The Alberta Alliance's Sugar Daddy

I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that Randy Thorsteinson is the most notable personage in the brief history of the Alberta Alliance Party. He was the first leader, and the main party builder. He got the party registration done - which in and of itself was a massive undertaking.

However, until I reviewed the financial statements filed in the offices of the Chief Electoral Officer for the Province of Alberta, I did not realize that Mr. Thorsteinson deserves another title as well.

He is the AAP's official "Sugar Daddy".

Check out this screencap from the final page of the Alberta Alliance's 2004 Financial Statement:

In 2004, the Alberta Alliance received a total of $121,300.00 in cash contributions from individuals who contributed more than $375.00, and from corporations (evidently, these two types of donations must be reported individually). Of that, $85,000.00 (or 70% of the total) came from individuals with the surname "Thorsteinson". An additional $15,000.00 (or 12% of the total) came from Randy Thorsteinson's company, Cascadia Motivation.

So, a total of $100,000.00 (or 82%) of individually reportable cash contributions essentially came directly from Randy Thorsteinson, or persons he is related to.

A measly 18% of contributions in this category came from all other party members and contributors.

Now look at the 2005 Statement:

The cash contributions from the Thorsteinson clan dropped to $2,000.00. Furthermore, the total value of individually reportable contributions plummetted from $121,300.00, to $32,689.12, and of the $32,689.12, only $17,045.00 was cash (the remaining $15,644.12 was comprised of "valued contributions"). Given that there were no valued contributions in the 2004 Statement, the Alliance actually realized a total drop in reportable cash contributions of 86% between 2004 and 2005.

Wow!

The Alberta Alliance is clearly having financial problems, and it looks like their main rainmaker has decided to cut his losses. As such, the financial problems will continue to grow and multiply, and will persist in causing stresses inside the party.

And you can read about it all right here, at Alberta Alliance Watch.

Alberta Alliance runs another deficit in 2005

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I previously broke the story of the incredible debt burden being carried by the Alberta Alliance at the end of the 2004 election. Well, I have just reviewed the Financial Statement for 2005, and the river of red ink continues to flow unabated.

Here is a summary of the salient points from the filed statement:

• on Dec. 31, 2005, the AAP had total cash assets of $18,185.00, and total debts of $402,518.00, for a net debt of $384,333.00;
• during the year ending Dec. 31, 2005, the AAP had incoming revenues of $108,578.99, and expenses of $112,810.00, for a net deficit of $4,232.00;
• the AAP revenues included $20,000.00 for leadership candidate fees (4 candidates at $5,000.00 each);
• the AAP had no income from fund-raising functions whatsoever.

There is an additional observation from this filing that strikes me as particularly important:

When one looks at the liabilities of the Alberta Alliance listed on their Financial Statement for 2004, there are two line items: a loan of $115,000.00, and accounts payable of $280,432.00. In 2005, the liabilities are almost identical - a loan of $115,000.00, and accounts payable of $287,518.00.

Interesting.

If you look at note 6 to the draft 2004 statement, it would appear that the $115,000.00 loan is non-interest bearing, so that would explain why that figure isn't changing - the Alliance has decided not to make a payment on it. But how does one explain the high accounts payable figures? Usually accounts payable are interest bearing after 30 days, and the interest rates are usually pretty high. Why is the Alliance carrying such high accounts payable?

Keep in mind that the Alberta Alliance recently changed (i) the location of its office, (ii) the hosting of its website, and (iii) the job description of their Office Administrator.

Were these changes made in order to cut costs?

Are creditors being paid?

I don't know the answers to these questions ... yet. But, I do think there is a story here, and I will be pursuing it.

Merry Christmas.

Alberta Alliance drowning in red ink

I have just finished reviewing the latest annual report from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer for the Province of Alberta. The report deals with the 2004 Calendar Year, the 2004 Senate Election, and the 2004 General Election.

This official report shows that the Alberta Alliance ran up whopping campaign debts totalling $350,935, during the 2004 campaign!

How bad is that? Well, the next highest debt was run up by the NDP, at $95,063, followed by the Alberta Liberals, at $83,498.

The Progressive Conservatives - who Alliance members constantly blast as being fiscally irresponsible - incurred no campaign debts.

There are more interesting revelations regarding Alberta Alliance hypocrisy contained in the Chief Electoral Officer's report that I will blog about in the coming days.