to $1,200 in a single calendar year.
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Neither Kenney’s riding association, also called an electoral district association (EDA), nor his office responded to requests for comment. But the Conservative Party says the association would not have known the donors exceeded their limits.
“Unfortunately EDAs are not aware if individuals have given to other EDAs,” said party spokesman Cory Hann. “If individuals have reached their limit in a year it is Elections Canada who notifies.”
Hann would not say whether Kenney’s association had returned the donations, as EDAs are sometimes required to do. The fundraiser party for Kenney was held in the home of Egbert and Rosemary Felix on Sept. 13, 2012, netting $22,800 in cheques for the Calgary Southeast riding association.
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Felix, a Toronto mortgage broker, said the event was attended by his “business associates.” All but two of the 22 donors ponied up at least $1,000 each.
It is unclear why Kenney was raising money in Toronto for his Alberta riding, already one of the wealthiest in the country. The association’s president, Patrick Donnelly, said last week in an email that it is not uncommon for associations to accept donations from across the country.
Five months before the private fundraiser, some of the same donors made equally large contributions to Calandra’s riding association, all on April 10. Elections Canada records show Egbert Felix, Rosemary Felix, Rajeef Koneswaran, Subramaniam Kumaravel, Sutharsan Kunaratnam and Luxmani Sanmugasuntharam made $1,000 donations to the Oak Ridges — Markham association before giving similar amounts to Kenney’s association.
Reached by telephone, Felix said he had nothing more to say about the donations and hung up.
Documents filed with Elections Canada by both Calandra’s and Kenney’s riding associations do not indicate that any of the donations were returned.
Kenney, also minister of employment and social development, is a presumed contender for the Conservative Party leadership, should Prime Minister Stephen Harper leave the top job.
He cannot use the money donated to his association for a leadership bid, but could transfer some or all of it to other associations or candidates, potentially bolstering his standing among other MPs.
On the same trip to Toronto in September 2012, Kenney’s riding association bagged another $22,798 from “A Special Evening with Minister Kenney,” hosted by Richmond Hill Conservative MP Costas Menegakis. There is no record of the event raising any money for the Richmond Hill association.
At the time, Kenney was in Toronto on government business, speaking at a Ukrainian festival and meeting with an Iranian group, according to a report on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website. There is no indication he raised any money from those groups. The limit on political donations was lowered by the Conservative government in 2006, as part of the Federal Accountability Act.