Gurmant Grewal might be in trouble for a number of things, but my feeling is that “mishandling political contributions” is not one of them. He is accused of failing to report or issue receipts for campaign contributions.
Big deal.
Last summer, I was trying to get out of Peterborough just as the election writ was dropped. I wasn’t sure who I was going to vote for until toward the end, when, like everyone else in Ontario, I freaked at the idea of a Conservative victory. Sorry everyone out West, but those Liberal “hidden agenda” attack ads were so effective. Who knew that advertising had the power to affect people’s behaviour? Next thing you know I’ll be eating at McDonald’s against my will. Thank heavens for Morgan Spurlock… who knows how fat we’d be without him.
Anyway. In full panic, I headed down to the HQ of my local Liberal rep, Peter Adams. I wanted to help, but had no time. So I wrote a cheque for $100, handed it to the first guy I saw, and walked out. I never saw a receipt for the money. Hell, I never even received a thank you.
But the thing is, the HQ was a disaster area. It was total mayhem… I think I actually wrote my name and address on some stray piece of paper. It wasn’t like I sat down with Mr. Adams’ agent and we had a chat about election funding rules and so on.
I suppose I should look into this, maybe see about getting a receipt. But I’m hardly going to go to the press and start screaming election fraud.