Big cheque bounces on Colin Mayes

By Lachlan Labere - Salmon Arm Observer October 16, 2009 11:00 AM

Big cheques used in federal stimulus funding announcements have bounced back on Colin Mayes and fellow federal Conservatives who have been accused of playing partisan politics with taxpayers' dollars. Conservative MPs are attempting to clear the party name after the official Opposition acquired a photo of Nova Scotia MP Gerald Keddy handing over a ceremonial cheque for $302,620 of Government of Canada stimulus funding. The cheque was blatantly branded with the Conservative party logo. This, say the Liberals, constitutes an abuse of the use of public funds for partisan purposes.

Other photos of Conservative MPs handing out personalized cheques have since come to light, including one of Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes. At recent federal funding announcements in Salmon Arm and Sicamous, Mayes, instead of using a big cheque, had set up a standing mural featuring a large image of himself along with images of a Canadian and a Conservative flag, surrounded in the party's trademark blue. Mayes now says such partisan displays at federal funding presentations was the wrong thing to do. "I have staff who set everything up, but I'm not going to use that as an excuse here and say it was their fault," Mayes explained Thursday, while attending another funding presentation in Salmon Arm that was notably free of any political party branding. "I'm big enough and understand enough – I should have said no, that it was inappropriate." Mayes noted the photo, that had been on his website the day prior, had since been removed.

The Liberals say they have uncovered 181 separate incidents where MPs have presented personalized government cheques. In response, the Opposition has lodged 47 formal complaints with the federal ethics commissioner for breach of the Conflict of Interest Code for utilizing government resources for personal/partisan gain. The partisan cheque issue comes hot on the heels of accusations by the Opposition that a disproportionate amount of federal infrastructure stimulus funding has gone to Conservative ridings in B.C.

Mayes assures that, at least in his case, the PMO had no knowledge the Conservative brand was being used during public funding presentations, adding that it is only recent that such a campaign tactic has been used. And though, says Mayes, the Conservatives do deserve credit for finally getting stimulus funds flowing to the province, he admits it was the wrong time and place to be pushing the Conservative brand. "It's okay to have branding if I'm going to be going around, knocking door to door, but it's not okay when we're making announcements on funding," said Mayes. "It's not appropriate and I have to take full responsibility on that. It's not going to happen again."