Derek Filderbrandt: Derek Sloan’s exile over $131 from white supremacist doesn’t add up
Sloan #Sloan
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s wants his MPs to kick Derek Sloan out of caucus for accepting a donation to his leadership campaign for $131 from a white supremacist. Whatever one thinks of Sloan, something just doesn’t add up here.
Far-left propaganda website Press Progress said that they have proof that Sloan accepted the donation from a man named Paul Fromm.
Who is Paul Fromm? Until last night, I — and probably 98 per cent of Canada — had never heard of the guy. Turns out that he’s a particularly loathsome white supremacist.
The hit piece was complete with lots of colourful pictures of Fromm doing his best impression of a Nuremberg rally. The intention was clearly to link Fromm with Sloan.
O’Toole tweeted furiously.
“Derek Sloan’s acceptance of a donation from a well-known white supremacist is far worse than a gross error of judgment or failure of due diligence,”
Conservative MPs tell me that they all learned about it in the press.
Now you don’t need to be on Team Sloan to see that someone has been tossed under the bus without any kind of due process.
One : Almost no candidate is aware of every — or even most — of the donations that they receive. It is processed by the campaign’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). For small campaigns like Sloan’s, that position is often a volunteer, or at the least, not a professional. Unless the donation was labeled “Sierra Leone Blood Diamond Co.,” I wouldn’t have taken a second glance at it.
Two : No candidate is aware of the details of donations the size of Paul Fromm’s: $131. It’s a rounding error. I only ever ran to be an Alberta MLA in my time in politics, and I did not know who was giving me $131. I knew if someone was giving me $1,000. Maybe even $500. Never, ever, $131.
Three : I have never heard of Paul Fromm before. You probably have never heard of Paul Fromm either. I’m doubtful that Erin O’Toole had heard of him before the Press Progress piece.
Four : Paul Fromm’s big $131 donation was processed not just by the Sloan campaign, but by the Conservative Party of Canada itself. Had the CPC had recognized this name, they would have flagged it. They didn’t. They do apparently expect Derek Sloan’s CFO to however.
Five : If the Conservative Party of Canada — with its legendary resources — could not flag this $131 donation, then it is not reasonable to expect a fourth-place also-ran campaign to have the resources to do it.
Six , and this is a key point: Elections Canada only requires the disclosure of donor names for contributions over $200. They do not disclose donations under that amount unless otherwise told to do so. The only two entities that likely would have had any awareness of Fromm’s donation are: Derek Sloan, and the Conservative Party of Canada’s staffers.
According to a statement Sloan posted online Fromm had joined the Conservative party under the name Frederick P Fromm and had voted in the leadership election. His ballot was accepted by the party without the scrutineers from the other campaigns objecting.
“Therefore the Party, and the O’Toole campaign, failed to uphold the same standard to which they are now applying to me,” he wrote.
Sloan is not a centrist Tory in the mould of O’Toole, and has a reputation as a bit of a maverick. Leaders do not like mavericks in their caucus.
And Sloan is the only rival that O’Toole faced for the Conservative leadership that currently has a seat in the House of Commons. Social conservative standard-bearers are common in leadership races, but not in Tory caucuses.
It is convenient for O’Toole to have an excuse, even a paper thin one, to be rid of Sloan
One veteran Conservative with inside knowledge of the matter says that several MPs intend to vote against O’Toole’s demand to expel Sloan … if they get a secret ballot. The Reform Act legally requires that they do, but ways can be found around such things.
And even if his caucus showed some spine, O’Toole has unilaterally declared that Sloan will not be allowed to seek the CPC nomination in his constituency again, even if his local members want him.
From the MPs I have spoken to at least, the Conservative caucus is bitterly divided. And they tell me that they are afraid that O’Toole could come for them next.
This is quickly backfiring on O’Toole. He does not have the political capital that Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney do in their respective Conservative fiefdoms.
Dividing the caucus and the party’s rank-and-file months before a possible election is an unforced error.
What could O’Toole possibly be thinking?
Derek Fildebrandt is a former Alberta MLA and Publisher of the Western Standard