Certainly Conservative MPs from around the Edmonton area knew all about their leader’s plans. “As I try to make my way to @AndrewScheer townhall in Nisku I am caught in middle of large convoy of oilfield workers,” Tweeted St. Albert-Edmonton MP Michael Cooper as he drove south from St. Albert. “Albertans have had enough of PMJT’s devastating anti-energy development policies & are taking to the streets literally show their disgust.”
Huh? This raises some interesting questions too. Was it just a meeting, or a political town hall? Were the organizers of the convoy in communication with the organizers of the town hall?
This is why the questions of the cost of the protest – fuel, the use of million-dollar vehicles and more – and who paid it are relevant.
Was there communication between the Opposition leader’s staff and the protesters?
Was the convoy in fact organized to bring publicity to Mr. Scheer’s visit to Edmonton and embarrass the prime minister?
Were the fuel and vehicle costs, which certainly run into tens of thousands of dollars, therefore political contributions?
Were the fuel and vehicle costs paid by independent protesting truckers, or by oilpatch employers? If my back-of-the-envelope calculation is right, it would cost about $2,000 to fill all the tanks on a typical Class 8 truck. That exceeds the legal annual federal political contribution by $500. Of course, most fully loaded trucks don’t fill their tanks to the brim – weigh stations, you know.
Just the same, if a fill-up were were paid by a corporation, and it is in fact a political donation, it’s flat out illegal.
So who paid?
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